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"Events like this one help to get that economic fabric going," said Chamber President Peter Aust as he observed the front door foot traffic.
As was the case in the fall, the spring event was held in the YMCA gym and brought in a good representation of businesses from the banking, health care, and technology industries. Putting all the tables together in one room makes it easier for the public to see the full assortment of exhibitors and it pleases the participants that no one feels left out.
Two businesses that traveled the farthest for the showcase were from the hospitality field. Representatives from the Holiday Inn Resort in Lake George and the Mirror Lake Inn, Resort, and Spa in Lake Placid came to the event to make the public aware of their facilities and their easy proximity to the Capital Region.
"We're reminding people that we are less than 50 miles away but we are a whole different world," said the Holiday Inn's sales director Sharon Reynolds.
Besides being a full service hotel with a restaurant, two swimming pools and a kids' activities room the hotel is one of the few with its own in-house dinner theater company.
"We have a full service concierge who will make arrangements for guests like horse back riding, golf, the things we don't provide on site," Reynolds said. "We're also one of the few hotels in Lake George that remains open all year."
The Mirror Lake Inn and Resort in Lake Placid is also a full season destination but a bit farther into the Adirondack Mountains. The Inn's repre
sentative Erin Kelley said the hotel has indoor and outdoor pools, a private beach, and is just a two minute walk from the main street of scenic Lake Placid.
She noted the obvious winter sports available to guests like skiing, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling and reminded Showcase visitors of the beauty of the mountains in the summer months.
"We get a lot of business from the Capital Region so we decided to come here and make our presence better known," Kelley said. "The Inn is within walking distance of all the shops in town, and the lake is nearby too, plus we have all the Olympic sites people have seen and heard about and the Olympic Museum."
Other interesting business exhibitors to the Showcase included Bill Wilson with his Assisted Fishing.com business, Terry Kral and Cheryl Judge-Decker with their Window Wear Etc., and Laura Giffin with her start up business, Your Spice of Life.
Wilson takes people on site-seeing and fishing tours of the three mile long Ballston Lake. He specializes in taking seniors and disabled adults out on the lake and has a bass boat that is wheelchair accessible.
"I get people out on the lake with a pole in their hand who haven't been out in years and they just love it," Wilson said. "We catch small mouth bass, large mouth bass, pike, and crappies. I do this to bring some fun into people's lives, to remind them of what it's like to spend a few hours out fishing on a lake. It gives them a lot of pleasure and that's good to see."
Kral and Judge-Decker opened their Window Wear Etc. on Route 9 six years ago. The two women are award winning designers and use their skills to create custom window treatments. "And more," Kral said with gusto. "We're known for our draperies and our valences but once we get into the homes of our customers we tend to get more design requests than just the window treatments."
Laura Griffin's one-and-a-half year old special spice business is ready to break out of her Clifton Park home. Griffin creates unusual mixes of fresh, organic, and salt free spices for use with salads, seafood, meats, dips, rice dishes, and deserts. She is negotiating with area green grocers and health food stores to carry her jars of Rosemary's Chicken, Feisty Fiesta, and Coco Joe spices.
"The ah-ha moment for me was smelling some fresh spices in an Indian shop in Boston," Griffin said. "The spices were just so different from what I was using. I came home and thought about what I could do with those spices and it all went from there."
After researching recipes on preparing the foods she remembered as a girl growing up in Italy, France, and the Netherlands Griffin began creating her spice mixes and pitching the creations to local outlets.
At the business showcase she passed out trays of cookies that used her mixes in the recipe.
Most of the visitors to the Chamber's showcase found something of interest as they walked by the tables of exhibitors in the gym. Naomi Hoffman and her sons Liam, 5 and Maxwell, 8 found out Clifton Park had a pretzel shop they never knew existed. Hoffman said she walked through with her boys after picking them up from a Spanish class.
Bill Martin and his wife Brenda Colton came to the showcase event to look for a way they might patronize their local business community. Martin wound up discussing a possible fund raising event for Empire State BMX with Pretzel Factory owner Ray Melleady.
"We feel these things are very useful," Martin said of the Showcase event. "If you come away with just one contact then it's all worth it. It was worth it for us."
That's just what the YMCA's executive director Stacie Peugh likes to hear.
Peugh is also on the board of directors for the Chamber and a member of its Membership and Ambassador Committee.
"I think the (YMCA) members are used to seeing this event here and they like having it here," she said. "They can come in, use the Y, and then drop by the gym and see what's doing."
