 Kelly, welcome to TFNN. Thank you, thank you so much for having me. I'll tell you, I'm on, and here, the website folks, okay, for the chamber, for the South Tampa Chamber of Commerce is SouthTamperChamber.org, and when you pull it up, you're gonna see Celebrate 95 years. That's, I mean, I don't, what was around here 95 years ago? So our chamber was originally founded as the Port Tampa Businessmen's Association in 1926, and so they participated heavily in the importing and exporting that was happening in Port Tampa Bay, and then eventually became the Port Tampa Chamber of Commerce after the inception of McDill Air Force Base in the 40s and 50s, eventually the South Gandy Chamber of Commerce, and then incorporated as the South Tampa Chamber of Commerce to be able to provide opportunities for all of the businesses here in the South Tampa Peninsula in the 1980s. And so our organization does have quite the history during its 95-year tenure. That's awesome, and you gotta go to this website folks, okay, because they have this big, beautiful sailboat there. It looks like the tall ships, actually, which were coming into the port. That's a great history, Kelly. So, Pip, tell us about what a Chamber of Commerce actually does. You know, we hear many things, and all we normally hear is that the chamber's either for this or for that. So tell us though, down to the common man or the woman on the street here, what it does. Absolutely, one thing that's really unique about our region, the Tampa Bay region, and we look at multiple counties that incorporate that space, is that we actually have several dozen chambers of commerce. So here on the Hillsborough side, we have the Tampa Bay Chamber, South Tampa, Ebor, Uptown Chamber, further out in Hillsborough County, we have Brandon and Riverview over in St. Pete. We have the St. Pete Chamber, as well as Amplified Clearwater in Clearwater. So we're really fortunate that as a region, we have several really strong chambers of commerce that are not only working on behalf of the community, but working together. So first, I wanna make sure everyone knows that we are a separate organization. So each chamber kind of has its own governance structure and its own culture or personality within the membership. But essentially, one thing that we all have in common is we are a voluntary business association for businesses or individuals and community leaders to get together and work towards business success. So we wanna make sure that each of our individual areas, as well as the region of Tampa Bay, has a strong economic climate for both small and large businesses to succeed. Another misconception about chambers is that we're a networking organization or a marketing organization. And while those are our tools and benefits that many of us provide to our members, at the core of what we do, it's really advocating on behalf of businesses, but then also offering additional opportunities for businesses to grow and succeed within our area. Yeah, it's nice that as a business, you know, there's someone out there to basically navigate a lot of these laws and regulations, right? I mean, because someone just starting out or even someone in business for quite some time, you know, a couple of these politicians can throw a few things at us that can, well, sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not good. I mean, so you're an advocate, in your particular case, you have 650 businesses. So let me ask you this, that's a lot of businesses to have in South Tampa. So there must be a real good reason why they're joining because I mean, there's a dues associated with it, right? There is, there's an annual membership fee, which includes a lot of great benefits that are included. And then they can also choose to attend events or to upgrade for additional things like marketing and advertising, for example, a banner out on the website or things like that. But I think the main reason that most businesses join the chamber, I think there's two things. One is to connect. They want to connect to each other, connect to other business owners or other business professionals. And then two, they want up, they were always looking for ways to promote their business to help get the name out there and to help build credibility for their business within the community. So that's why chambers are popular for doing things like ribbon cuttings and helping businesses when they're first starting out to really find ways to get their name out and recognition within the community. Nice. What are the challenges you're finding in South Tampa or Hillsborough in general, maybe St. Pete, I'm sure you know the whole area. What are the challenges that we have right now? Well, right now we're still in this period of transition coming out of 2020 and this time that was really difficult for a lot of businesses as they navigated something new such as a global pandemic. Here in Florida, we're familiar with hurricanes and how to prepare for that and how to keep our businesses resilient in the sense of an impending weather event. But none of us really knew how to go into a global pandemic and how to get through that. And I think that was one of the things that our team were really focused on was getting information and resources out to our businesses during that time. But many of them are still in a transitional period now still trying to build capital, still trying to win back customers and consumers and still trying to figure out what to do. As you said, things often change daily and then navigating rules and restrictions or executive orders from the local level and then the state level. Another challenge that we see that's impacting all of us both locally and regionally of course is transportation. And that's one of the areas that we've been able to participate from a regional perspective working with our friends on the other side of the bridge in St. Pete and Clearwater on things like getting the Salmon Extension Belt which is that 1.4 mile roadway that now goes over Gandhi Bridge or over Gandhi Boulevard on our side of the bridge but connects individuals that are coming over from Pinellas County directly onto the Salmon Expressway so that they can travel and get to downtown Tampa or other parts of Hillsborough County. And then most recently really excited for the expansion of the Cross Bay Ferry as we continue to move people back and forth between our counties. And that's going to be extended into South Hillsborough County in the Riverview area in the next couple years as well. And that's a fabulous job by the way. What happens in Florida folks, okay? We don't have, we need still need a lot of help with transportation in a huge way. And I'm glad you guys are involved in that. Sometimes it blows my mind actually. I've been here for 25 years and I came out of Boston so that old cities have plenty of transportation. What is actually, it's amazing that you guys have been for transportation for such a long time but it's amazing that the politicians don't want to spend any money on transportation. I don't even get it. I mean, it's like, how are you going to get around, right? It's like, okay. Well the great thing with the Salmon Extension that was just recently completed just a few months ago is that there were no tax dollars used for that. It's a private entity and it's paid for through tolls and through other fundraising mechanisms that the Expressway Authority has in place. So it's a great regional benefit for everyone to enjoy whether you're traveling from South Hillsborough County downtown Tampa through South Tampa or over to St. Pete in Clearwater. And there were no tax dollars that were used for that project. That's impressive. That's impressive. Well listen, it's been a great education. Really appreciate it. Hope to have you on again, Kelly. Have a great one. Have a safe one. Wonderful. Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you. Bye-bye.