Hispanic Heritage Month: National Hispanic Chamber conference puts KC on stage early

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is bringing its national conference back to Kansas City for the first time in 25 years in early October.

It’s a homecoming for the national organization that was founded in the metro two years after the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City was created.

“To have them come back home for their 45th anniversary means a lot,” said Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City President Carlos Gomez. “We have members who have family members who founded both chambers.”

It’s just the latest large event in the metro following the NFL Draft in 2023, but the focus on one particular culture makes this slightly different.

“You have a culture that normally doesn’t come en mass to here,” ECCO Select Founder Jeanette Prenger said.

She started ECCO Select around 2000 and now provides IT Professional services around the nation.

Prenger says bringing 2,500 Hispanic business leaders to downtown KC helps local companies like hers showcase what they do, but it also shows the next Hispanic entrepreneur what’s possible.

“To see Hispanics come here that are executives of Fortune 500 companies or very successful entrepreneurs… I think it sets a tone not only for the Hispanics that are here to see those role models but also an appreciation for what we contribute to the economic environment,” said Prenger.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) says that contribution is big.

It says Hispanic-owned businesses employ 2.9 million workers, paying more than $124 million in payroll, and are steadily becoming a larger percentage of business owners overall.

“We know during COVID, Hispanic business growth increased, not because we wanted to open businesses,” said Gomez. “We got laid off. If I cleaned a hotel, and I got laid off, I’m going to start a cleaning company. If I was in a restaurant that didn’t want to have customers, I started a food truck or my own restaurant.”

Mike Barrera’s father, Richard, helped start the Kansas City and U.S. Hispanic Chambers of Commerce and Mike is a past-president himself. He says the metro is seeing the early economic benefits of expanding business opportunities.

“If you look what’s happening to Kanas City, this town is just exploding,” said Barrera. “We’re having the World Cup, we just had the NFL Draft, we’re building a huge Panasonic plant that a lot of Hispanic people will be getting business from.”

Logistically, Prenger says welcoming in 2,500 Hispanic visitors looking for places to eat, shop, and enjoy KC is a good test run for welcoming soccer fans in 2026.

“We are setting the stage to have very different cultures eating with us, shopping with us, using our transportation, so I feel like this is the opportunity to see where are the areas where we can improve,” said Prenger.

You can find more information about the 45th Annual USHCC National Conference here.

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