As many of us set our personal goals and visions for the new year, you might wonder about the plans of our community leaders. What are their priorities for moving forward in 2025?
社区黑料 spoke with Chip Cherry, the president of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, about his vision for the year. He described 2025 as a year of growth and opportunity for Huntsville.
"We've been really successful in bringing high-quality companies to our community and helping high-quality companies that are here expand and then, at the same time, trying to grow a more robust small business community," said Cherry.
As Huntsville continues to thrive, Cherry emphasized that 2025 will be no exception.
Efforts are underway to diversify the local job market beyond aerospace and engineering.
鈥淎dvanced manufacturing is one of our additional target markets, and we've been really successful with that. We've been blessed. We had about 14,000, 15,000 jobs we've added in advanced manufacturing, which has really shored up the middle part of the market for employment,鈥 Cherry explained.
However, meeting the needs of the community remains a challenge. Cherry highlighted the importance of securing funding for significant infrastructure projects, like road improvements.
鈥淢aking sure that we have the interconnectivity that we need and those key projects that need to take place. We do a lot of work advocating and supporting our local government and taking the lead. We just support, and so we've been supporting them in trying to secure more funding to be able to move forward and get some of those key road projects underway,鈥 he said.
Looking ahead, Cherry emphasized the Chamber鈥檚 commitment to fostering diverse businesses and encouraging the development of new skill sets in Huntsville鈥檚 workforce.
鈥淪o long as we can maintain balance and not just get diverted to one thing, we can look at the holistic picture of the community and how we support the growth and development of the community. I think we're looking at an extremely bright 鈥25,鈥 said Cherry.
