Hazleton Area Business Citizen March 2014 | Page 12

Hazleton Area Business Citizen

volved in our community through civic groups, our
business climate will become worse. I think community involvement helps. If we weren’t involved,
our problems would be worse. I just think we need
to have some more involvement in the civic organizations by people in our local business community.
HABC: Do you see the business community
and the professional community in our area
as being the backbone of the community?
Dave DeLessio: The business community is the
backbone of our country, especially small businesses. They’re the most stable. We ride storms. We’ve
gone through some of the worst economic times
in the past five years. The general business climate
has been so poor and has led to facility closings and
down-sizing. Smaller businesses weather storms, I
believe, much better. We can cut back and tighten
and jugg H[