Chamber Business Expo Thursday

ALBANY — Several Albany area businesses will be on display this week as the Albany Area Chamber of Commerce hosts its annual Business Expo Thursday at the Hilton Garden Inn.

The Business Expo, which kicks off at 4:30 p.m and runs until 6:30, will feature displays from more than 50 chamber member businesses, looking to showcase some of the diverse companies that call the Albany area home.

“It’s a great way to showcase the variety of businesses that are in Albany,” chamber President Barbara Rivera Holmes said recently. “You can really see the scope of what Albany offers.”

Perhaps more importantly, though, Holmes said the Business Expo is a great way for chamber members to connect with each other and with potential customers, which benefits the entire community.

“Our member businesses are always looking for ways to connect to each other, to new customers and to the community,” she said. “This is about creating connections. It brings our member businesses face-to-face with their customers. It’s a great opportunity for businesses, but it’s also a great networking opportunity. It’s a fun setting, too.”

The 2015 edition of the Business Expo was a rousing success, Holmes said, so expectations are again high for Thursday. Last year, and again this year, the chamber rented out all 50 of it’s main booth spaces. More than 500 people took the time to stroll through the Hilton’s conference center area at last year’s expo.

“It’s grown every year,” said Holmes. “I think that shows how important it is to our members and to our community.”

Jay Carpenter, one of the owners of Invision Technologies, which handles information technology and security for residential and commercial clients, said the expo is very beneficial to his company, which is why Invision will have a booth again at this year’s event.

“We’ll be there,” said Carpenter. “We want to get out there and talk with people and let them know, ‘Did you know we did this?’ At the end of the day, it’s a networking thing for us. Our business supports other businesses through the technological aspects, and this lets us network with those businesses.”

Carpenter said the expo is a good way for Invision to demo the company’s core products, as well as show off some of the newer things the company is doing as technology changes. Most importantly, though, it doesn’t just connect the company to a marketplace, Carpenter said. The expo connects people.

“Nothing, nothing takes the place of flesh and blood, I don’t care what business you are in,” said Carpenter. “Our biggest asset, and what we put the most into, is our employees. The expo allows other people to meet our people, and we’re only as good as our people. So it’s not only what we do, it’s who we are.”

The majority of the businesses with displays at the expo will have sample goods, including food and beverages, and there will be vendor and door prizes as well. A grand prize drawing will be held for a Weber gas grill from Modern Gas.

Admission to the Expo is free to anyone who brings a valid business card and $5 without a business card.

The Hilton Garden Inn is located at 101 S. Front St. in downtown Albany.