By Alex Brunelle

When I first sat down with Salvatore “Sam” Schiavone, president of POWER, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what POWER stood for or what it did.

I’ve heard about POWER, of course, as many of us have, and I knew it involved younger business and community leaders helping the local area, but to hear Salvatore’s passion and his sincere enthusiasm as he spoke not only of what POWER is but what he wants it to become, helped me to realize just how many people in our area are working furiously to bring about economic change and monetary growth.

Schiavone, born and raised in Clarks Summit, is no newcomer to business. Starting his career studying finance at Penn State University main campus and then moving on, and back home to pursue a master of business administration degree at Marywood University, also in finance, Schiavone finished learning about business what his father, who owned a restaurant nearly his whole life, probably started to teach him from a very young age. Schiavone worked for a few years at Merrill Lynch and now serves as a senior financial consultant to PNC Bank. “I serve four different branches simultaneously and have a pretty demanding schedule,” he said.

POWER was first started after an economic summit hosted by Vaxserve. There, business leaders discussed a “brain drain” from the area, the region’s lack of money, and the absence of virtually anything to do in northeast Pennsylvania. Well, a lot of people looked at that and decided that the area was horrible and complained about it. A select few looked at it and decided that it wasn’t going to be that way anymore.

“There are two types of people - the first type includes  those who look at graffiti on a bridge and say how terrible it is. There’s a second type, though, who says how terrible it is and then gets started making it better,” said Schiavone in discussing how he and others planned to buck the trend and how POWER’s community cleanup projects help keep things nice.

“The goal was networking, the creation of an organized group of young professionals who work toward something and who get together and know one another by name. At the time, no other organization did that on this scale,” said Schiavone. “Things got started around 2004, and I’m proud to say that two of the original founding members are still on the board,” he added.

“Once a quarter, we do community outreach projects. Besides just getting together and having fun, we also paint bridges, clean up parks, and volunteer our time. That’s the direction I want POWER to go in. I want to make it stand for something beneficial and productive in our area,” said Schiavone.

“These days, we’re trying to unify our Scranton, Hazleton and Wilkes-Barre teams. A lot of people joke about the Great Wall of Pittston which no one crosses, the imaginary divider that keeps people in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre thinking that they’re too far away from one another, but in actuality, the drive isn’t that bad, and I’m pretty sure it’s shorter than the average national commute time,” observed Schiavone, adding, “We want people to think more regionally and to connect not just with their own highly localized community but with other local communities as well.”

With gas prices inching higher every day, the challenge of convincing people that they’re “not that far from one another” might be growing, and yet, with exciting regional events everywhere from PNC Field with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees to the WaterFront Banquet Facility in Plains where POWER sports free beer, wine, and appetizers, it might not be that big a challenge bringing people together after all.

Anyone interested in joining POWER or coming to an event can visit NEPAPower.com. It costs $25 per year, and interested persons can even sign up on-line or pay for  membership through PayPal. With events scheduled almost every month and the chance to connect with local business and community leaders, POWER stands as an excellent way to network in Scranton.