2026 Mel Bedwell Small Business Person of the Year Award Luncheon

Join us for the 33rd presentation of the Mel Bedwell Small Businessperson of the Year Award at our annual luncheon presented by Pinnacle Financial Partners on Thursday, May 21 at Museum & Cultural Center at 5ive Points. 

The Mel Bedwell Small Business Person of the Year Award luncheon honors an outstanding small business person in Cleveland and Bradley County for their success in six areas: staying power, growth in number of employees, increase in sales, innovativeness of product or service offered, response to adversity, and evidence of contributions to the community. 

The Chamber board of directors renamed the Small Business Person of the Year Award to honor the memory of Mel Bedwell, who was known for his energy, determination, ingenuity, honesty, enthusiasm and loyalty—all traits necessary for a successful small business owner.


Our guest speaker will be Dr. Howard J. Wall, Director and Chief Economist at the Center for Regional Economic Research at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga. 

Before coming to UTC, Dr. Wall was a professor of economics and the founding director of the Hammond Institute for Free Enterprise and director of the Center for Applied Economics at Lindenwood in St. Charles, Missouri from 2011 - 2023. Prior to Lindenwood, he was a vice president and regional economics advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. In addition, he spent ten years as an academic in the economics departments at West Virginia University and Birkbeck College, University of London.

His main research fields have been in theoretical and empirical trade, although more recent focus has been on modeling and estimating the macroeconomy as the interaction of regional and local economies.

A native of Upstate New York, Dr. Wall received his BA in Economics from State University of New York at Binghamton, his MA and PhD from State University of New York at Buffalo. 








Members who would like to use available admission credits should call the Chamber office at 423-472-6587 to register.