innovate arkansas

The Northwest Arkansas Economic Summit got under way Wednesday morning with an appropriate topic: "School of Hard Knocks...Successfully Navigating Rough Waters."

The two-day event, being held at the Holiday Inn Northwest Arkansas and Convention Center, is sponsored by the Springdale Chamber of Commerce.

"It was easy to come up with this topic," Chamber president and CEO Perry Webb said, alluding to the national recession that's trickled down to northwest Arkansas.

Webb said the inaugural event faced many of the same challenges a four-man panel addressed during the opening session.

"We saw six months ago that it was going to be very difficult to make this as big and grand as we'd like for it to be," Webb said. "So we have scaled back this event, just like what they talked about. We've made those same type adjustments."

A crowd of about 50 to 60 attended the first session. Webb said that's about half as many as typically attend similar kickoff events. Webb also said revenue for the summit is down about 75 percent compared to similar events.

Still, those in attendance were treated to more than an hour of presentations from a panel consisting of Harps Food Stores CEO and chairman Roger Collins, Steve Smith, owner of the Steve Smith Country automobile dealership, First Security Bank Springdale president Mike McFarland, and Dave Godwin, co-founder of Marketplace Restaurants.

All four discussed similar themes of identifying strengths and weaknesses during tough economic times, and possessing a willingness to change in order to survive them.

Godwin began his portion of the session by showing a clip from the Man vs. Wild television show, in which the host strands himself in a wilderness location and finds his way back to civilization.

"In the past 18 to 24 months, we've definitely been living one of those episodes," Godwin said, drawing laughter from the crowd.

Webb said he was pleased with the opening session, and is hopeful the no-shows who bought tickets will get positive feedback from those who attended.

"My guess is these participants will get on the phone and call their offices, and say, 'Y'all need to be out here,'" Webb said.