🔒CT Tech Council, hampered by declining membership and pandemic pains, looks to restore former luster, influence

For the Connecticut Technology Council (CTC), the COVID-19 pandemic has been uniquely disruptive, as it has for many trade associations across the country.

The statewide association is trying to figure out how to maintain relevance and provide value in a fundamentally different world than when it was launched in 1994 to advocate for the fledgling information technology industry.

“The biggest challenge is finding our value in this day and age,” said Simon Lichter, CTC’s new executive director.

The tech council’s chief task remains the same, to make the state’s tech ecosystem vibrant and easier for businesses to thrive, though technology today is interspersed across many industries, from manufacturing and health care to defense and insurance.

But the pandemic continues to imperil CTC’s two primary revenue sources: membership fees and events. Membership even before the crisis was becoming a tougher sell for associations in general, since the internet has made accessing information and performing business-to-business networking easier than ever.

Over the past decade, CTC has seen its membership fall by nearly two-thirds. Today, its roster of 100 member companies ranges from startups and universities to major corporations — like Medtronic, Yale and JANUS Associates — as well as professional service providers like law firms, financial institutions and marketing organizations.

In addition, COVID has forced the organization to cancel or postpone in-person events due to lockdowns and other restrictions.

It’s a similar experience shared by associations nationwide over the past two years, but the tech council hired Lichter in November to lead its turnaround efforts.

CTC, which has an approximately 30-member board, has set a modest goal to increase its membership by 50% in 2022, Lichter said, which would amount to about 50 new companies.

“We see CTC as Connecticut’s premiere networking hub for tech companies, ” said Lichter. “This cross-pollination of ideas is really essential.”

Diverse tech companies

While Connecticut and its cities aren’t known nationally as tech hubs, the state holds its own in several key industry rankings. For example, the Milken Institute in 2020 ranked the state 12th in its biennial “State Technology and Science Index,” which uses 105 metrics to evaluate each state’s knowledge economy.

Connecticut ranked even higher in subcategories related to higher education and R&D funding, reflecting the innovation and talent pool fostered by major universities like Yale and UConn, and the proliferation of venture capital, startups, incubators, accelerators and other partners that support the state’s tech ecosystem.

Today, there are over 6,000 technology and tech-related businesses in the state, employing some 120,000 people, according to CTC estimates. The organization employs a very broad definition of technology in its assessment, Lichter said.

While tech companies stretch throughout the state, there are growing concentrated regional subsectors — a life science hub in New Haven, insurance and fintech in Hartford, defense in New London, among others.

“Being a small state, we have really diverse types of technologies, and that’s an advantage,” said Giovanni Tomasi, CEO of East Hartford-based fiber optic lighting manufacturer RSL Fiber Systems LLC, who chairs CTC’s board of directors.

Virtual connections

For about two years, CTC’s top leadership spot was vacant following the October 2019 departure of former CEO Derek Slap, a state senator who left after less than 10 months on the job to work for social services nonprofit The Village for Families and Children.

Before that the group was led by Bruce Carlson and Matthew Nemerson, one of the founders of Yale’s Science Park, who later became the city of New Haven’s top economic development official.

Tomasi said the organization was impressed with Lichter’s entrepreneurial spirit.

A West Hartford native, Lichter, 32, earned his undergraduate degree in advertising and marketing and has an MBA from Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island. He eventually launched a marketing agency in Boston, and then moved back to Connecticut, disappointed to find how difficult it can be to meet other young adults.

Based on his prior experience, he founded Urban Dor, a virtual platform that facilitates networking and cultural events targeted mostly at young Jewish adults in Hartford, where he now lives. The business involved partnering with various community groups.

Now Lichter’s bringing that background to try to reverse the tech council’s fortunes. To determine how CTC can best deliver services, he’s been in dialogue with past and present members to gain an understanding of the organization’s institutional history, he said.

“I don’t want to forget what CTC has done and I want to use that to make informed decisions moving forward,” he said.

Since the pandemic still poses a threat to in-person ribbon-cuttings and business mixers, CTC is working to repurpose events virtually into webinars, speakers’ series and other forms of idea exchanges.

The tech council is rolling out several new virtual offerings, including “tech talks” and monthly peer-to-peer roundtables for member chief executives and eventually other specialized groups, such as HR professionals.

Tomasi said he’s already seen benefits from participating in a CEO forum, particularly a discussion on working with local suppliers to overcome global supply chain issues.

The group’s membership model is also being refined. Currently, annual fees are scaled by company employee count and range from $500 for companies with less than 20 employees up to $7,500 for those with 500 or more workers.

Membership provides free or discounted rates for a variety of events, including virtual and in-person offerings. Companies can also buy sponsorships for events, such as the annual Women in Innovation awards ceremony.

Besides networking, an ongoing goal is fostering government, industry and other nonprofit partnerships to unlock opportunities for collaborations and relationship-building. For example, there’s an alphabet soup of organizations working on initiatives to develop skilled workers, a top priority for the Lamont administration.

Just recently, the state’s first regional sector partnership — the Capital Area Tech Partnership — was announced. The initiative includes over 50 technology companies working together to match workforce needs with training providers. Tomasi is on the initiative’s leadership team representing the CTC and the role it can play in matching skills-based training at trade schools and community colleges to tech job opportunities.

Lichter is also meeting with business, educational and government leaders from across the state and said he’s enthusiastic about the tech sector’s growth potential.

“There’s a lot of energy and optimism in the state’s tech community,” Lichter said. “Everyone has the same attitude, it’s not about I and me, but how we can make Connecticut more attractive for companies.”