In the Oak Brook area, businesses range from one-person companies operating from a spare bedroom to large corporations with hundreds of employees and worldwide recognition.
Despite that diversity, the hundreds of businesses in the Oak Brook area have one thing in common: Most are members of the Oak Brook Area Association of Commerce and Industry. Founded in 1968, the association serves 465 members.
“We’re there to advance the commercial and civic and general interest of the businesses in Oak Brook,” said Linda Failing, chairman of the association board. “Our efforts are to really make Oak Brook a better place to work.”
“We provide a place for businesses to get together and do business with one another,” said Peggy Lucas, the association’s president and chief executive officer. “We’re a networking organization. I personally have never seen an organization where businesses do as much business with one another as they do here.”
The association means different things to different types of businesses, Failing and Lucas said.
For member Donna LaForte, owner of the Bloomers Florist Shop in Oakbrook Terrace, the importance of the association is that it “helps me get to know the businesses around me and helps me meet new people,” she said. “That’s helped me build my business quite well.”
LaForte has been a member of the association since opening her floral business four years ago. “I knew that to be competitive in a place such as Oak Brook, I would need an edge,” she said. “The association helps provide that.”
What originally lured her to open shop in the area is the town’s “lucrative corporate base.”
“I had dabbled in the florist industry and thought running a flower shop in a business building was a great idea,” LaForte said. “My mouth watered when I found this shop was for sale.
“As far as the residential market, florists now have competition from Jewel and Dominick’s,” she added. “To survive now, you have to find a niche. And this is my niche.”
LaForte said a corporate client is a much different customer from a residential patron.
“They’re on different levels,” she said. “The corporate client you keep for the long term. You build a rapport with them. You really get to know the people in the area.
“Plus, corporate floral work is unique work. That’s interesting and challenging and fun all at the same time.”
About 85 percent of LaForte’s clients are local companies, such as Paine Webber Group, Salomon Smith Barney and MCI WorldCom Inc.
“The offices here are what keeps the town going,” LaForte said. “It’s like a mini-downtown here. There are so many well-known corporations.”
Although Tallulah Noel deals in a much different line of work than LaForte, she feels her company has also benefited from its association with the organization.
Noel is the president and founder of Staffing Team International Inc., an employment services company that she runs with her daughter, Cynthia Robbins. The 6-year-old firm provides temporary and permanent staffing and contracting work.
“When you get involved with the business community, you can quickly expand from that base,” said Noel, whose company has grown from her and her daughter to a staff of 10 in six years.
“Before I opened my business I did research on where businesses are located,” she said. “And Oak Brook seems to be that place. We have this (Interstate Highway) 88 corridor where all sorts of businesses have built up in the last decade or so, and we’re now at the gateway to that.
“And the association has been instrumental in helping businesses like mine reach those potential clients.”
Noel said that during the first two years of her business, 40 percent of her work came from networking contacts through the association.
“And the referrals from members of the association have grown since then,” said Noel, who has worked with 500 clients including AT&T, Ace Hardware, R.R. Donnelly and Sons and local law firms.
For Blistex Inc. Chairman David Arch, the association has been a good source for finding companies such as Noel’s.
The international manufacturer of lip care products and acne treatments, which has 200 employees, has been a member of the association since the early 1980s.
“We’re on the receiving end of networking,” said Arch, who also is an Oak Brook resident. “The association has had some role in attracting service providers to our company, such as banking and advertising firms.”
The company has also used Noel’s firm in recent years.
Networking takes place at a number of endeavors, said Failing, such as at association luncheons and breakfasts, and special events such as golf outings.
“We also more or less encourage people to communicate with each other and not only tell people what they do as a business but tell them who they are and get to know them personally,” Failing said.
The business people also said that the association and its members have worked diligently in maintaining the polished image of Oak Brook’s business community.
“Living here in Oak Brook and having a lot of friends here, I know exactly what kind of town it is,” said Pratima Muzumdar, who owns Tranquil Passage, a center for well-being and beauty therapy at 3912 N. Cass Ave. “It is a very dynamic town and it is a very cosmopolitan town. People here are open to new experiences and they’re very well read.
“The association is just one way that the entire town has worked to keep its very strong reputation,” she said.
“There’s an international recognition to Oak Brook and a lot of cachet with the business companies across the community,” Arch said.
“The association helps keep the high standards found here in Oak Brook,” Noel said. “That’s an important ingredient that plays into the overall success of Oak Brook as a business community.”
“What first lured me here is that this was a premier corporate area,” LaForte said. “The association then showed me how that could be improved upon.”
The association leads a number of other efforts to enhance the Oak Brook business climate. There are more than 10 association committees, such as Professional Development and Events, that are run voluntarily by its members, as is the group’s board.
A newer effort is the Education/Business Connection Committee, which was started to link students with members of Oak Brook’s business community.
“We worked with some of the area high schools, presenting programs in which to bring their students in and be exposed to some of our members,” Failing said. “Through our members, they learned things such as how to write a resume and how to present yourself at an interview.”
Students also learned about specific careers, were mentored by business people and also interned with local companies.
On a similar front, the group in 1999 implemented a leadership program in which college students work with Oak Brook area business people.
