Dear Members:
On behalf of the Manufacturer & Business Association (MBA) Board of Governors and professional staff, I would like to first say what an honor it is to serve as your 2014-2015 chairman and to extend my most sincere gratitude for the ongoing support you have shown over the past year.
The MBA is truly an exceptional organization whose sole focus is to help our members succeed. We are extremely proud of the breadth and depth of our membership and our mission to help your businesses grow and thrive.
The Association includes a dynamic and diverse membership of more than 4,500 member companies with an expansive footprint that covers a 46-county area in Pennsylvania, as well as three counties in northeast Ohio and two counties in southwest New York. Like the rest of the nation, an overwhelming majority of
these businesses are small businesses, representing a wide range of industries, from hospitality and education, to nonprofit, industrial and manufacturing.
More than 3,900 of our MBA members are operations employing 100 people or less, with the vast majority — more than 3,600 companies — employing 50 or less. These small businesses are the single most powerful driving force behind our economy — the job creators providing opportunity to thousands of families across our state and nation.
The National Federation of Independent Business reports that small businesses represent 99 percent of all employer firms, employ about half of private-sector employees, have generated 60 percent to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade, and create more than half of nonfarm private gross domestic product.
And, in manufacturing, these small businesses and others are truly the engines that drive Pennsylvania’s economic health and well-being, adding 575,000 jobs and $70 billion in value to the economy every year.
America’s small businesses and manufacturers are without question the foundation on which our country stands.
Which brings me to this year’s Annual Report and our 109th Annual Event keynote speaker Willie Robertson. Robertson took a small duck-call business started by his dad in a shed behind their home and turned it into the successful multimillion-dollar enterprise Duck Commander — a story that can be repeated hundreds of times here within our own community.
Many local entrepreneurs and their families have risked everything in pursuit of the American dream, making countless sacrifices to build their companies into the firms they are today. Here, at the MBA, we recognize the opportunities and challenges that these risk-takers have faced and support them in any way we can. That is why we are proud to represent their interests, lobby on their behalf, and reduce regulations and burdensome legislation that threaten to impede their growth.
Of course, possibly the biggest regulatory hurdle currently faced by our members is the ongoing implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). With the vast majority of the provisions of this law now operating, the process of purchasing and utilizing health insurance programs for the benefit of the tens of thousands of people employed by our members will likely never be the same. As a result, your Association is doing all it can to help navigate the numerous and costly mandates forced on business by rolling out our own ACA-compliant private health insurance marketplace.
At the same time, we continue to provide our members what I consider to be the premier services for employers in the region. The Association has not only trained more than 25,000 graduates through its regionally recognized supervisory, leadership, computer and HR classes, but is constantly looking for new and innovative ways to enhance its resources, including our highly anticipated second annual HR and Employment Law Conference, which will be held this fall.
The Association also remains committed to programs that promote and foster the free-enterprise system — such as Americans for a Competitive Enterprise System’s successful Business Week program — and initiatives that provide real solutions to the growing skills gap, such as the Your Employability Skills (Y.E.S™) Certificate program, the American Manufacturing Tribute Bike Tour, and our own Workforce Development Committee that is helping the new Career Street program to connect employers with future workers at the high school level.
At the Manufacturer & Business Association, we recognize that the only constant in business is change and that there are many challenges for our companies in the days ahead. But, being the eternal optimists that we are, we believe the future is bright and that the Association will be a pivotal factor in assisting our members through some of these greatest challenges.
Sincerely.
Tim Hunter
