Citizen of the Year Named [VIDEO]

The Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce held its 93rd annual meeting on Nov. 19. More than 300 people attended and heard about the organization’s accomplishments during the last year, took in some economic forecasting from Knight Kiplinger, and named a new Citizen of the Year.

This year’s event was more structured and traditional when compared to last year’s musical extravaganza that highlighted members of Concord’s Creative Economy playing music in the hall.

The Chamber’s efforts improving the creative economy were touched upon during the annual report given by Concord Hospital's Deane Morrison, the outgoing chairman of the board, with a commitment to continue to improve that sector of the economy, including all the arts nonprofits that bought in millions of dollars to the downtown economy.

Hurricane Sandy put a damper on the original date for the event – Oct. 29 – but Knight Kiplinger of Kiplinger Media, the event’s keynote speaker, came back to New Hampshire to offer a wry, amusing overview of the current fiscal cliff problems in Washington, often cracking jokes and using metaphors and sports analogies to describe the serious fiscal mess the federal government is in. He predicted that the lame duck Congress would punt on any major reform of spending and revenue, and suggested that a freeze might be put in place to keep things running past Jan. 1, 2013, which would let a new Congress tackle the issues. Kiplinger said there would be some “grand bargain” in order to stabilize markets and make sure that the financial sector and business leaders knew that elected officials were getting serious about addressing the massive deficit and entitlement spending.

The grand bargain, Kiplinger said, would probably include lower tax deductions and exemptions, higher taxes for the rich, and spending cuts, “while rancor deals with reason, with both parties finding a way to compromise.” When the political parties realize that they are both wrong, “and when they come to admit that, we’ll see some progress.”

In another change, the Citizen of the Year Award was awarded to a person who found out about the award before receiving it.

C. Thomas Brown, the former head of New Hampshire Distributors, was planning to attend the dinner when it was first scheduled. Brown had previously scheduled knee surgeries in the weeks before and after the dinner. So when the dinner was postponed due to the hurricane, he was unable to attend because it conflicted with his second knee surgery. Brown was told about the award ahead of time and was able to thank everyone for the award via a short video that was recorded before the dinner.

“I accept this honor on behalf of all the employees and team members of New Hampshire Distributors,” he said. “They’re all part of what we do every day. Although I get a chance in a case like this to acknowledge what we’ve accomplished, it is all of them that makes us what we are. It’s a fantastic honor, one I’ll never forget.”

His son, Chris Brown, accepted the award and thanked everyone personally for his father.