Pharr program aims to keep businesses happy, in town

PHARR — Luis Bazan, Pharr’s Chamber of Commerce president, spent three days last fall in Arizona learning about how to build and keep businesses.

Now, Bazan wants to take those lessons back to Pharr in the form of the city’s first official business retention program.

“We’re trying to build a stronger bond with the businesses in our city,” Bazan said. “We want to make sure that the businesses that are paying taxes in Pharr stay in Pharr. Sometimes places pack up and go and you never hear about it and the next thing you know they’re in a neighboring city.”

The chamber does not keep data on which businesses have left Pharr, and only interacts with those that are its members, but one change it wants to implement is to communicate more with all businesses in the city.

Bazan’s Arizona training with the International Economic Development Council focused on maintaining a strong pool of workers as a way to anchor their employers.

“One of the things I’ve learned recently is that workforce is the backbone of local businesses,” he said.

The training used Montgomery County, Ohio, as an example. There, according to the county website, a team of local government and private representatives have conducted some 2,000 face-to-face meetings in the last decade with businesses in the Dayton, Ohio, area to ask what assistance they would like.

That’s a strategy Pharr plans to attempt.

“We are creating a department that is labeled ‘business retention’ and the staff will be focused on that,” said Marty Moore, a chamber board member and owner of Pharr’s D&M Cleaners. “There will be someone from the chamber physically knocking on your door and asking what you need.”

At this point, the chamber is working with city employees to find volunteers who will be willing to solicit business input. Chamber representatives have also met with Workforce Solutions to discuss, from an employee side, what is needed in local business.

Next, the chamber will create a three- to five-question survey and send the volunteers door to door to meet with business owners about how many employees the company has, how long it has been in business and what it needs. Responses will be used to generate management strategies that can be divvied up by sector.

“If you’re starting a business and you’re struggling, having some problems with a neighbor, maybe, and you don’t really know who to call or what to do and someone comes in and asks if you need help, it’s like ‘Wow,’” Moore said. “Your new businesses are the ones where you’re going to spend a lot of time.”

Representatives will also pursue data from the police and fire departments on permits and occupancy for businesses, as well as if there are any problems that need to be addressed.

“It’s a matter of putting our resources together and connecting,” Bazan said.

As a longtime business owner, Moore added that a key objective was to help businesses reach out to each other as well as to the chamber and city entities.

“I like the word shepherding, because that’s what we’re doing,” he said.

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Elizabeth Findell covers Pharr, San Juan, Alamo, the Mid-Valley and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at efindell@themonitor.com and (956) 683-4428.

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