By MATT CHANDLER
mchandler@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1654

When attorney Joe Hanna came up with the idea for Success in the City, it was based on the knowledge that segregation has and will continue to have a crippling effect on the quality of life and business in Buffalo. He set out to change that with the inaugural Success in the City event in 2008.

Billed as a "network diversity event," Hanna wanted to bring together people from the business, civic, nonprofit and educational communities for an evening of pure networking.

He said he crafted it to be intentionally devoid of the long speeches and rigid structure that he saw impeding the chance for folks to get to know each other.

"If we can bring together bankers, judges, executives from around the city and have students from Bryant & Stratton there with the chance to meet them and network, that's a great thing," he said prior to this year's event on Oct. 19.

After hosting 140 individuals in 2008, Success in the City has grown each year and attracts a who's who of the business community.

With this year's event running the same evening that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts came to town for a public speech, some were concerned it might lose steam. Hanna wasn't worried, however.

"We'll get our numbers," he said a week before the event. And it did.

"This year, Success in the City had its largest group of people - from all walks of life, from all throughout Western New York - attend our event," he said. "This year we eclipsed the 500-person plateau."

Despite that, Hanna says there is much work to be done.

"Buffalo is still one of the most segregated and poorest cities in the United States," he said. "Attempts to bring people together or ideas to try to break down the barriers that are holding this city back from being great need to be implemented."

Hanna, a native of Western New York and a partner in the law firm Goldberg Segalla, jumped at the chance to play a role in the rebirth of the city he is passionate about. He scoffs at naysayers who say Buffalo can't change.

"If we all work together, I know that we can make Western New York a better place. Over the course of the last three years, I have heard the success stories stemming from our event," he said. "New jobs and internships for the students who attend; grants being given to groups or efforts after the principals met at our event for the first time; or as simple as monthly lunches between individuals from two different walks of life who would have never met one another but for our event."