NFIB layoffs to reduce local presence

Consolidation in tech staff comes a little over a year after national small-biz org gained first non-Nashville leader in a generation

Email | Print By E. Thomas Wood

The National Federation of Independent Business, which has had a large presence in Nashville for more than a quarter-century, is paring back its local operations under a new leader who is the organization's first chief from somewhere other than Middle Tennessee since 1983.

The NFIB yesterday told 24 Nashville-based employees in its information technology unit that they will be laid off. A local representative of the organization referred questions about the layoffs to Mike Diegel, a spokesman in Washington, D.C.

"We're just trying to redeploy some resources to better serve our members," Diegel told NashvillePost.com, describing the workforce reduction as a "streamlining" move.

The NFIB, the nation's largest association of small businesses and a political power at all levels of government across the country, moved its headquarters from California to Nashville in 1992. But the federation had been led from here since nearly a decade earlier.

John Sloan Jr., of the family that had owned Nashville's Cain-Sloan department stores, took over leadership of the NFIB in 1983 and did much to raise its public profile. After his death, Brentwood bank consultant Jack Faris took the reins in 1992. During his tenure, the NFIB's role as a political voice for entrepreneurs took center stage.

Faris retired at the end of last March. Todd Stottlemyer, who succeeded Faris, had previously been CEO of Apogen Technologies, an information technology company based in Northern Virginia that primarily works on U.S. government contracts.