Chamber Honors Local Businesses, Signals Focus on Tourism and Workforce

The Holmes County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Bureau held its annual awards banquet on November 21 at the Berlin Encore Hotel and Suites, awarding six local honorees and recognizing multiple ambassadors for community service. The event placed particular emphasis on the organization itself, as executive director Tiffany Gerber and chamber staff were acknowledged for steering the group through a year of organizational change while refining priorities for business support and tourism development.

Award recipients included Cline Plumbing as Small Business of the Year, Dutch Craft Furniture as Medium Business of the Year, Melway Group as Large Business of the Year, Joe Wengerd as Educator of the Year, Cheryl Shaver with the Community Service Award, and Steve Mullet with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Presenters and honorees described selections in terms of leadership, community engagement, sustained service, and contributions to the county economy. The banquet also named multiple ambassadors who serve as community liaisons for chamber initiatives.

The ceremony functioned as both recognition and strategic signaling. Chamber leaders used the platform to articulate a narrower mission on growing tourism, supporting local employers, and building workforce and leadership pipelines. For Holmes County residents that means greater attention to attracting visitors who spend locally, supporting businesses that provide jobs, and creating paths for residents to enter and advance in local industries. Those priorities matter for small employers that rely on visitor traffic and for larger employers that need a steady supply of trained workers.

From an economic perspective the chamber shift reflects common rural policy priorities. Increasing tourism typically raises local retail and hospitality receipts and can generate seasonal and year round employment. Strengthening workforce pipelines reduces hiring frictions for employers and can help retain younger workers in the county. The chamber is positioning itself as a coordinator of those efforts by aligning award recognition with organizational goals, a move that can help concentrate marketing, training, and employer outreach resources where they are most likely to boost local payrolls and community services.

For policymakers and local leaders the banquet underscored implementation challenges and opportunities. Growing tourism will require continued investment in lodging capacity, visitor marketing, and local amenities, while workforce development will require partnerships between businesses, schools, and training providers. The chamber’s refined mission offers a framework to pursue those partnerships and to measure progress in employment, business retention, and visitor activity.

The awards banquet left a clear local message. Holmes County will continue to honor longtime contributors while reorienting chamber activity toward economic priorities that aim to expand visitor spending, stabilize employment, and build a leadership pipeline for future community needs.