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20 Feature
Business Trend Magazine
Parting Words
from Trevor Hamilton
By J.Ed. Marston
During the nine years that Trevor
Hamilton led the Chattanooga Area
Chamber of Commerce’s economic
development team, he served as a lynch pin
in winning major investments by Volkswagen,
Alstom, T-Mobile, Amazon.com and nearly
100 other companies for a total of $2.4 billion
invested to create more than 12,000 new jobs.
In mid-December, we sat down with
Trevor for a final interview before his
departure to take a job with the Cincinnati
USA Regional Chamber.
Trend: How did Chattanooga transform itself from an economic
development non-entity into an international leader
Trevor: We’ve benefited from a well-funded public-private partnership
that has sustained a truly comprehensive job creation strategy including
international recruitment. Thanks to Tom Edd Wilson’s leadership in
building the first public-private campaign and following it up with two more
successful campaigns, the job creation effort which started in 2002 is fully
resourced through 2015. We’ve also been fortunate to have great public sector
leadership. When Deputy Governor Claude Ramsey and Senator Bob Corker
were serving as our mayors, they not only developed Enterprise South but
also personally engaged as door openers and deal closers. Mayor Littlefield
Trevor Hamilton
(middle) celebrates
the 2008 Volkswagen
announcement with
former VW U.S. CEO
Stefan Jacoby (left)
and former TN Gov.
Phil Bredesen (right) at
the Hunter Museum.