Fayette County has recently achieved several notable accolades and awards, according to Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, Carlotta Ungaro, and the best may be yet to come. 

On the eve of the Chamber’s 50^th Anniversary next year, Ungaro and nearly four dozen county business, non-profit and government leaders will imminently be visiting Greenville and York County, South Carolina to explore community best practices in downtown development, civic engagement and entrepreneurship programs. They will also investigate how infrastructure investments in sports and recreation have helped each of those Carolina communities enhance economic development and build civic pride. Fayette County leaders will learn about the arts council, sports infrastructure and tourism, and business innovation centers, and mixed-use development there, comparable to projects coming on line in their county.

“Our membership has been steadily increasing and the unemployment rate for the county in August was down to 4.7%. We’ve had several new business leads that the county Economic Development Group has developed, and major employers have been expanding and hiring, so it’s been a good year overall. This upcoming trip will lay the groundwork for future years. We strongly believe that communities learn from their successful peers.”

“Nevertheless we have a lot going for us already. We were recently recognized at the national level as one of twenty outstanding chambers for our new branded logo campaign, thanks to efforts over the past year by which we had modified our designs to all tie into our new chamber logo and colors.”

“Fayette County’s quality of life is a great draw for companies. For instance, Peachtree City was ranked the 7^th Best Place to Raise a Family in Georgia, according to WalletHub, while Fayetteville was listed 17^th,” said Ungaro. “You can find a host of similar accolades, such as independent, high rankings as ‘Most beautiful, charming small towns in Georgia,’ on the Chamber’s website.”

Ungaro then went on to note the success of the Chamber’s Leadership program trained 27 graduates during 2017. With a focus on leadership, the attendees met monthly for nine months within a syllabus that included outside speakers, interactive exercises, member dialog and TED (technology, entertainment and design) conference videos. “In an Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) survey, our Leadership graduates had the highest score in the region with a 78.8% participation rate in civic engagement,” said Ungaro.  

While this was the Ellaville, Georgia native’s first year with the Fayette Chamber of Commerce, she also has several years of experience with the Atlanta and Augusta chambers, as well as experience in economic development in the private sector. When asked about her communication strategy besides the website, Ungaro responded, “We use Facebook; we send out a monthly newsletter to our 800 members and to others; and, I write a weekly column for a local newspaper. Our mission is to promote business and enhance economic and community development through leadership, service and advocacy for Fayette County.”

About John Tabellione

John Tabellione is an award-winning, professional business writer, complemented by over twenty-five years of strategic communication responsibilities as a Marketing, New Business Development and National Account Sales Executive in consumer goods and commercial industries. 

Experience with Fortune 500 companies, as well as with smaller firms and non-profits, encompassing a variety of products, including those of Georgia-Pacific, Kimberly-Clark and Stanley Works. 

John has a B.A. in English from Fairfield University and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Hartford. In addition, he has studied Russian at the Defense Language Institute at Syracuse University, and Italian language and culture at Kennesaw State University.