When Chris Collins ran for county executive on a strong pro-business platform back in 2007, more than a few eyebrows were raised when the Buffalo Niagara Partnership failed to endorse his candidacy.

The entrepreneur and management wizard who promised to “run county government like a business” had somehow run afoul of the region’s most powerful business executives.

But there are signs of softening in the once prickly relationship.

Though the bonds are still not totally warm and fuzzy, the Partnership and county executive increasingly find themselves in sync on a host of economic development issues.

Some of the new signs of cooperation between the Rath County Office Building and the Partnership include:

Partnership endorsement in last week’s election of four Republican candidates deemed especially close to Collins: unsuccessful comptroller candidate Philip C. Kadet and successful Legislature candidates Kevin R. Hardwick, Lynne Dixon and Dino Fudoli.

The Committee for Economic Growth, the Partnership’s political action committee, gave $5,000 on Oct. 29 to Taxpayers First, a Collins fund that supports his favored candidates.

The election of Jonathan A. Dandes, president of the Buffalo Bisons and close Collins ally, as Partnership chairman.

The county executive acknowledges his nonrelationship with the Partnership after it sat out the 2007 election, especially since the organization regularly endorses pro-business candidates.

At the time, Democratic county executive candidate James P. Keane said the non-endorsement “speaks volumes.”

“It’s very, very significant that the region’s chief business organization will not endorse a guy who is a businessman,” he said in 2007. “They’ve got him figured out. They know he’s not a good businessman with good ideas, nor does he have answers for Erie County government. They know he is naive.”

Keane also called it a “tacit endorsement” for him.

But now Collins says whatever animosity or “tension in the air” resulting from the campaign has evaporated with the election of Dandes as the organization’s chairman.

“As chairman of the Partnership, he and I said from Day One that it was important for that little bit of contentiousness or uncomfortable feeling — call it what you will — to end after the election,” Collins said. “And we dealt with it.”

Partnership President Andrew J. Rudnick acknowledges improved relations with the county executive, especially with the appointment of Kathy Konst as county commissioner of environment and planning.

“She’s pretty savvy about dealing with development and smart growth and balancing that with the county executive’s particular interests,” he said. “She seems to be handling it pretty darn well.”

But the main connection lies with Dandes, whom Collins calls “one of my closest confidants and friends.”

“He and I said from Day One this had to improve,” Collins said, citing a number of his business-friendly goals as those he shares with the Partnership.

Dandes said the “reality” of Western New York’s economic problems has forced Collins and the Partnership to come together.

“The Partnership has come a long way, and Chris has come a long way,” Dandes said of the relationship. “It’s part of our agenda to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“We’re in an environment where if this community does not work together and work out our differences, we’re in a lot more trouble than we think we are,” he added.

Dandes said government’s role in reducing taxes and fees is too important to the region for differences to exist with business. He added that Collins has brought a “sense of accountability” to county government and shares Partnership goals.

Collins also has established relationships with others in the business community, such as developer Carl P. Paladino, a frequent and vocal critic of the Partnership.

Several of Paladino’s companies combined to give $10,000 to Collins’ Taxpayers First committee after Paladino said one of the county executive’s aides asked him to contribute specifically to the fund.

“It was wrong for them not to support him,” Paladino said of the Partnership. “He talked about everything we are about.”

Paladino cited Collins’ opposition to legislation that forces developers to pay prevailing wages, apprenticeship laws that benefit unions and the Wicks Law requiring contractors to seek several suppliers for various aspects of building projects.

“I don’t like Chris Collins trying to say he’s not a politician when he is a politician,” Paladino said. “But right now, he’s the best leader we’ve got.”