John Musella, the chairman of the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce sat down Friday for a KHTS on-air interview about the 1,000 business strong chamber and his goals as a business leader for the rest of the year.

“We’re one of the largest chambers in L.A. County and in southern California,” Musella said. “Representing the third largest city here in L.A. County.”

The 94-year-old organization represents Santa Clarita businesses both small and large at all levels of government, from the city council and L.A. County Board of Supervisors to Sacramento and D.C.

Musella is serving his turn in a one-year term as chairman of the chamber, but even before that was a leading advocate for local business.

“One thing that affects small businesses in particular, and honestly one of our largest businesses here in Santa clarita, magic mountain, was the minimum wage,” Musella said. “And the Santa Clarita chamber was at the forefront of that discussion … When the County of L.A. was looking at raising the minimum wage, we were out there advocating for local businesses.”

While Musella conceded that there was no way to stop the increase, the chamber worked with the county to find ways to be responsible with how the plan was rolled out.

“Obviously we felt it shouldn’t have been raised, but at the end of the day we knew that was something that was going to happen,” he said. “We wanted to make sure it was done as responsibly as possible for local businesses. Because it’s a huge impact to the bottom line, especially to our local small businesses.”

Musella said the group felt a responsibility to their members to make sure they had time to make arrangements for the cost increase.

“We wanted to make sure that any raise to the minimum wage was done over time in a responsible manner so that businesses could adjust,” he said.

Like many nonprofits in Santa Clarita, the chamber was forced to adjust after the 2008 recession.

“It was really a resetting of the plate, not only for companies and local businesses, but nonprofits as well,” Musella said of the economic downturn. “It’s a process, and we’re working our way through that process right now so we can come out stronger, bigger and better at the end of the day.”

He said his goal for the organization was to expand the chamber to include more of the 13,000 businesses in the Santa Clarita Valley.

“What we need to do is more education, more outreach, more access to business leaders in the valley,” Musella said.

He said he hoped to be an example for members as the chamber restructures itself to be more efficient and effective.

“Because at the end of the day,” he said, “everyone has limited resources and we want to make sure the chamber is using it’s resources as efficiently as possible, because that’s the responsible way to do business, especially for a membership organization such as ours.”

However, he said the growth of longtime businesses and the recent addition of several popular locations has been a good sign.

“These businesses are vital to our economy,” Musella said. “It’s important to have these big businesses here because our small businesses cater and sell their services to them. Our medium sized businesses (and) restaurants also get business from that. So it’s really important to have all these different types of businesses working together.

As the valley grows, Musella said, having a chamber of commerce becomes more valuable to the community.

“People still think of Santa Clarita as a small town,” he said. “But at the end of the day we’re over a quarter of a million people here in the valley.”