The Gordon County Chamber of Commerce Small Business Development Committee will present its annual Business Expo Oct. 14 at the Sonoraville Recreation Center. Nearly 60 vendors, representing a diverse field of business interests including healthcare and hospice services, insurance agencies, banks and investment advisors, local retailers, automobile dealers and heating and air conditioning service companies, will gather to meet the visiting consumers, network with their business peers and promote local spending in Gordon County.

"The Chamber actively supports the success of all its members and in particular, the Small Business Development Committee that I co-chair with David Scoggins, my partner at Winter & Scoggins, strives to promote the interests of small business owners in the county,” said Dewayne Bowen, rising chairman of the board for the Chamber and an Edward Jones Financial Advisor operating in Calhoun. “The committee certainly endorses the Chamber's local spending campaign, Keep It In The County, and the Business Expo is a long-established Chamber program designed to promote economic development in our community."

The Expo is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and wraps up with a members-only Business After Hours Event sponsored by Professional Eye Associates. Expo organizers expect to welcome more than a thousand visitors who tour the vendor booths and learn more about the businesses participating in this signature event. The event benefits both the business and spending communities and its underlying mission is to connect providers with clients and buyers with sellers, creating opportunities for new professional relationships.

"As much as we seek to support small business in Gordon County, we also try to make the event lively and entertaining, so we have made a concerted event to accomplish that by including prize drawings, live radio coverage, the unveiling of the Small Business Development Committee's annual Christmas ornament featuring a Gordon County icon and some performances provided by local talent," remarked Scoggins, who will become vice-chairman of the board in January.

"The Chamber is excited by what the Small Business Development Committee has done to broaden the scope of Expo 2010 while accomplishing our anchor goal of making Gordon County a better place to live, work and play," said Jimmy Phillips, president of the Gordon County Chamber of Commerce. "There's not one event in the Chamber's program of work which better supports the spirit of entrepreneurship, the value of networking or the opportunities yielded by face-to-face interaction between businesses and customers than the Business Expo. We have every confidence that Expo 2010 will be an event to remember.”