Saipan companies urged to join Tinian Chamber

Tinian Chamber of Commerce president Philip Mendiola-Long was one of the guest speakers during the Saipan Chamber of Commerce’s monthly meeting earlier this month at Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan. (MARK RABAGO)

Tinian Chamber of Commerce president Philip Mendiola-Long is recruiting businesses on Saipan to join the island’s business group as Tinian is staring at billions of dollars in military and civilian infrastructure development in the next few years.

“So what I’m here for today is to kind of invite you guys to look at the opportunities across the street, with only 2,000 people on the island that leaves a lot of opportunities, especially with $2 billion coming to a very small island,” he said during the Saipan Chamber of Commerce meeting earlier this month at Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan.

Mendiola-Long said he wants companies on Saipan to partake of the impending growth on Tinian because he would rather have his brothers and sisters in the CNMI share with the expected prosperity than with complete strangers. 

“From an inhabitant there who has lived back home for the last 30 years, I’m quite concerned. Only because I could wake up seven years from now not knowing a soul and growing up there and being used to having an entire beach to yourself and driving with no stoplights, no traffic light, and no fast food joint and then have it changed that dramatically. But if it were to change, I would like some of you—my brothers and sisters and my cousins from Saipan or Rota—to please join me in the massive change that is about to occur so that we can retain our culture, retain our history, and familia. That’s what I want to keep.” 

Mendiola-Long then delved on the history of the Chamber and how it was reestablished in 1997 and that originally it had 120 members following the “big announcement that they would have military bases on Tinian.”

Unfortunately, the promised military bases on Tinian didn’t happen overnight, but with an estimated $2 billion—perhaps even up to $3 billion—in military and civilian infrastructure development on the pipeline, the U.S. Department of Defense is finally making true of the commitment it made more than a quarter century ago. 

Between 1997 and most recently, the Chamber saw its membership decline to around 30 and its staffing reduced to an army of one with Mendiola-Long serving not only as president but executive director and secretary as well.The Chamber in fact conducts its business in Mendiola-Long’s office and he himself answers the phones.

Aside from the hefty military contracts coming, Mendiola-Long said membership in the island’s Chamber is also appealing because he’s not charging a penny in membership dues.

“If you want to join across the street, I won’t be charging you even $1. If that doesn’t get me back to 120, I don’t know what would.”

Instead of membership dues to fund the Chamber’s operations, Mendiola-Long said they rely heavily on fundraising events. 

“We do an annual or biannual military industry forum and that raises money for the Tinian Chamber operation for about two years. That’s how successful those events are,” he said.

Like its counterpart on Saipan, the Tinian Chamber of Commerce also serves as a conduit for businesses whenever the military needs anything that needs to be sourced locally. 

“I definitely encourage you to join the Chamber, if not for anything else, to share stories and hang out with me when you guys come to Tinian. But other than that, I mean you do get access to information. So when the [Commonwealth Bureau of Military Affairs] has issues or they want to call us up and say hey, ‘we need someone to deliver 700 meals three times a day for two weeks straight,’ they can call the Chamber and right and then we put that out to our members to say ‘look who can provide food and who can provide transportation.’ So if anything else, it’s really good to have that information,” said Mendiola-Long.

The Chamber also hosts training workshops every three months where they invite members to get PTAC certified. 

PTAC stands for Procurement Technical Assistance Center and it’s an agency that assists businesses in signing up for SAMs or System for Awards Management, which is a government website where businesses can register to do business with the U.S. government for federal contracting. 

Apart from the military industry forum and PTAC workshops, the Chamber also does its fair share of caring for the environment as “we do quite a bit of cleanups of the beaches on a regular basis.”

“Despite what everybody thinks that the trash that replants on our beach comes from Saipan, it doesn’t really and we try to correct that information. But we do pick up a lot of trash and there’s a ton of plastic. In the northeastern shore of Tinian, trash just piles up every month and we just go out there and collect more. So if you do want to hang out with us and collect trash and help sea turtles, definitely, that’s something we can do.” 

The Tinian Chamber of Commerce is located on the second floor of the Bank of Guam building in San Jose Tinian. For more information on the Chamber, call (670) 433-CNMI (2664) or email tiqmbc@gmail.com.