Lynn biz groups form partnership

LYNN – The directors of two of Lynn’s major business organizations want to let people know they’re working together, not competing.Leslie Gould, executive director of the Lynn Area Chamber of Commerce, and Frances Martinez, executive director of the North Shore Latino Business Association, say they are partnering with each other to connect the two organizations’ diverse memberships.”It’s not even Latino, non-Latino, it’s community,” Gould said in a recent interview.The Latino business association launched a year ago and now has 130 members, most Spanish-speaking business owners, while the chamber is celebrating its 100th year and 500 members.When the Latino association started up, Gould said there were some rumblings in the business community about how the two business organizations could coexist.”I think anytime a new membership business organization is formed, there’s always the sense of, ?Gasp! Look what they’ve done because they’ve succeeded,’ ” Gould said.Martinez, who worked for the chamber more than a decade ago in a now-defunct Latino outreach committee, said she created the Latino business association to meet the needs of a thriving Spanish-language business community.”The Latino community is growing so fast that eventually someone really needed to go ahead and provide these resources,” she said.The association offers regular Spanish-language meetings, workshops and events in its downtown Lynn office. Many focus on issues facing different sectors of the Latino business community, like barber and auto shops or cab companies.Going forward, the two directors expect to hold joint networking events and meetings with each organization’s board of directors.Diana Moreno, the branch manager of Lynn’s Metro Credit Union, wasn’t sure how to forge connections between the Latino association and the chamber before the group’s two leaders got together.Moreno said she had wanted to reach out to the Latino business association but was hesitant about how such a move would be received in the Lynn business community.She turned down several offers to appear at Latino business association meetings, despite her Hispanic heritage and mostly Spanish customer base in Lynn.”What would they think if I started participating?” she said of her role on the chamber’s board of directors. “I didn’t really know and I didn’t really dare to ask.”But, with Gould’s blessing, Moreno said she feels comfortable attending Latino business association meetings to connect with new business owners and clientele.”It just makes the community such a better place,” she said.Some chamber members, like Eastern Bank, have already reached out to the Latino business association. Eastern Bank’s Lynn branch joined the association in March, said its manager, Roxann Cooke.Cooke said the new membership has helped the bank expand its customer base. She said many Spanish-speaking customers stop by the bank because they know the bank’s senior customer service representative, Ariel Noesi, from Latino business association meetings.”I can see a lot of the clientele gravitating toward him,” she said. “We definitely have seen the benefits.”Dave Hughes of Lynn’s Hughes Century 21 real estate company is also growing his clients and services after he joined the Latino business association in April.Hughes, whose business has also been a chamber member for four decades, said he’s looking to create a program to educate Latino association business members and their employees about buying and selling homes in Lynn.”There’s an opportunity to educate a group of people we feel could use our services,” he said.” ? It just makes sense that we would want to be part of that.”The prosperity can extend both ways, said Latino association member Joanna Pena of Union Travel.The former chamber member said newer businesses in the Latino association could benefit from networking with experienced owners in the chamber.”There’s a lot of very successful businesses in the Lynn Chamber of Commerce that I wouldn’t