The Covington Digital News Digital Edition May 29, 2015 | Page 4

IN DEPTH

Friday, May 29, 2015

THE NEW WAVE
The Young Professionals of Newton County are learning
about Newton and other young people in the workforce
BY BRYAN FAZIO

The job force in Newton County is becoming
more of a youth movement with roughly 30 percent of Newton County residents between the age
of 25 and 40.
With that younger demographic a need started to
arise in the Covington-Newton County Chamber of
Commerce as younger members of the workforce
requesting a group where they could network and
find other residents to relate to.
As the chamber itself got younger, Lisa Baker and
Serra Hall decided to take matters into their own
hands and form a Young Professionals of Newton
County group.
“We have had a couple different chamber members over the past few years come to us inquiring and
requesting that we start a young professional group,”
Baker said. “We thought our timing was finally right.”

The group is three months young with roughly 50
members, having had three meetings and two public service events.
At each meeting the group not only gets a
chance to network but also learn about Newton
County. At the first meeting, held at Amici’s, Chamber of Commerce President Ralph Staffins talked
about the chamber; the second meeting had Newton County’s economic development department
let the members know how the county is growing
from an industrial standpoint before the members
hit the track at Atlanta Gran Prix Karting. Thursday night the young professionals heard about the
state of Newton County from Commissioner Nancy
Schulz at The Oaks Course.
“It’s for the younger generation to get involved to
see what’s going on in Newton County,” Baker said.