Dropping the Chamber was part of this refocusing plan, company spokesman says

By Matt Neznanski

Gazette-Times reporter

A Hewlett-Packard spokesman on Thursday said the company’s decision to end its membership in the Corvallis-Benton Chamber Coalition after 21 years was prompted by a companywide shift away from local business groups and toward organizations operating at the state level and above.

“We take a strategic approach when deciding on which organization we will engage with and support in each area that we do business in,” said Palo Alto, Calif.-based company spokesman Scott Stalla. “In Oregon we have taken the decision to focus our engagement on statewide organizations.”

Stalla said HP will maintain membership and sponsorship involvement with the Oregon Business Council, Oregon State University, Engineering Technology Industry Council and the Software Association of Oregon.

In a May letter to Mysty Rusk, president of the chamber coalition, HP Site Manager Sam Angelos and Corvallis Director of Operations Kathy Miller wrote that the company has “elected not to renew our membership in the Corvallis-Benton Chamber Coalition” as part of a “careful consideration of investments made in sponsorships, donations and memberships.”

As part of the decision to withdraw from the organization, HP’s representative on the chamber board of directors, Debbie Sibert, resigned her position effective immediately.

HP’s withdrawal will result in a loss of nearly $16,000 per year the chamber received from HP in support of city economic development programs and chamber dues, just more than 3 percent of the chamber’s membership dues.

According to Stalla, the company will remain invested in other organizations with local ties: Corporate Roundtable; the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnology Institute, to which HP in April donated a long-term lease of an 80,000-square-foot building; Oregon State University; Linn-Benton Community College, and assistance with expertise and equipment in local schools.

But HP’s new focus on agencies looking mainly outside the Corvallis community doesn’t leave Rusk with many options. She said she’s tried to schedule a meeting with the local site council, but has yet to receive a reply.

“I guess that’s supposed to tell me I’m not going to get a call back,” she said.