093 - Partnering for Progress - A Spotlight on CBIA

The Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA) is the state’s largest business organization and is committed to fostering a competitive business climate to make Connecticut an attractive place to live and work.

In this episode of CyberSound, hosts Jason Pufahl and Michael Grande welcome Chris DiPentima, President and CEO of the CBIA. Join the conversation as they discuss CBIA's rich history, its role in advocating for businesses, and the array of services it provides to small and medium-sized enterprises. Whether you're a business owner or just interested in the economic landscape of Connecticut, this episode offers valuable insights into the initiatives shaping the state's future.

Vancord is proud to be a partner of the CBIA as the Exclusive IT Provider. Check out the Press Release here.

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Transcript

00:02

This is CyberSound, your simplified and fundamentals-focused source for all things cybersecurity.

Jason Pufahl  00:11

Welcome to CyberSound. I'm your host, Jason Pufahl, joined as now is becoming accustomed, Michael Grande. And we have Chris DiPentima from, the President and CEO of CBIA. Welcome. 

Chris DiPentima  00:22

Good to be with you guys, thank you for having me.

Jason Pufahl  00:25

So, maybe, I think the best place, right, describe a little bit what CBIA is, maybe what your role is, kind of what the role in the state would be?

Chris DiPentima  00:33

Sure, yeah. Connecticut Business and Industry Association. CBIA is the acronym because it's just too long, right? Yeah, too long of an organization. Most folks don't know that it's going on it's 209th year, o it's a lot of, yep, 1815 it started, group of manufacturers in Middletown, Connecticut, of all places, were very happy to be separate, independent from England, but then often realized the US government was also requiring tariffs and taxes and said, wait a second, I thought we just won a war on this like 30/40 years ago. And they decided to band together and figure out a way to advocate for manufacturers at that time. Obviously, it spread to the entire business community of Connecticut, for the most competitive economic climate to start a business, grow business, locate a business. And from 1815 to about 1980 CBIA did nothing but advocate, advocate for the business community, big businesses and small businesses are in our membership from across the state of Connecticut and every area. And most every industry sector in manufacturing still is a big chunk of membership at around 20%. But professional services is actually our largest member, we're you know, I think you guys would kind of fall in the tech professional services, folks who want to grow the business climate, have more clients, opportunity in the state. And then in 1980, we launched a subsidiary of CBIA, not we, I wasn't there then, I've only been there three years, but which offers products and services primarily for our small, midsize businesses, to help them with the most competitive, be as competitive as possible to complement the advocacy work we're doing at the Capitol.

Jason Pufahl  00:45

So I'll put you on the spot a tiny bit. How many members are part of the association, do you know?

Chris DiPentima  01:48

Yeah, between us and the two affiliates we service about 5000 businesses across the state. We're one of, another thing most people don't know is CBIA, despite the small state of Connecticut, because it's been around for so long, Connecticut has become the land of small, medium-sized businesses. We're one of the largest business associations in the country. We're not only the largest in Connecticut, but we're about third or fourth largest compared to our peers across the state. So we have a lot of members, 90% of our membership is 100 employees and less, so companies with 100 employees less. But every blue chip company that you think of in Connecticut is also a member of CBIA, I can't really think of one that's not.

Michael Grande  02:52

So you mentioned, you've been with the organization three years. What were you doing before that and what brought you to CBIA?

Chris DiPentima  02:58

Yeah, so I've had three careers. Most people sometimes say they can't hold down a job, I can't hold down a career. Born and raised in Connecticut, lived here all 52 years of my life. I started as a trial attorney after graduating Quinnipiac law, practice law for about eight years in the western half of the state. And then my dad had started a manufacturing company and asked me for a while to come on board. That's why I went to law school was to not join him and my older brother, but eventually gave in and joined him in 2002. And took over from my dad as CEO in 2006, and ran that family-owned manufacturing company, which was, at the time doing a lot of commercial products, which were, you know, really getting, losing market share to folks overseas at that time when there was a big movement to move manufacturing off the US and, and pivoted to aerospace and defense, which was a good good sector to pivot to, the electric bow. Yeah, Pratt and Whitney General Electric Rolls Royce doing mostly engine components. And then 16 felt that we really taken the company that probably has as far as we're going to take it from a family owned business and sold it to a fortune 500 company, and then stayed on with them. And loved working for them. Great company called Leggett and Platt, when I came on board, shortly after, I ended up running their aerospace global operations globally. So Connecticut, France, Washington, San Diego, but was on the board of CBIA, was a member of CBIA for 30 years and always loved the organization and thought, alright, here's a chance to spend more time in Connecticut with the people I love, the friends and family that I work with often, and bring people together though, to make the state even better than it was. And so, the opportunity came, a pandemic came with it at the same time, and August 2020 I came on board.

Michael Grande  04:37

That's, that's great, you know, as you know, not necessarily just a plug for the organization, but you know, we've been members of CBIA for several years. And the value that we that we find as a small organization, about 50 people, you know, is is really, it's really tremendous. There's nothing else like it in the state. And I had mentioned earlier you know, we if it wasn't for CBIA, we probably wouldn't be able to offer as competitive healthcare benefits for our employees, something that you would think as simple as that. But having that ability to be part of a larger organization, larger group, that is tremendous from our smaller organization. From our perspective, I know the organization is really putting a lot into new initiatives and, and different parts of its mission, providing services and products to its to its clients, maybe you could just talk through some of the areas that that you're focusing on.

Chris DiPentima  05:27

Yeah, it's a broad range of products and services that CBIA provides, again, for those mid-small sized businesses, but even during COVID working for, you know, a $7 billion company with 30,000 employees around the world, our parent company would take advantage of the HR services that CBIA had because COVID was wild, uncertainty, things changing every every day. So you know, one of the most utilized services is access to a free HR attorney that comes with membership, the ability to pick up the phone, literally an 800 number, and get some type of guidance, not counsel or advice, but just guidance, best practices around handbooks, compliance issues, COVID issues back then. But you mentioned the health insurance is also a big one, as far as well. The medical and the non-medical, life, disability, dental. Our energy product is a growing sector with you know, the energy costs in Connecticut, the ability to bundle small businesses together to look like a big company to leverage, you know, energy purchasing, but also do that for, for big companies, we have a worker comp product for manufacturers, our Member Services, which I know you guys are part of, the ability to connect members with members, leverage that opportunity of 5000 companies. So you guys offer a specific service, be able to connect you with other members to offer a discount to that service so that, you know, members are able to connect with each other. And of course, our programs and networking event. We talked earlier about our annual meeting where we packed the house with 800 people, our manufacturing summit had 400 people, our economic conference in September, we've got another one in January, that education and information side of CBIA continues to grow. It's it's offers a lot of products and services, because there's a lot to help with the small, medium-sized businesses. Sometimes you get pigeonholed, people think of you just a Medical Insurance Association, just like some businesses get pigeonholed as, like one core competency, but it's really trying to offer as much as possible to those businesses.

Michael Grande  06:11

And, you know, I think there's there's another component as well, you know, I see from both a surveying perspective and an outlook perspective on both the national, regional economy, state economy, you know, I feel like CBIAs always doing a lot to to pull its members and get a better understanding of where some of the needs are and what the activity levels are with, you know, you know, with what Connecticut is doing as the legislature, listening in some ways, and I know there's a lobbying arm as well, that's doing a lot of work on behalf of member organizations. Maybe you could speak to that for a minute?

Chris DiPentima  07:52

Yeah, the lobbying arm, like I said, has been around since 1815. But, you know, our advocacy isn't from information that we figured out with inside of our four walls, the advocacy comes from the input from those members, and that's the annual business survey, the manufacturing survey, we do the polls, talking to members, being out there, you know, the members are the ones telling us, hey, here's, here's what's going well with the state, here's where my challenges are. And then we just we accumulate that, like we do with a lot of our products and services, right? You accumulate all those businesses together, and understand okay, what can we advocate for to help there or continue to make the state strong where it has strength and and move the state forward? And that's it's all a credit to our members, the more engaged our members are, the more information we get, the stronger of an advocate, we can be.

Jason Pufahl  08:36

Now, do you interact with industry associations in other states, either regionally or broader? 

Chris DiPentima  08:43

Yeah, our 50, so we're the State Delegate for the US Chamber of Commerce. We're also the State Delegate or Partner with the National Association of Manufacturers, given our manufacturing history. And then we also convene, co-convene the Connecticut Business Roundtable, the Federal Business Roundtable have become more and more of a popular entity. So we get to visit with our peers from around the country on a regular basis, almost quarterly because of those different national groups that were part of. And that's really important. We get to see things that are working well in other states, it's things that are challenging in other states what may be coming our way, both good and bad. As I tell people sometimes it seems like whatever cold California gets, Illinois and Colorado, get it and we get it shortly thereafter. And sometimes it's not a good cold to have, when most colds aren't good. But, but at the same time, there's some positive things that we saw, we're going to be advocating this year for what's called a First Time Homebuyer Savings Account, something we started to think about last year to really help with the how the cost of housing in Connecticut, make Connecticut more affordable. The First Time Homebuyer Savings Account is similar to a HSA that you'd have in your business where employers can match it, the employee can put away the money tax-free to save up and maybe also first timer, we got that idea from Iowa. Iowa already has a successful program so it's not, not recreating the wheel. It's stealing the wheel.

Jason Pufahl  10:01

Yeah. But yeah, why recreate it if you don't have to?

Michael Grande  10:03

Yeah, especially if something works. And I mean, that's that's such a great initiative based on, one the cost of housing in Connecticut and sort of regionally. And also, you know, businesses like ours, we tend to have a little bit of a younger workforce, they're looking for the opportunity to stay here. We want our employees and our workforce to be available and increase the, you know, there's a sort of, not a persistent talent shortage, but you know, it's it's it is a challenge to keep those folks that are either going through the higher ed system in Connecticut to stay here in some cases, right. So I think that's a great initiative. 

Jason Pufahl  10:38

It's programs like that in healthcare that allow small businesses to compete, I mean how often does healthcare come up as a challenge when somebody's evaluating a large enterprise versus a smaller business, who we have to be able to compete there in something like this, would just be one more opportunity.

Chris DiPentima  10:52

Yeah, make make those small businesses be on the same level as a big businesses, the Association Health Plan Bill that we supported last year, we'll support again this year, is the ability to small businesses to come together to look like a big business, to your point about competitiveness, the housing issue is a national issue. But you talked about the persistence of lack of talent in Connecticut, that was pre-pandemic, we had a challenge with workforce, we didn't have great population growth, if any, from 08 to 18 that changed, we got the wind at our back, more people see Connecticut as a great place to live. You know, because of our education, system, quality of life, all the variety, great place for family. But you got to make it affordable. And to your point about higher ed, you know, we have this incredible education system where we have a captive audience, if you will, for four years where they're getting their degrees, but 35% of them leave the state after graduation. What if we kept 5% more? That would make the dent in the 103,000 job openings we have. How do you keep 5% more, you know, making housing more affordable, having a vibrant community where a lot of young people want to live in our downtown areas, making sure we have childcare for those people who do have a family, having affordable, accessible childcare, that's another area we're gonna be focused on this session. So these issues that I call social economic issues to make the state even more competitive.

Michael Grande  12:02

So you touched on some of the new initiatives, some of the things that are working in our favor and potentially right, some headwinds that we face, you know, if you had an outlook or or, or what you're hearing from U.S. Chamber of Commerce and or other larger organizations, I think there's some hesitancy from an economic perspective looking into next year. Obviously, we've got, you know, midterm elections, or elections coming up, election cycle, you know, so I think there's uncertainty out there. Is that echoed amongst large and small businesses in the state? Or is, you know, do you see a different perspective?

Chris DiPentima  12:38

Less so at the state level than nationally, which was interesting, because it's usually been the opposite. Connecticut, there seems to be more optimism at a national level than there is at the state level, you know, again, pre pandemic, but the way the government and business came together to handle COVID, come out of COVID, come out stronger. The optimism that I mentioned with the 57,000 people move into the state last year, the state getting its fiscal house in order was a big deal for businesses, that stability, predictability, certainty that businesses want that they're not going to be another budget deficit next year with the tax increase, and they're in there. All those things. There's this this optimism, this energy, I think we felt that at the annual meeting with those 800 people there, that continues to grow and grow in Connecticut, and we're getting closer because of that optimism to realizing how great our state can be. So there's certainly concerns about a recession, but the face state's fiscal health being strong, there's less concerns that that will hurt the state. It's more okay, what's the demand of the products and services that our businesses are going to have? And will there be some downsizing because of that, but I just recently heard from from a prognosticator that it's going to be a growth recession, which seems to be contradictory. Yeah, so.

Michael Grande  13:48

Not the opposite of stagflation. So that's a good thing.

Jason Pufahl  13:52

So, how involved are you in if at all in sort of developing training programs for younger people? You mentioned college graduates, you know, some, some portion staying, some portion leaving. You got people in the state who are here, who are probably looking for work. Do you get involved in ManufactureCT and some of the educational programs that they implement or anything of that nature?

Chris DiPentima  14:16

Yeah, we connect the businesses with those programs, or the people who are developing those programs to help inform the curriculum first and foremost, and then certainly connect the businesses with those programs when they're up and running for this may be a source of where your talent could come from. Because now again, with 103,000 job openings that we've had for a while, businesses need to tap into sources that that haven't traditionally tapped into. And those training programs are trying to find those sources. off track disconnected use those individuals, 14 to 26 year olds who maybe didn't graduate high school, or returning citizens from incarceration. Another area that we're trying to tap into, I mentioned childcare, you know, the female population or participation rate is about 20% less than the male for those individuals who have children six and under, how can we get primarily those females back into the workplace, get them through a training system and connect them. And then our Education Foundation, Ready CT, which is an affiliate of CBIA, develops a career pathway programs in our high schools. So that a 12th grader with public school graduates is ready to get into the tech sector like you guys, manufacturing, healthcare. Because not everyone is meant to go to four year college, or maybe this is a way off track before they go on to college. And so making those people employable. 

Michael Grande  15:28

That's great. 

Jason Pufahl  15:30

My background actually, before this is higher ed, it was really interesting to spend so much time as part of that world because I think it really informed some of the opinions I have about not everybody is, should be college bound. And, and frankly, we see huge gaps in sort of the ability to fulfill roles that aren't sort of college type roles, right, more hands on trades, certainly. So I think there's a lot of opportunity in the state to fill roles that that previously may have been may have looked upon, like they were unattractive. And I think there's a huge need. And I think that that mindset shifting a little bit.

Chris DiPentima  16:05

I love the term college or bust. That's such a succinct way to describe trying to hintout there.  Big time, Connecticut was very much a college or bust state. You know, with our education system, our best education system in the world, you gotta come to Connecticut, then go to high school, and then go to college. When in reality, 1/3 of the students that graduate our public school system every year, about 12,000, do not go to a four year college or the military. So we were leaving these people out for so long. And that's the great thing about the Ready CT Pathway Program that gives them this opportunity to still get their public school degree, or certificate if you will, but but learn about a trade or not even just a trade or career, healthcare, attack, manufacturing while they're there, get an internship during the summer time, mentorship, resume writing skills, so you can have the soft skills as well as starter skills and be employable when you graduate. And then you get to decide, do I want a job right now? Do I want to go to two, four year college and we've got to continue to eliminate that college or bust mentality and it's not just to trade we talked to our healthcare members, Harvard Healthcare, Yale New Haven Hospital, you know, big healthcare, a big one of the biggest employers in the stage. And they're looking for entry level people who don't need a college degree, technicians and things like that. Someone who went to school, higher ed for seven years, right, I still end up in manufacturing, and I'm so happy I did.

Michael Grande  17:18

Well, you know, we're we're very appreciative to be aligned as a as a partner with CBIA, moving forward and offering our services to members. So if any of our listeners are interested, and you're not a CBIA member, certainly something to look into, the feature set of all the products and services available to members is really tremendous as a, as a member ourselves, I can attest to that. But I really appreciate you spending some time with us today. And, and walking through the programs and and your Outlook moving forward. Really, it's it's a, it's a good time to be in the position that you're in. And a lot of positive things that are happening.

Chris DiPentima  17:54

Fortunate to have great, you know, engaged members like you guys, and thanks for having me. And I've always said to folks who are interested in becoming members, the more you take advantage of what CBIA offers, the more value you get out of membership, and you guys are doing a great job of it, you get more ROI if you take advantage of those suite of services, because really, most of them are at no additional costs outside of your membership fee. So just just pile them on, pile them on.

Michael Grande  18:15

There you go.

Jason Pufahl  18:16

So maybe just in closing, is there are there any specific criteria a small business needs to have to become a member? What's the process look like?

Chris DiPentima  18:24

No, business small, medium, or large in Connecticut, doesn't even have to be Connecticut, we've got members now joining us believe it or not, from outside the state, folks reach out to me sometimes on LinkedIn, with a message from New York, hey, I'm interested in joining what you guys are doing, come into the program. So no, just being a business, a business of one person or business of 10,000 people.

Michael Grande  18:41

And the websites pretty self explanatory, walks you through it.

Chris DiPentima  18:44

Walks you through membership, and you can reach out to our folks. 

Jason Pufahl  18:47

Fair enough. Well, Chris, thanks for joining me. I truly appreciate it. Great partnership on our end. And of course, if anybody has questions or wants to follow up on anything that Chris mentioned, you will feel free to let us know. I'm sure you'd be willing to come on again. If not, we can probably get some succinct answers. Chris, thanks. Mike, thanks. 

Michael Grande  19:05

Absolutely.

19:07

We'd love to hear your feedback. Feel free to get in touch at Vancord on LinkedIn. And remember, stay vigilant, stay resilient. This has been CyberSound.