Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Mike Murphy joined Springfield's Morning News to discuss the local business climate, DOGE and state government cuts, and how Springfield can grow.
11:29 Share

Figured it would be a good time to check in with our friend Mike Murphy, former state representative, current president and CEO of the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce. Mike, good morning. How are you? I'm doing great, Patrick. How are you doing? We are doing well. Thanks for taking a few minutes this morning. I think I start most of our conversations like this when we do it on the air, so I'll start as usual. What's the state of business in our area right now?

You know, I'm always very bullish and optimistic of the growth of Springfield and some of the things we got going on. However, I would be less than honest with you is if it's a little concerning, I'm not saying overly negative, but there's a lot of unknowns right now, not only at the federal level, but also at the state level. You know, the governor's budget, a lot of people think that that might have been...

put together with a little smoke and mirrors. And, you know, when you hear anything from a possible three quarters of a billion to $4 billion shortfall, you think somebody should be able to come a little closer than that. And so, you know, that's concerning there, the federal level, you know, we have a tariff today, and we don't have it tomorrow. You

you know, things like that are, I think we all need to take a deep breath and, and keep working hard. And I think we will know a lot more in 60 to 90 days. And what we know now, there's a lot of uncertainty out there. If you ask the pro tariff people here, and I'm, you know, I'm, I'm a free trader by,

by, by nature here. And I, you know, and I, I don't want to see huge tariffs on our, I don't want, I don't want ag trade wars and things like that. But, but those who are supportive of what Trump's doing, either as a negotiating tactic or, or,

or in effect say it's going to bring more manufacturing back to the United States, when in reality the trade war with China in 2018 just moved more manufacturing to Vietnam, not here. So do you feel like there's...

Those could produce growth for either the U.S. or us locally, or is this a lot of bluster that's not going to help us? Well, I don't know. On my way in, full disclosure, my radio was set on another station for a little bit. We're done. Hanging up now.

Hey, but they cover a lot of sports, okay? But in the morning, they have a talk, and there is a gentleman on there who's in the steel industry, and he was not blasting the tariffs. And I've talked with him before. He's a friend of mine, and he'd feel –

feels like there's some need for some of these to straighten some things out. I'm not a tariff expert in any way, shape or form. I'm like you. I would like to see free trade. But since we don't have free trade, we do have to make sure that we are being treated fairly by our partners. Once again, Patrick, I don't know, maybe you've done a deeper dive than I have, but

I'm not certain that we've always been treated fairly by some of the people that we trade with. If we're going to have free trade, let's have free trade. But until we get there, we're going to have to make sure that –

Just because we're the big United States, somebody doesn't take advantage of us. I'm sure they could interview a nun down the dial on that station too, Mike. So come on, man. All right. So the other thing that we've also seen that I think would have impact on the economy are these doge cuts that are going to close federal offices in Springfield.

I think we've seen four federal offices slated for closure. When we've already seen so much of state government hollow out and move out to Chicago, move up to Chicago, and the open business space that we already have in downtown and around the city, is this not much in the scheme of things, or is it a further problem for office space?

Well, you know, office space is problematic right now. I mean, you just walk around downtown Springfield and you see you got...

plenty of opportunities to have an office down there. I read an article yesterday about the impact on Springfield. And when I looked at some of the comments and some of the other things, I'm not sure exactly how many people were working at those offices now anyway, as opposed to being remote. So my question is, are those remote jobs gone as well?

You know, we have a situation where we have state offices that looks like a nice big building, and I'm not exactly sure how many people go to work there every day. I know how many people work in the department, but I'm not sure how many are working remotely on any given day.

I really wish, once again, I'm talking more state than federal now, and I know this is a federal question, but I wish we would do a better effort at getting our people back to work because it would help my members and our other businesses if we had a vibrant economy downtown as opposed to having a nice big building that the state's paying for maintaining and 20% of the workers are there.

That seems to be a bipartisan position, too, by the way, is to have people back in the office. I mean, even Senator Doris Turner, you know, a Democrat, said more people need to be in the office. So next time I get myself in front of the governor, and Lord knows when that's going to happen, is I'll be asking him about that because...

that because I'd certainly be interested in his thought. But what's the opportunity for growth here, Mike? Obviously, we've seen the news about Amazon building a new facility up on the northwest side or northeast side of town. And obviously, those are jobs. You can argue whether they're great jobs or good jobs or just jobs, but they are jobs nonetheless. I'll stop you there. Every job

Every job is a great job. I'm serious because they give you in the door. They give you opportunities. And think about this. I don't care what you're talking about. Think about getting in the door, doing a great job, and what are the chances of advancement either with them or somebody else? And so every job is a great job. So do you think – I mean do you see a path for –

You know, there are people in that, like, Joliet area that are kind of complaining that it's become this mecca of...

of industry or of, of, of the facilities for, for warehouses and that sort of thing. But, but they're employing a lot of people in that area. I mean, with, with the location that Springfield has so close to, to St. Louis on the way to Chicago, not that far from Indianapolis on 55 on 72 with rail is, is that a short term benefit for, for the local economy that these kinds of warehouse things can be targeted? Yeah.

Sure. I think it's a long-term benefit because I think they're going to be around for a while. I think that's the way we're moving to it. We're going to need these distribution centers. We have another one that's hopefully going to break ground in the fall.

on the south side of Springfield. But I'm not worried about what you kind of indicated as far as being a one-trick pony here with nothing but distribution. We have, you know, we do have the state, even though they're not as vibrant as they once were as far as employees in Springfield, they still are a major player. We have our hospitals here that are just doing a phenomenal job. And once we get the right

rail relocation done in 2027, that's going to open up our medical district for some growth. And trust me, there's going to be growth there. And then I'm sure you're well aware of the Shield Sports Park on the southwest side of town. That's not going to only bring in hundreds and hundreds of sports teams every weekend. It's going to allow us to attract

some businesses that will fill up that legacy point area that, you know, being frank with you, Shields has done a remarkable job by standing alone out there. And now they're going to have a partner to bring in other people, which is going to bring in other amenities. It's really going to be a vibrant area. And just wait till you see that dome go up later on this year. It's going to be the largest inflatable sports dome in the world, Patrick. I said the world.

That's pretty cool. Mike Murphy from the Chamber joins us here on 92.7 WMAY for another couple of minutes. A couple of events, Mike, I know you wanted to talk about. You guys have your job fairs, youth job fair, traditional job fair on the 25th. Tell me about that.

Yeah, this is the second year that we've had a youth job fair. We always have two job fairs every year, one in the spring, one in the fall. The spring one's going to be on Tuesday, March 25th. And last year we started a youth one, and that will run from 1230 to 230. And Patrick, you know, I told you earlier, every job's a great job. You would have agreed with me if you would have been there last year and watched.

several of these young people leave with their first job. We had interviews set up right there. There was young men and women who left with a job. It brought a tear to my eye when I watched this one young lady running out with her arms in the air, I got a job.

Okay. So that's pretty cool when we can do that. And so that youth job fair goes from 1230 to 230. And then we have the traditional one from four o'clock to six o'clock. Right now we have 29 vendors signed up for the youth job fair. We're hoping to get 35 and we're at 41 on the traditional one. And our goal is to hit 50. And real quick, you guys are taking nominations for the small business awards for 2025. Yeah.

Yeah, before I move on to that, it's going to be at the Crowne Plaza on the 25th, the job fair starting at 1230. Yeah, the Small Business Awards is one of my favorite programs we do. Although, full disclosure, Patrick, I was nominated twice and I didn't ever win. But other than that –

Other than that, it is definitely one of my favorite events we do. We give out an award for Not-for-Profit Director of the Year, a New and Emerging Owner of the Year, Small Business Owner of the Year, and a Lifetime Award for the Business of the Year. And it's just a lot of fun. We have about 200 to 300 people show up for this and watch these four individuals who get this great award and their success.

They enjoyed a lot. Plus, it also, one thing I love about all of our events, and this one especially, it gives our members an opportunity to talk to some of their peers and see what they're doing. And if no other reason, I used to like it to talk to some of my restaurant peers back in the day and see that they were having the same struggles I was. It just wasn't me. You know, we were all in the same boat.

But, you know, there's a lot to that, being able to network with your peers. Mike Murphy from the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce. You can find more at gscc.org. Mike, appreciate the time as always. Patrick, give me a call anytime you want.