Home » Lexington Leaders to Visit Charleston, S.C. to Study City’s Best Practices

Lexington Leaders to Visit Charleston, S.C. to Study City’s Best Practices

On June 8-10, 2016, Commerce Lexington Inc. (Greater Lexington KY Chamber of Commerce) and many
of its key community leaders and business professionals will embark on the organization’s annual
Leadership Visit presented by McBrayer, McGinnis, Leslie & Kirkland, PLLC. About 205 people are
scheduled to participate in this week’s trip to Charleston, South Carolina, to study the city’s successes
and challenges in the hopes of further enhancing the Bluegrass Region.

One of the longest-running and largest intercity visits of its kind among chambers of commerce and
economic development groups nationally, Commerce Lexington’s annual trip has influenced many
community initiatives and programs, such as the Access Loan small business financing program,
Coldstream Research Park, merged government, Thursday Night Live, enhancements in our trail system,
improvements in Fayette County Public Schools facilities, and a recently created young professionals
conference.

Commerce Lexington Inc. 2016 Board Chairman Alan Stein of SteinGroup, LLC said, “These annual trips
provide us with a great opportunity to not only learn about the communities that we visit, but also learn
more about how we can help each other. Participants of last year’s trip to Kansas City identified
education and workforce development as important focus areas for Lexington going forward, so our
entire second day of sessions will include discussions on what Charleston has done to better connect
business with education. On the final day, we’ll hear about Charleston’s response to the mass shooting
at Emanuel African Methodist Church nearly one year ago and have a ‘Courageous Conversation’ about
our own community.”

The Bluegrass delegation will open the visit to Charleston on the morning of Wednesday, June 8, with
sessions at The Cedar Room at the Cigar Factory, where the group will hear from Charleston Mayor John
Tecklenberg and Rebecca Darwin, Founder and CEO of Garden & Gun. Closing out Wednesday’s
sessions will be a panel discussion that focuses on how Charleston cultivates an intentional tourism
economy, featuring Helen Hill (Charleston Area Convention & Visitors Bureau), Chris Price (The
PrimeSouth Group), and Harry Lesesne (Charleston Parks Conservancy)