New Chamber Director Settles In, Set Goals

“First week on the job and we already lost Trader Horn,” Ray Santillo joked as he worked on arranging his new desk.

Santillo is the new executive director the Ellwood City Area Chamber of Commerce, a role he began on Monday, Jan. 11. Although there are many challenges ahead, he has a matching enthusiasm for the work and the Ellwood area.

Santillo is a lifelong resident of Ellwood City, who raised four children here and says he is blessed that they all live nearby. He made his career with Riverside school district as a teacher, coach and ultimately principal of the elementary school.

Retired for four years, Santillo has volunteered his time with the Ellwood City library. However, his next phase of work was unexpected. When the previous director, Lori Hilliard, announced her resignation on Nov. 5, the Board of Directors had no immediate candidate lined up. Santillo became interested in the position while attending Chamber’s annual Christmas Party.

He described the Chamber volunteer’s excitement for community work as an influential factor in his decision to apply for the position. For Santillo, any volunteer has a special place in his heart.

“Volunteer work fills you with satisfaction, and you get to meet a lot of great people,” Santillo said.

Santillo described his position generally as “serving the community the way the directors want me to.”As he is not in business, he feels this will allow him to be more impartial in his duties. His immediate and long term goal is to support the 200 plus chamber member businesses while attracting new businesses into the chamber.

According to Santillo, there are many eligible businesses that aren’t currently members, and he’d like to approach them and work on a solutions to bring any business in the area into the chamber.

As for current businesses in downtown Ellwood, he hopes to work on solutions for customer parking. Currently, Ellwood City has several empty and unused parking lots in the main street area.

“I don’t have all the answers to parking but we can look at the lots as a positive for local business parking,” Santillo said, pointing out that the animal hospital and state store are examples of businesses that have considerable customers but lack sufficient parking.

Another item on Santillo’s agenda is getting all relevant organizations to work together. This would include the school districts, borough council, various other borough and townships governments, and the Ellwood City Revitalization Committee.

“We want all people to get along, and we can’t be stubborn,” Santillo said. “We’re one community. We go to the same churches and shop at the same stores. We all have to work on publicity for the Ellwood City area together and to get people to want to come this way.”

Santillo pointed out several amenities Ellwood has that many communities its size lack: a hospital, two excellent school districts and two local newspapers. To help attract new residents, Santillo plans on having students from Carnegie Mellon University look at the signage in town and suggest improvements to increase the aesthetic appeal of Ellwood City.

Attracting new residents, bringing in new businesses and increasing the voice of younger residents are also on the agenda.

“We want great people moving into the area,” Santillo said. “And we want to listen to our younger residents. They’ll be running the businesses down the line.”

Regarding new business, Santillo intends to be realistic. “We don’t want to just support a business that will open and fail,” he said. “We want to set up businesses to succeed.”

**As a reminder, the Chamber of Commerce serves Ellwood City, Wampum, Ellport, Koppel, and Franklin, Marion, North Sewickely, Perry and Wayne townships.

**The Chamber is currently looking for anyone with an interest in grant writing. According to Santillo, there are many opportunities for financial aid, but the work must be put in to obtain them.

More information on the Chamber, including member businesses and the Board of Directors, can be found on their website.