About
An association for the town, run by the people who work in it.
The East Fishkill Business Association is a not-for-profit membership organization for businesses in Hopewell Junction, Stormville, Wiccopee and the rest of the town. It is run by a volunteer board and has no paid staff.
Mission
The mission and purpose of the East Fishkill Business Association is to promote the success and prosperity of its members, to address the problems and concerns with running a business, to create a voice loud enough to be heard in government decisions, and to foster business interests in the community.
In practice that means four standing commitments: promoting our members, working through the problems of running a business together, representing business when the town makes decisions, and backing the life of the community our members sell into.
The association is incorporated in New York as a not-for-profit membership organization. It has no paid staff. It is run by a volunteer board elected by the membership.
Who can join
Any business with a location in East Fishkill, and any business based elsewhere that genuinely serves the town's residents, is eligible for business membership. Registered nonprofits serving the town are eligible at the nonprofit rate. Residents, retirees, and professionals who want to support local business without holding a directory listing are eligible for individual membership.
The board reviews every application. Approval is not automatic, but it is not a high bar either — we are looking for businesses that intend to participate, not simply to be listed.
How it works
Members meet monthly on a fixed schedule. Between meetings, the association runs an evening mixer hosted by a member business, maintains the public directory, and publishes anything from the town that owners need to know.
Dues run twelve months from approval and are set annually by the membership. Members vote at the annual meeting and may stand for the board.
Where we sit next to the county chamber
East Fishkill does not have a chamber of commerce of its own. The East Fishkill Business Association is the town's business membership organization, and it is the local counterpart to the county chamber rather than a replacement for it.
We are also a separate organization from the Fishkill Business Association, which serves the neighboring Town and Village of Fishkill. The names are similar and the towns adjoin, but the two are unrelated.
The Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce covers the whole county and does things a town association cannot: county-wide advocacy, workforce programs, and a scale of events we will never match. Many of our members belong to both, and we recommend it.
What a county body cannot do is know that the light at Route 376 has been out for a week, or that a particular stretch of Route 52 is about to be dug up, or that the printer three doors down would rather quote your job than lose it to a website. That is the work of a town association, and it is the only work we intend to do.
About East Fishkill
East Fishkill covers 57 square miles on the southern border of Dutchess County and is home to roughly 29,700 people spread across Hopewell Junction, Stormville, Wiccopee, Gayhead, Shenandoah, Fishkill Plains, Hortontown, and Pecksville. Interstate 84 and the Taconic State Parkway cross the town, and the Appalachian Trail passes through it.
Useful elsewhere: the Town of East Fishkill for permits, the building department and town board agendas; Dutchess County business resources; and the county chamber.
The town's economic history runs through Hudson Valley Research Park, which IBM opened in 1963 and which passed to GlobalFoundries and then to onsemi, who now operate it as their largest United States semiconductor plant. Around that campus sits the rest of the economy: the trades, the restaurants, the professional practices, the shops, and several hundred businesses small enough that the owner still answers the phone.
