Parkinson Made Many Improvements During Chamber Chairman Term
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It’s easy to break the ice with John Parkinson. Just ask about his British homeland, or the Manchester United soccer team he has rooted for since childhood.
“Yes, England is my birthplace but Martinsville is now my home and I love it here,” says Parkinson, CEO of Drake Extrusion Inc. “I can’t quite shake this British accent, though.”
Besides his work at Drake Extrusion, Parkinson served from June 2007 through June 2008 as chairman of the Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce. A lot was accomplished during his 12-month tenure.
“My main focus was to change the overall emphasis of the chamber, to make it more in-tune with the needs of businesses on a day-to-day level,” he says. “A big way to accomplish that is to raise awareness in the community about workforce development, which I think is particularly important.”
Parkinson says it is no secret that since the 1950s, Martinsville was a traditional manufacturing area for textiles and furniture. But now, with the exit of textiles and the decline in furniture manufacturing, new and relocating businesses are requiring an all-new level of skill requirements from its employees.
“Decades ago, jobs were plentiful here; a worker could quit a job and then walk next door for another job,” Parkinson says. “Workers didn’t need high school diplomas because the work was just there. But that isn’t the case anymore, so workforce training is something I really advocate.”
As a result, the Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce has partnered with the West Piedmont Workforce Investment Board in an effort to drive those in the existing workforce without general education development certificates, or G.E.D.s, to attain them.
“So far, 100 people who never earned their G.E.D.s have now done so, and another 300 are in the system,” Parkinson says. “This makes every one of these people a more valuable asset as new companies move into Martinsville-Henry County.”
Parkinson says the chamber is also organizing information technology classes for businesses that want their employees to take such courses.
“I also want to offer informative business classes for some of the smaller companies in town, and hope we get that started in late 2008,” he says. “I really wanted to push for that, too.”
Parkinson says he also strived to have the chamber work more closely with government agencies, including the City Council of Martinsville, the Henry County Board of Supervisors and the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp.
“By working together, we present a much more unified face to the outside world and prospective businesses looking to relocate,” he says. “The chamber truly has more to do with the economic side of our community than anything else at this time.”
Story by Kevin Litwin
Photo by Ian Curcio
