Q&A with Chamber Chair Sean Trauschke: 'We need to work together'

VeloCityOKC: Tell us a little about yourself and how OKC has changed since you got here.

Sean Trauschke: I attended the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where I completed a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering before completing an M.B.A. at the University of South Carolina. I have been part of OG & E and the Oklahoma City business community since 2009. It was a good time to arrive -- the last 11 years have been good for Oklahoma City. We have seen incredible growth on almost every measure. Since 2009, we have added 185,500 residents to the Oklahoma City Metro. We’ve increased the value of our region’s goods and services by nearly $25 billion. And we’ve increased our region’s total wages by more than 10.3 billion.

But we can’t look back and rest on our laurels. We must build on this success and be vigilant to prepare for an even greater future. This past year showed us how fast things can change – and how important the work we do together can be.

What’s one takeaway you’ve had from this past year?

With all the challenges of 2020, there were inevitably a few silver linings to this dark storm cloud. I believe one of those is the recognition on the part of many organizations that now is the time to place a stronger emphasis on diversity, inclusion and economic mobility. We can no longer rest under the assumption that it’s all ok because things are better than they used to be – we need to work together to make things as good as they can be. The business community, led by the Chamber, can and will make a difference in this effort.

What are your views on innovation and how diversity can assist in our efforts to create even more entrepreneurship in OKC?

Growing our innovation ecosystem is so important – it is how we will continue to diversify our economy and be more agile. I think we all understand the acceleration of change that came with 2020 – but I don’t think we exactly understand yet what that means for our lives, our businesses or our city.  However, it is pretty clear that technology and innovation are at the forefront of how we will approach this change. We need diversity of thought that helps us all see the world differently because the answers we seek may not come from someone of our own understanding, but from someone with a different perspective.

Likewise, we need to make sure that as we move forward, the growth of our economy includes everyone in our community. In the past decade, average annual pay in the Oklahoma City region has grown more than $11,000, from $39,000 to more than $50,000, and data indicates that the Oklahoma City metro has improved in terms of equitable income distribution.

And while this is reassuring, we are still less equitable than many of our peer cities. We can and must do more, like making skills training and certification programs readily available so that every person has an equal opportunity to reach their potential. And when we do that, we will also make our businesses stronger with this influx of talent.

Tell us about Forward Oklahoma City and how FOKC6 can impact our community.

Forward Oklahoma City is the program within the Chamber that was created to take advantage of our opportunities as a community and really present us to the world. I just want to highlight a few of the programs we would not be able to do without Forward OKC.

Forward Oklahoma City gives us the ability to influence the image and reputation of our City. We can be more aggressive with earned media and public relations programs, we can take the message of our quality of life to potential employees, and we can promote Oklahoma City’s opportunities and success to key decision makers.

Forward OKC helps us to gear up and run important community campaigns like MAPS, and to address important community issues such as criminal justice reform or the diversity program we discussed earlier.

Finally, Forward OKC fuels our aggressive economic development activities, and we have seen the results of that effort bring more than 124,000 jobs to our city in the last 25 years.

This effort has been led by around 125 of our companies – but there are many more companies that can play a part in ensuring its future. As our economy changes, we cannot continue to rely on a few entities to carry the load, it is going to be vital that everyone come to the table and play a role in funding and supporting initiatives like this one.

We wouldn’t be able to be nearly as aggressive in advocacy, particularly at our state capitol. With Forward, we multiply our presence during the legislative session with contract lobbyists that help us make the difference on key legislation.

What are some of the things the Chamber is working on you’d like our audience to know about?

The first is a growing collaboration among our two research universities and the Oklahoma City business community. We have had a number of deep, meaningful discussions with Presidents Harroz and Hargis, along with OU’s VP for Research and Partnerships, Tomas Diaz de la Rubia, and OSU’s Dean of the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology, Paul Tikalsky. We are looking for ways to focus on increasing graduates in the top careers being hired in Oklahoma City – filling the pipeline for our continued growth, and building additional research capacity for our region’s key growth sectors.

Another partnership we are excited about is a new compact being formed by our region’s Career Tech institutions. This new partnership will allow for the seamless delivery of services, taking away the boundaries of geography to create easier access to companies and maximizing the programs to serve our region’s workforce needs. We truly appreciate the leadership of these superintendents in looking outside their normal practice to create something truly unique in our state.

The third project I want to talk about is our talent consortiums. We know there is strong skills demand in our region for both aerospace jobs and digital skills – including IT, software, cyber security and coding. We are building industry driven talent consortiums in these areas that will establish the demand and match needs to providers in the marketplace, creating new pipelines of talent for these high demand, critical skills.

And finally, the completion of the new convention center and the Omni Hotel is so exciting for the entire community. This is a vision realized after more than 15 years of work by this organization, championing these assets as vital parts of our growing visitor industry. While COVID-19 has made a huge impact on the industry, we are poised for growth as we plan for it to not just recover, but thrive as it never has before. Our convention and visitors bureau team is working closely with ASM Global, who operates the convention center, and the new team at the Omni to bring meeting planners in to see our new facilities and we are booking meetings in 2021 and beyond.

And the best part? With MAPS, the convention center opens debt-free, so as other cities are trying to figure out how to make their bond payments in a time of decreased revenue, we can stay focused on how to compete and win.

Another interesting advantage for Oklahoma City has been the ability to host events in the last year that others have not, team sports and equine events in particular, and we are even moving from horses to cattle with the recent Cattleman’s Congress.

Our existing events are bringing record numbers along with new events temporarily moving to OKC. These first-time events we have been able to host may be one-time only, or they may just be a great audition for a future contract and a long-term relationship. Either way, they are helping maintain thousands of jobs in our hospitality industry and keeping us ready for post-pandemic growth.

We as a Chamber talk a lot about “the power of partnership” and getting everyone pulling on the same rope to get things done as the “secret sauce” of OKC’s success. What are some examples of this idea you’d like to share?

Yes - at the core of the Chamber’s success is uniting the people, organizations and entities to solve our region’s problems or take advantage of our opportunities.

The biggest recent example is probably the MAPS 4 campaign at the end of 2019, but also just in the last few years, we helped bring together the Oklahoma City Public Schools Compact, the Criminal Justice Advisory Council, our partnership with the Urban League, and our new work with higher ed and the career tech superintendents, among many others.

These partnerships are the signature of how we have succeeded as a Chamber and as a community, and they will be even more necessary in this time of dramatic change. And the reality is that we are going to have some heavy lifting to do together as we come out of this pandemic and it has never been more vital to sustain the work of this organization. I believe our work is essential to the growth of this community and none of us want to see our community’s growth and improvement slow or decline.

I know every business and organization in Oklahoma City has its own challenges right now, and we each have our personal challenges. It is important that you take care of yourself, take care of your business, but also carve out some time and energy to also take care of our city. Clearly there are no shortcuts from hard work. Let’s keep our eyes on the prize as we adapt and adjust, and let our creativity and ingenuity make us even stronger and better as we work together. Our best days are definitely ahead of us.