Morris County Chamber honors local community and business leaders at annual meeting

The Morris County Chamber of Commerce honored local community and business leaders Margaret Nordstrom and Jane Kurek at its 101st Annual Meeting Luncheon March held March 3 at the Parsippany Hilton.

Nordstrom was honored with the Alex DeCroce Public Leadership Award. She is administrator of Borough of Chester and immediate past-executive director of the New Jersey Highlands Council. She also served as a Morris County commissioner from 1999 to 2012, including as Commission director 2006-2008. Nordstrom has received numerous awards for her activities in environmental protection, citizenry and government leadership and sits on a number of councils and commissions.

She noted she tried to retire was drawn back to work after a few months of not being busy enough for her liking.

“This is a life-time achievement award but I’m still working,” she joked. “And I will continue working for as long as God allows it.”

Kurek was honored with the Saint Clare’s William P. Huber Award for Outstanding Community Leadership. She is the former executive director of The Provident Bank Foundation, where she was responsible for implementing the foundation’s vision and strategies. Throughout her career Kurek focused on providing leadership to nonprofits to help them achieve their missions and continues her involvement in retirement. She is a trustee of CASA of Morris and Sussex Counties, board treasurer of The Compassionate Friends Foundation, an advisory board member of First Night Morris County and serves on numerous other nonprofit councils and committees.

She looked back fondly on her time as executive director of The Provident Bank Foundation, with its mission of enhancing the quality of life in the communities The Provident Bank serves, including nonprofit, which she said hold a special place in her heart.

“Together we can truly make changes in the years ahead,” she said.

The meeting also featured keynote speaker Kevin Nepveux, vice president, launch excellence, at Pfizer, Inc., who discussed the unprecedented effort of the pharmaceutical industry to jointly work to find a vaccine for COVID-19, accomplishing what usually takes five to 10 years in just over 12 months.

He said the company achieved this by:

·       Taking steps in parallel instead of sequentially.

·       Selecting a formula quickly.

·       Streamlining the government review process.

·       Accelerating the manufacturing process, including expanding from three sites to 20.

·       Innovating, such as building an electric substation for power, making their own dry ice and attaching GPS devises to every shipping package.

“We took a normal business paradigm and smashed it,” Nepveux said. “We bet everything on this. We believed we had the vaccine.”

Chamber president and CEO Meghan Hunscher shared highlights from the organization’s centennial year, 2021, and discussed the chamber’s vision for the future.

“The pandemic brought us closer together in many ways and the lessons we have learned will endure as we continue to fulfill our mission to connect, convene, facilitate, inform, collaborate and advocate for our members,” she said. “At the chamber we are committed to providing the opportunities for members to raise their visibility.”

In addition, Tayfun Selen, director of the Morris County Board of County Commissioners, spoke of the county’s Small Business Grant Program, which is providing $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to county small businesses negatively impacted by the pandemic.

“It is all of our responsibility to spread the word about this grant program,” he said.

Selen encouraged small businesses in need of COVID-relief funds to visit morrisocuntysmallbusinessgrant.com.