Chris Timmers, center, new interim director of the Fairfield Chamber, is welcomed during last week’s monthly Chamber breakfast by board members Brian Bonds, Susan Douglas Taylor, Lou Ann Coleman and Lisa Kelly. | Barbara Ball
WINNSBORO – The Fairfield County Chamber of Commerce board has named Chris Timmers of Columbia as interim director of the Chamber. He replaces former Chamber Director Terry Vickers who retired from her post in October 2017.
Timmers, 70, previously spent four years with the Columbia Chamber of Commerce in membership sales where he set a number of sales records. Prior to that, Timmers was a consultant in the plastics industry.
Timmers said his goal is to increase the Chamber’s visibility within the greater Fairfield community, including securing membership renewals at the rate of 80 percent and increasing new memberships the first year by 10 percent. Timmers said he hopes to do this short term by bringing in new member businesses from the three contiguous counties surrounding Fairfield, but his long term goal is to sell memberships to businesses in the surrounding 11 counties. He said those merchants and businesses would then be promoted in Fairfield County by the Chamber just as the Fairfield merchants and businesses are now.
“Fairfield has a great deal to offer potential and existing members,” Timmers said. “It’s location in north central South Carolina make it an attractive site for manufacturing and distribution. Its proximity to highways, rail lines and municipal airports is a key draw to executives pondering where in our state to locate new or expanded facilities.”
Timmers will commute from Columbia where he and his wife Cindy make their home.
They just hired someone from outside the county who plans to promote businesses from outside the county? How is this a good idea? Were there no applicants from inside the county or willing to move here who had real Chamber experience?