Micah Chase, Checkerboard Ltd.
Micah Chase
President
Checkerboard Ltd.
216 West Boylston St.
West Boylston, MA 01583
www.checkernet.com
What is your biggest worry as a business executive?
Planning for future growth. Overseas manufacturing, changing consumer behavior, and new forms of communication require that we anticipate what will be useful to the next group of customers.
Developing the next generation of products and services ultimately means continued staff development. Quality staff requires that we continue to provide meaningful benefits and lots of opportunities for learning. These costs keep increasing. This economy demands companies get more frugal for the foreseeable future while investment is needed for long-term growth. It is a tough balance.
What could your local city/town do to help your business?
The town of West Boylston has been very helpful to work with in every way. When we wanted to expand our facility they were wonderful.
The local government can help with tax credits or other incentives to keep growing businesses here in the Worcester area.
Keeping the Worcester area a very livable place helps attract and keep talent. Any way the region can promote what a wonderful place it is to live and work helps.
What could state or federal leaders do to help your business?
In the past, the state has been very good with matching training grants. It will be a tremendous loss to business and employees if the state cuts these out.
Training and development grants are invaluable in helping keep the workforce competitive and ultimately employed.
Secondly, an awful lot of time and energy are spent with endless regulatory filing and forms. This time could be better spent growing the business.
What do you love about your work?
I love the creativity involved.
Our business is a creative business where we get to design hundreds of new products each year for our customers to bring people together in celebration.
Beyond that, though, building a business is a creative process not unlike musical improvisation. It is great selecting the people you will play with and then working together until you are at the point where you can create something more magical then you could do alone.
We have a very diverse staff with very different aspects they bring to the creative process. You can see how a well functioning team coaxes these differences into more than the sum of the parts.
What is your outlook for 2010?
We are preparing for another year where the economy continues to curtail consumer spending. There will be continued pressure on companies to focus on efficiently providing extraordinary value to their customers. People are willing to buy but it has to really tickle their fancy.
Companies that provide exceptional service and value to their customers have an opportunity to build loyalty that will last well into the recovery.
I look at this as an opportunity to build long lasting market share.
WBJ Web Partners
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