The region’s economic development agency and the city’s chamber are merging.
Sun Corridor Inc. and the Tucson Metro Chamber of Commerce will merge next year to represent the business interests of Southern Arizona and address the challenges and opportunities that impact business relocation, both organizations said.
“This move will solidify Tucson and Southern Arizona as a region exploring new ways of leading and bringing together businesses of all sizes as well as diverse business, trade and civic groups to develop bold, creative solutions to regional issues,” they said Tuesday evening in their announcement.
The new chamber organization will include a board of directors, investors, committee members and staff representing both entities. The organization’s name will be announced later.
Functions will include business attraction, retention and expansion, talent attraction, competitiveness, advocacy, public policy, emerging leaders and small business support.
Susan Gray, President and CEO of Tucson Electric Power, will chair the new organization. Joe Snell will serve as president and CEO. Michael Guymon will serve as chief advocacy officer.
“Both our boards recognized the need for a powerhouse organization that will advocate for a strong business center in Southern Arizona,” Gray said. “We applaud both boards’ vision to make this happen and look forward to working together with our business memberships, elected officials, and others to launch this in 2025.”
In its joint statement, the newly merged group said, “the last several years have caused fundamental shifts in the economy that impact not only what we compete for but also how we compete.”
They said feedback from the business community was that Southern Arizona had too many competing business groups and that a “collective voice has been diluted, limiting its ability to meaningfully influence decisions that impact our region’s economy and business success.”
Their hope is a larger staff, and more resources and combined membership will increase its political clout.
The merger will not mean that small businesses in the region will be overlooked, the new group said.
“It’s a misconception that Sun Corridor only focuses on large business and the chamber only focuses on small business,” their statement said. “The size of the business is not the focus of building an economy — the focus of economic development is primary/direct job development in targeted high-wage industries, resulting in ripple effects of indirect jobs and additional business opportunities to retail and local businesses.”
The separation of public and private funding of the two groups will be evaluated and no staff reductions are anticipated.
The office location for the new organization will be determined after a financial analysis.
Sun Corridor, formerly known as Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities Inc. (TREO) in 2012 stopped receiving funding from local municipalities and shifted to only Pima County funding for its efforts to recruit new business into the region.
Since Pima County represented all interests of Tucson, Marana, Oro Valley and Sahuarita, the group decided not to compete within the different municipalities.
TREO was formed in 2005 after the Greater Tucson Economic Council was disbanded. GTEC began in 1989 to spearhead local economic development. The Regional Economic Development Corp. was formed in 2005 to broaden the group’s reach.
It carried the acronym REDC, which member pronounced “Red Sea” and the name was changed to Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities that year.
