From his office on the 16th floor of First National Tower, Thomas Humphries has a prime view of downtown Youngstown.
Within walking distance from the headquarters of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, where Humphries serves as president/CEO, there’s a coffee shop, city blocks dotted with restaurants and bars, the Covelli Centre that’s played host to the likes of Lionel Richie, Elton John and Bob Dylan. There’s an upscale apartment building, a hotel under construction and a science center.
This downtown scene is a far cry from what it was when Humphries took over leadership of the chamber in 1997. He was on the board prior to that. At that time, downtown Youngstown was a ghost of what it once had been during the city’s steel-manufacturing heyday. Buildings stood vacant and boarded up. The city’s notoriously high crime rates plagued the downtown streets.
Over the last 20 or so years, however, downtown has blossomed into a small but bright gem of the Mahoning Valley — and Humphries and the chamber have played no small part in that transformation. Humphries was chairman of the Warren Chamber of Commerce when, in 1993, the Warren, Niles and Youngstown chambers of commerce merged. Humphries was leaving his position as Sprint’s Ohio East region general manager and looking forward to starting his own business.
But things worked out a bit differently than he planned.
“When I was leaving Sprint, I was asked by my attorney if I would consider coming in and running the chamber. I really had other aspirations to go start two companies that I had laid out. I told him I really would prefer not to,” says Humphries. But he changed his mind. “They said it was in dire straits and they can really use the help. So, I agreed to do it.”
Those first years weren’t easy. Humphries coordinated as the chamber, which grew from the original three organizations to include two other economic development groups, developed a unified culture, set of policies, financial structure and more.
“It [was] like walking in and saying, ‘We’re going to start a new company today,’” he recalls.
Fast-forward 20 years, and the chamber has come a long way from “dire straits.”
It’s grown from 1,400 members to nearly 2,600 today. It’s the third-largest chamber of commerce in the state, compared to eighth-largest at the time of the merger. It’s helped create about 24,000 local jobs; all of which are now occupied; and helped keep major Valley employers, including General Motors’ Lordstown plant and the Youngstown Air Reserve Station, from closing. The chamber has overseen in excess of $7 billion in project investments, and helped diversify the local economy beyond the steel and auto jobs on which it once was based.
Humphries was born and raised in Youngstown. He recalls working a variety of jobs in his youth: “Anything from a janitor to a paper boy to delivering coffee in the ’60s, to working in the steel mills.” He served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, then attended Youngstown State University. He later graduated from executive management training at Duke University.
He worked for Sprint for 29 years, and still owns the small business that he was getting off the ground when he took over leadership of the chamber. Someone else has run his company for him while he’s led the chamber, but his retirement at year’s end will give him the chance to get back to it.
Humphries, at age 73, says he has no regrets about putting those entrepreneurial dreams on hold all these years, because of what his job at the chamber has allowed him to do. “This work is rewarding, because you really help,” he says.
His habit of arriving at the office at 6 a.m. each day and leaving when his work is finished has caused some to label him a workaholic. Not so, he says — because he doesn’t view his job as work.
“I could have made a lot more money in my business. But I like doing what I do, so this is not work,” he says. “I don’t look at this as a task or a burden. I look at it like it’s an opportunity to help people. And I like to help people.”
Anthony Payiavlas, president and CEO of Warren-based food-service giant AVI Foodsystems, believes that Humphries’ biggest success has been his ability to bring together different types of people for the common good of the local economy.
“Tom is a tremendous leader who has just an uncanny ability to relate so well to diverse groups of folks,” he says. “When Tom would call, you picked up the phone.”
Particularly important for AVI, he says, is Humphries’ role in stabilizing the position of major area employers such as GM and the air reserve station. It’s important to AVI, of course, to keep those companies as clients. But it’s also important to have them in town to maintain a high quality of life for AVI employees, Payiavlas says.
“There were tenuous times when, as a Valley here, we were not going to be able to retain those two valuable assets,” he recalls. “Tom played a major role [in keeping them]. That’s where he really shined in bringing together business, labor, government and community interests.”
“He’s leaving really large shoes to fill,” Payiavlas adds. “I don’t know that there will be another Tom Humphries that will bring all that he brought to the position.”
Envisioning what the future holds for the area he’s spent his career bolstering, Humphries is optimistic.
“I see the [Mahoning] River clean. I see bike paths. I see a community that is more self-sustained,” he says. “I think you’ll be surprised that people will be moving here. I believe this is an attractive enough place that we’ll see people move back into the area.
“I believe that we’ll see this community continue to grow.”