While signs of a softening economy have started to show, local businesses remain optimistic about job growth and revenues. The survey said 40 percent of businesses expect profits to rise in 2001, down from 62 percent last year, while 65 percent expect revenues to grow, down from 73 percent last year. The survey was distributed to about 1,000 chamber members in December. Forty members responded. Economic growth was listed as the most important public-policy issue, beating out education, health care, drugs and local taxes.
Respondents also expect the cost of doing business to continue to rise.
Rensselaer County chamber CEO to take post in Virginia Timothy Hulbert, longtime president and CEO of the Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce, is leaving to become president of the Charlottesville, Va., Regional Chamber of Commerce. He will start his new job March 12. Hulbert has been head of the Rensselaer County chamber since 1989. He also is president of the Rensselaer Gateway Corp., the chamber's economic development affiliate. Hulbert grew up in Greene County and had spent his entire professional career in the Capital Region.