Fairfax chamber adopts new regional name

The Fairfax County, Va., Chamber of Commerce is adopting a new name and starting in January will brand itself as the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce.

The business group, which counts many government contractors among its members, says it is trying to bring “one unified business voice for Northern Virginia.”

“The Fairfax Chamber is the voice of business in Northern Virginia and has been for some time now,” said Mitchell Weintraub, chamber chairman and partner with Cordia Partners, a provider of accounting and business advisory services.

The chamber has actually trademarked the term “Voice of Business in Northern Virginia.”

In its announcement, the chamber said it will work with other regional chambers and business and political leaders “in a collaborative manner to help shape the launch of the new entity in January 2016.”

The chamber doesn’t want to compete with other chambers, but rather wants to “complement” other chambers. “This is about strengthening and unifying the regional business voice,” Weintraub said in the announcement.

The group said it will release more information on the new name and brand in January.

It’ll be interesting to see how this develops and if the new Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce will merge with any other regional chambers.

While we don’t cover the association world per se, we have followed the mergers of several national technology business groups, most notably the Professional Services Council, which acquired the TechAmerica Foundation earlier this year. TechAmerica had been acquired by CompTIA, which sold the foundation to PSC because it was mostly focused on the public sector.

PSC also has acquired other associations such as the Contract Services Association.

Before its own acquisition, TechAmerica took over the Government Electronics and IT Association in 2008 and later merged with the American Electronics Association in 2009. That’s when it changed its name to TechAmerica.

The chamber also has a strong competitor in the Northern Virginia Technology Council, known as NVTC. While the two groups are very competitive, they also have many shared members.

I can't help but wonder if the competition will get more intense given that the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce shortens nicely to NVCC, which is quite similar to NVTC.