Raymond T. Schuler - The Business Council

The Business Council

Meanwhile Mr. Schuler began the negotiations that led, in 1980, to the consolidation of Associated Industries with its longtime rival, the Empire State Chamber of Commerce, to form The Business Council — a single, unified voice for all employers in New York State. The new organization’s first chairman was Frank T. Cary, who was then the chairman and chief executive officer of IBM Corporation.

The most contentious aspect of consolidating the two organizations had been Mr. Schuler’s insistence that the Board of Directors of the new Business Council should consist of senior corporate executives. The boards of the two predecessor organizations had included a number of mid-level executives who had less clout both within their companies and with government. The senior executives for the new Board were recruited with the active help of Amory Houghton, Jr., then the chairman/CEO of Corning Inc. (and later a Member of Congress), who had first met Mr. Schuler during Corning’s recovery efforts after Hurricane Agnes.

With the consolidated structure in place, Mr. Schuler set about increasing the resources, visibility, stature and clout of the new Business Council. He cast aside the old model of a “special interest” business lobby, and determinedly positioned The Business Council as an advocate of economic growth that would benefit all the people of the state.

After Mr. Schuler pledged his personal financial resources in order to secure low-cost financing for a new headquarters, the Council renovated a historic but abandoned building at 152 Washington Avenue in Albany; the staff was moved into the new facility in 1981. He strengthened the dues base of the organization, tripled its lobbying and public-relations staff, and expanded the insurance programs that helped its members cut the cost of doing business. He created a research affiliate, The Public Policy Institute, to do in-depth analysis of New York’s economic and social problems.

To project a positive image of New York State to the rest of the world, The Council founded a magazine called New York Alive. In it, Mr. Schuler repeatedly expressed his deeply held affection for New York and its people. “What a state!” he wrote once. “Not just because of its geological features and its natural resources. But New York in its total sense — the land, the life style, the work, the culture and, most importantly, the people. Together, the whole adds up to more than the sum of the parts.”

His service at The Business Council strengthened Mr. Schuler’s reputation for consummate skills as both an executive and a lobbyist. And he relished the occasional flamboyant gesture — such as his public presentation of two dozen red roses to then Assembly Speaker Mel Miller in 1986 upon the passage of a major tax-cut bill.