FWKCC: ‘You have to have healthy conflict’
Blaylock, Chamber president/CEO, recalls Mayor Leonard interaction during her address to RCF; sponsored Japan trip
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Garrett Kinson, alongside his RCF member dad, Tory Kinson, thanked the RCF membership for sponsoring his 2025-26 high school year Exchange trip to Fukuoka, Japan. “I’ve been practicing a lot of Japanese, and the language is very hard ... but I’m working on it and I’m very passionate about this whole trip,” he announced. - Photos by Alan Sloan
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Julie Blaylock, Farragut West Knox Chamber of Commerce president/CEO, was featured speaker at Rotary Club of Farragut’s Wednesday, June 11, meeting, where she is a member, in Fox Den Country Club. - Photos by Alan Sloan
Saying she’s “been privileged to serve our Chamber for now almost 14 years” and upon becoming Farragut West Knox Chamber of Commerce’s president/CEO in 2017 discovered “it is the best job I never knew I wanted,” Julie Blaylock addressed Rotary Club of Farragut.
Among FWKCC’s “five pillars” of integrity, excellence, stewardship and enterprising also is “inclusion.”
“We welcome dissent,” said Blaylock, herself an RCF member for several years who addressed the club during its regular noon, Wednesday meeting in Fox Den Country Club June 11. “Now, who here likes to argue? … I don’t really like to argue; conflict is not my favorite thing, but you have to have healthy conflict, differences of opinions, voiced in a professional way to make forward progress, and we welcome that. That’s inclusion for us.
“And then, of course, enterprising: sometimes we have to be creative,” she said. “Sometimes we have to be resourceful. Small businesses have to be resourceful and very creative a lot of the time.”
History
About seven years after Town of Farragut was founded (1980), “there were several local business owners and there were municipal officials” interested in forming a Chamber, “including Mayor Bob Leonard, who I did have the pleasure of meeting in 2012 before he passed away,” Blaylock said about Farragut’s first mayor.
“And my favorite thing about meeting Mayor Bob was I was very new in the Chamber, and I was told to call him to invite him to the grand opening of Costco,” she added. “And it started at 7 in the morning. And my one interaction with Mayor Bob was, I said, ‘Mayor, I’m Julie and I work at your Chamber and I want to invite you to Costco’s grand opening.’
“He said, What time does that start?’ And I said, ‘It starts at 7 a.m., sir.’ He said, ‘Young lady, I thank you kindly but I don’t have to get up that early anymore.’
“So he came to the opening event the night before.”
About what became RCF, “He cared a lot about having a Chamber of Commerce based in Farragut,” Blaylock said about Mayor Leonard. “So we started out with about 130 members. The first two years, the members who joined between ‘87 and ‘89, we still call them our Charter Members. We’ve still got several of them around, which to me is amazing.”
Growth, or lack thereof
“Because if you don’t know, the lifespan of a small business now as compared to the 1960s, any ideas how many years the average small business exists now? Eight, 10. It used to be over 30 years. So, the fact that we still have these businesses — and of course, some of them are much larger in these corporations — to me is incredible.”
As of the end of May, “We have 749 businesses” as FWKCC members, Blaylock said. “Now, some myths and misconceptions: People know us as the ‘Farragut Chamber;’ people know us as the ‘West Knox Chamber;’ the ‘Farragut West Knox Chamber’ and every combination of that you can think of putting together.
“We have a varied membership with lots of different industries, so you can get access to a lot of different people in a lot of different industries,” she added. “It’s a friendly climate.”
Political, charitable
About business legislation in Tennessee General Assembly in Nashville, “Now, that’s not to say that every legislation out there makes sense in the big picture, but in general, we’re going to look at legislation and policies and we’re going to hopefully promote what is right to support businesses,” Blaylock said.
“And we do, much like the Rotary Club, we support and partner with local non-profits because they’re the people on the ground doing a lot of that quality of life work,” the FWKCC president/CEO added about the functional comparisons.
Budget
“So our budget currently is around $435,000 total,” Blaylock said. “That supports three full-time staff and currently one part-time staff, for which I am so grateful.
“Most of our finances, about 68 percent, comes from membership dues,” she added.
Japan Exchange trip
Garrett Kinson, son of RCF member Tory Kinson, will spend the entire 2025-26 high school year in Fukuoka, Japan, thanks to RCF sponsorship (See photo, cutline, 2B).
