Jason Jones is ready to pass the Greater Plant City Chamber of Commerce chairman’s gavel to Karen Kerr next week, knowing he accomplished what he set out to do.
Jones, who owns Advantage Restoration and Contracting, calls the year spent leading the Chamber one of the “best experiences” of his life.
“My love of Plant City and being able to give back to my community, that’s what I looked forward to and that’s what I’ve enjoyed doing,” Jones said. “It also made it easy having a great board and staff at the Chamber, some really strong local businesses and leaders in town I was able to work with throughout the year.”
Since taking over last January, Jones stressed the importance of education for business owners and brought back the Chamber’s Lunch and Learn series the same month. Covering topics from tax laws to active shooter preparedness training, the luncheons are meant to give business owners easy access to educational resources they’ll need to be successful.
“That’s something I really wanted to get done and it’s been a huge success,” Jones said. Being able to bring employers and employees in and teach them was great.”
The return of the luncheons is a personal point of pride for Jones because he credits the Lunch and Learns of the early 2000s with helping him find his footing as a new business owner.
“It’s what got my business going. I got a lot of ideas out of it,” Jones said. “As a business owner, it’s one of the greatest events I went to. I learned a lot from it.”
The Chamber also got the ball rolling on its Java and Jeans networking events, a casual Friday event bringing members together on Friday mornings to get connected and sip some coffee. The events are hosted at a different business each month and the owners of the location get to highlight their work in the community.
“It’s a great event to get out and network before you get to work on Friday,” Jones said.
The Chamber’s Governmental Affairs Committee got more active with a Capitol Coffee event on March 21 that gave residents the chance to connect with local elected officials and took things a step further with the Aug. 21 Plant City Candidate Forum to let residents speak to candidates running in the recent election cycle.
“We had a great turnout (at the candidate forum) and we look forward to doing that again in the future and having a stronger presence,” Jones said. “Being able to have an event like that where residents can come out and ask our candidates questions, that was important.”
The programs implemented during Jones’s tenure are set to continue after Kerr takes over next week. Though his time leading the Chamber is coming to an end, Jones doesn’t plan to be any less active in town after the gavel is passed.
“I’m going to continue giving back to my community,” he said.