NAEIR Meeting with Doug Whitley, President and CEO - Illinois Chamber of Commerce

Gary C. Smith, President and CEO, NAEIR and I met recently with Doug Whitley, President and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce.  On its website, The Illinois Chamber describes itself as “…the leading voice for employers of all sizes, from sole proprietors, to entrepreneurs reshaping the Illinois business landscape, to international corporations, we serve as your voice in the state capitol.”

Doug Whitley, President & CEO
Illinois Chamber of Commerce

The Illinois Chamber of Commerce has over 3500 members in the State and works with individual local Chambers within the state as well.  It represents the interests of the Illinois business community on the federal level as well as the State level and is active in representing its members both statewide and nationally. 

We were introduced to Doug through our association with Bob Maus, the President of the Galesburg Area Regional Chamber of Commerce.  The occasion for the meeting was to talk to Doug about HR 2592.  If passed, the bill would allow the majority of American businesses – S Corporations and other pass through entities - the same up to twice-cost tax deduction benefit that Regular C Corporations have benefited from since 1986. 

Passage of the bill would benefit Illinois greatly in that it would provide tax advantages to Illinois businesses, the majority of which don’t currently benefit as most are not C Corporations. The meeting provided us with an opportunity to get to know Doug and better understand his organization, while establishing a foundation that we hope will ultimately result in closer collaboration and perhaps opportunities to meet Illinois business people affiliated with the Illinois Chamber. 

As intriguing as the bill appeared to Doug, this is not currently something they would formally get behind given a full legislative agenda at this time.  Doug did share his thoughts with us on how we might be able to get some traction on the bill that Gary and I discussed afterwards.  We also discussed some other areas of mutual interest and possible ongoing discussion.


All in all, we came away from our meeting having learned something about the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and some of the challenges facing the State’s business community.   Gary and I believe we were able to speak to areas of mutual concern; perhaps areas where we might be able to collaborate with Doug and the State Chamber in the future.

For information on how your company can benefit when donating excess, slow-moving inventory, please call us at (800)-562-0955 or go to www.naeir.org.  If you’re a nonprofit organization, school or church that’s interested in getting free materials, you can also call us at this number or find out more about us through our website as well.