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Brandon Burton 0:00
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You’re joining us for a special episode and our 2024 ACCE Chamber the Year Finalist Series and our guests for this episode is Chris Romer. Chris serves as the President and CEO of Vail Valley Partnership or the VVP. Vail Valley Partnership is a Regional Chamber of Commerce, destination sales organization and economic development organization representing Eagle County, Colorado and was named Chamber the Year by ACCE in 2016 and 2020. As CEO of the Vail Valley Partnership, he brings a wealth of experience in strategic planning, business development and partnership building to the organization. With a deep understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities facing Colorado’s mountain region. Chris is dedicated to driving innovation and collaboration to ensure the continued success and sustainability of local businesses and communities. Chris is a macroscopic thinker who believes in tackling big issues through localized solutions. He is a graduate of the US Chamber Foundation’s IOM program and is CCE certified chamber executive. He’s also been named a top 25 Mind in hospitality sales, marketing and revenue management by hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International Chamber Executive of the Year by the Colorado Association Chamber of Commerce and Industry Colorado chamber executives, and was named a PEDDIT award winner by the Western Association of Chamber Executives. Chris is a respected voice in the chamber and economic development fields and is known for his ability to bring stakeholders together to achieve common goals. Chris has a is committed to making positive impact within the Vail Valley and on a broader scale, serving on advisory boards and participating in initiatives aimed at advancing community prosperity and enhancing quality of life. Chris, first of all, congratulations to you and your team on this great accomplishment of being named a ACCE Chamber the Year Finalist again, that’s a huge feat, but uh, welcome to the show, I’ll give you a chance to say hello to all the listeners out there and and I love to have you share something interesting about yourself as well as we kick this off.
Chris Romer 3:32
Yeah, Brandon, thank you so much. And you know, it is such a such an honor to be recognized by ACCE as a finalist for chamber of the year. It’s such a testament to the people and the board and the community that we represent. And it’s something that we never, ever take for for granted. You know, we really try to keep our foot on the proverbial gas pedal, to move things forward and to represent the interests of our business community. So, such a great opportunity to share a little bit of our story with you and to be recognized by ACCE for those community programs and community impact that we that we strive to make so thank you so much. I also certainly realized that an interesting thing about me is probably the fact that I can’t write a short bio, that bio was awfully long and awkward. So I would I would love to have a second crack at that and just keep it a whole lot shorter. So we could talk about the fun stuff because talking about me not so much fun talking about our chamber and our community and our programs. A whole lot more interesting to people.
Brandon Burton 4:49
I could agree with that it talking about the the great work you guys are doing is much more impactful and meaningful anyway but it is fun to get to know the background on yet and you I’ll share a fun fact I think you are the first three Pete chamber chat podcast so there should be I feel like there should be a trophy or something for you for being I’ll take a trophy
Chris Romer 5:14
I would love to take a trophy for being the first three time visitor or three time guests on the on the chamber chat podcast.
Brandon Burton 5:22
Yes, yes, you You deserve it. So well tell us about your great team, their the Vail Valley Partnership, the the work you guys are involved with the size of your staff budget, scope of work all that as we get into our discussion today.
Chris Romer 5:37
Yeah, we have. We’re really fortunate I have a great team. We have a team of eight full time and two part time. Employees We are located in Edwards, Colorado. That’s Eagle County, Vail and Beaver Creek ski resorts, home to Vail, Beaver Creek ski resorts for those who might not know what Edward’s are or know where Eagle county might be. But we’re right in the heart of, of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. We have you had asked about our budget and membership size, we have just under 800 members. And our community is about 55,000 people. And that represents nine nine towns and we’re a countywide regional organization, our annual budget is about $1.3 million per year. You know, and I think the last part of what you had asked for in regards to giving people a perspective, we are a we’re a program driven chamber. We are a program driven chamber we have we have multiple 501 C sixes, we have c threes. And we have these different initiatives and we branch them off. And we’ll talk a little bit about more more about this, I think as we go through the podcast, but very program driven. And it reflects in in how we approach problems. And if that leads to some of our retention and other components that we may or may not touch on but we are we are very program driven group and you know, we’re not afraid to take big swings we take we take some really big swings within our community and in sometimes we strike out and sometimes we hit a double and occasionally we hit a homerun Yeah,
Brandon Burton 7:29
I think chamber works should be about those big swings make an impact. If you’re not if you’re not swinging big, what kind of impact are you making right? So I am excited to dive into this. So on these chamber the are finalists series for those who may not be familiar with the format, I’d like to really focus on the two programs and being program driven will focus on the two programs that were submitted on your chamber the your application and dive into some detail around those and why they worked for Vail Valley and we’ll dive into this as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Alright Chris, we’re back. So let’s let’s dive into these programs you submitted on the chamber the your application, I know. It can be tough sometimes to kind of narrow down the focus and what you want to put on the application and really highlight the work that you guys are doing. But how did you land on these on these two programs? And what are they?
Chris Romer 10:08
Yeah, it’s, you know, how we landed on them is a little bit what I talked about earlier in the podcast, around taking big swings. And recognizing that big ideas require big solutions. Both of our both of our Synopsys, both of our case studies are around that idea that big ideas require big solutions. So our first Synopsys is the Eagle Valley Transportation Authority, where we lead the yes for transit ballot campaign to create a transportation authority, which is something that had been lacking in our community. Our second synopsis is the eagle county Collaborative for career pathways. That is a talent pipeline, Workforce Initiative, in partnership with our K to 12 school system to identify and train young people into the jobs that our community needs. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 11:12
So just from our background, and having on the show a couple times before, I guess I have a little bit of maybe added perspective, I think about your community and and why these, these two programs specifically would be of importance. But let’s dive in a little bit more on the Regional Transit Authority. Why? Why was that a hot topic? Why Why was that a big swing in your community? What was the need? And and how did you guys go about addressing that?
Chris Romer 11:41
Yeah, it’s so it’s so important for us. So we started this process. Actually, before the before the pandemic we had brought together, we recognized our population is growing, our ski resorts need to be world class destinations, our visitors are continuing to come. And yet our community growth, strained our housing and transportation systems, and our ability to move our workforce from one side of our valley to the other. We’re about a 40 mile wide, 40 mile long valley, and about a mile and a half wide, right, you’re surrounded by mountains and national forest on two sides. So we’re along linear Valley, and our housing prices, our median housing price is $1.3 million. So we really needed a transportation system that could effectively and efficiently move our workforce, up and down our valley or housing is a little bit less expensive, on the western end. So our basic premise is that improved transit supports workforce that helps our residents get to work home and school, it allows our visitors to better enjoy their experience. And this is a regional issue that required a regional solution. So we initiated the business community, we brought together our local municipalities and county, some of them run their own transit authorities. But there was nothing collaborative and nothing that was truly Valley wide. So we did focus groups, we did phone surveys of voters, we looked at what different models exist for funding transportation. We looked at 18 different models and governance structures, and landed on the Regional Transportation Authority as our best bet forward. Then we looked at how do you fund this thing. And we could have done property tax or a sales tax. And we made the decision. To move forward, we made the call in June of 2022, to go to the ballot in November. At the time for it’s hard to think about now. At the time, inflation was at 9.2%. So when we talk about having having courage and taking big swings, we said we’re gonna go to the ballot, and we’re going to ask people for a sales tax to fund this. And by the way, knowing inflation was over 9%. And we made that call, unfortunately, inflation dropped a little bit by the time we had the election. But we passed. We passed in November of 2022. Pretty overwhelmingly, I think, because we really helped to tell the story and identify the need and what this would create. As we sit here today. We have a complimentary free bus system that runs the length of our valley. Ridership for this past winter season was up 164% over the previous model, and it’s saving people time and money.
Brandon Burton 14:58
That’s amazing. It just it to be able to see it through to. So a lot of times when we’re talking about these programs and maybe leading a ballot initiative, you haven’t seen it all the way through to this point, but being that you’ve been able to lead that been able to collect the data, you know, have a successful ballot measure, and then to be able to see the results, the fruit of it right now happening throughout your Valley. That’s, that’s amazing. And I’m sure you’re seeing economic tickers, you know, the different indicators that you can measure to see the impact throughout the community as well. We are
Chris Romer 15:36
we’re able to see the increase in ridership, we’re able to see how many routes are are scheduled, how they’re completed. We did include funding for air service development in our ballot initiative. That’s a program that we’ve run for years at the chamber. And we always fundraised for. So we actually baked that into the ballot question to fund that. And we have two new flights this summer that we’re able to use that that funding to support two new Air Service flights. So we’re seeing the benefits on a local level, from a workforce standpoint, from a visitor standpoint. And we have long term enhancements that are baked into this as well, which included affordable workforce housing for transit employees, and included zero admissions, conversion, to help meet our climate goals for our region. So we’re really we’re really excited about not just the bus transportation, which is a big part of it. But the secondary components that were able to be part of that ballot initiative and more part of our storytelling around air service development and increasing opportunities for visitors to get here and locals to go on vacation. And to help achieve our climate goals. So we’re really, this one’s a was a big swing. For all the reasons we talked about, and a really nice success story that is helping make people’s lives easier. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 17:07
So with the bus system, it’s a it’s a free transit, right? So is there a way to track when people get on how long they’re on? Or is it just kind of hop on hop off as you go. And now there’s
Chris Romer 17:20
bus counters, there’s counters to know what the ridership is and how it increased. You know, in January, for example, of 2024, we had over 218,000 unique riders on the bus. And that’s an increase from 167,000, the year before, in the same timeframe in January. So we’re huge ridership increases. And we’re, we’re paying for it through the sales tax instead of having people pay a fare. And we have new routes because of the new authority and able to bridge a lot of what the individual communities were already doing to provide that connectivity.
Brandon Burton 18:01
Yeah. So as far as bringing workforce into the valley, is that are you able to see that direct tie in where they’re coming from the west side of the valley? Like you’d mentioned?
Chris Romer 18:10
Yeah, we are a route. Again, we saw a 64% increase in in transit ridership from the lower part of our Valley. So we can track that. The new authority tracks it, they share it with us, our work is kind of done on this one. But yes, it’s a it’s a huge success. And the community recognizes the role that the Chamber played in initiating leading and passing this ballot initiative to create the new authority.
Brandon Burton 18:42
That’s great. And it’s always nice when you can hand it off when it’s done. And you don’t have to keep ownership of it ongoing. Right.
Chris Romer 18:47
You know, we we at the chamber at the partnership, we might be experts on our community. And we’re certainly experts on on convening leaders in order to get things done. We’re certainly an expert on being a catalyst for for business growth. We are not an expert on how to run a transportation authority. Right. So we’re happy to have this one off.
Brandon Burton 19:11
Absolutely. Well, let’s switch gears to the second program that was submitted on the application around that building that talent pipeline and kind of again, the the origins of it and how it developed and in the impact that it’s making in the community. Yeah,
Chris Romer 19:27
so the second is synopsis was the eagle county Collaborative for career pathways. And that was a program that had had grown and morphed. We’ve been running a youth apprenticeship programs for a number of years. We have a very successful youth apprenticeship model. We’re involved with career exploration, in partnership with another local nonprofit in our school system. And this we really recognize that There are a handful of us doing great work. And there is still an opportunity gap at the end. So we work in sync to create viable, affordable alternative pathways to get people into high quality careers, with the idea that those need to be transparent about the outcomes and the cost, help young people obtain their relevant job skills, and ensure that employers value recognize and hire from the kids that we put through this pathway. So in Eagle County, specifically, Brandon, our businesses show an average 10% gap in securing and retaining young professionals across industry sector, with health care and education, are rising to near 30% levels of that gap. So working with our business community, our school district, youth serving nonprofit agencies, were able to target those key sectors and build the collaborative, we’re very fortunate to receive a million dollar grant by which to do this work with the idea to strengthen the systems that already support the career pathways, increase student readiness to pursue pathways and increase students exploration and experience in career exploration, and exploring those career opportunities. So it’s a really nice partnership. It’s a really meaningful program with very tangible results. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 21:43
I think that’s a struggle that a lot of chambers have is trying to retain the workforce that you put them through K through 12. And, and for whatever reason, it’s like these students graduate high school, and they want to move on to the bigger and brighter things outside of the community they grew up in, right? And, you know, what can we do to try to keep them local, show them how great this community is, and, and maybe they go away to school somewhere and you’re, you know, get some kind of education, but bring them back is such a key to be able to entice them, show them what there is in the community to bring them back why it’s a place for them. So having a program like this, I think really hits on those points of need. And I could see being something that and I know a lot of chambers have some sort of a workforce development, you know, pipeline or program with the school districts and whatnot. But to be able to draw that attention and keep them, keep them in the community is so key. So I think this is great work that you guys are involved with this program specifically. There’s anything else stand out to you with this program? As far as trying to retain this workforce here? Is there any any kind of secret sauce that you’re seeing that’s really been the AHA kind of moment, or they just with how the partnership has developed that is really made a big, big impact? I
Chris Romer 23:13
think so I think the secret sauce or the the aha moment is that this needs to be a program that is business centric, right? It can’t be a program that is just a feel good or a do good for the kids. It has to benefit the business. And it has to strengthen the systems that support not only the career pathways for students, but solves problems for the businesses. And I think that’s a that’s a big component that sometimes when we think about workforce, even in the chamber business, inherently, to serve the needs of our businesses. When we ask businesses to donate their time, we ask businesses to donate their expertise, instead of flipping that equation and saying, we’re going to do this for the business. And it happens to help the kids. We do it for the business. We do everything we do to build a stronger community and stronger businesses, the kids and the career pathway is a way to build stronger businesses. It’s not asking the businesses to help kids.
Brandon Burton 24:23
Yeah, I think that is that is a key. I’m glad you made that point, that distinction, because I think it’s easy to look at the kids and they Oh, we want to help give them a good career. And that’s noble. That’s
Chris Romer 24:35
Yes. But but that’s a that’s a that’s a secondary outcome. That’s not the primary purpose. Exactly.
Brandon Burton 24:40
Yeah. So you get the businesses on board by letting them know this is about you. This is about strengthening your business and providing good talent, you know, to keep the strong. I’m glad you made that distinction. That’s great. So I like it, especially as a as a chamber the year finalists? I think chambers can can look at you as kind of the top of the game right now, you know, as a chamber, they are finalists, and for a chamber listening who’s trying to elevate their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tips or strategies might you offer for listeners to try to accomplish that goal and to try to give that their organization that boost they’re looking for?
Chris Romer 25:24
Yeah, it’s it’s such a great if thought challenge for for chambers of commerce, to think, how do we what is that? What is that one tip? What’s the one thing you would share? And I’m going to answer that by suggesting and challenging chambers, to move away from thinking that what we do have it fixes technical challenges in our community. We don’t have technical challenges. Technical challenges are things that can be fixed by engineers, they can be fixed by surgeons and people with specific training. There’s not too many of us that came into this business, trained to run a chamber of commerce, right, we’re trained in a more of an adaptive way. So that’s my takeaway. Recognize that you have adaptive challenges, not technical challenges. And let me expand on that a little bit. Because I expect that doesn’t make much sense. Without context. When we think of adaptive challenges, the things that we face in our community, maybe it’s early childhood, transportation or workforce, maybe it’s homelessness, it could be any number of different things. We have the white. So then the question is, so what? Right, so what right that that’s a problem. And then it’s now what? How are we going to do that? So the framework, and the challenge to listeners thinking about adaptive challenges? is learning learning the what? Listening, taking action, I think we collectively do a great job of listening. Every chamber listening to this listens to their businesses listens to their community does surveys, they listen. It’s the question of taking action, how do we take action? How do I identify the steps to take action. The two last parts I’ll add on this is adaptive challenges have long term implications. They’re not transactional, they’re not, we’re going to do this, they have long term, community benefit, long term benefit to the chamber to the, to the community, to the businesses. And we’re really never ever going to fix quote, unquote, fix, and adaptive challenge. All the things I listed early childhood, workforce, housing, workforce development, talent pipeline. It’s homelessness, when we say fix what we mean is make better chambers have a very unique positioning and a position of trust within their communities, to tackle these adaptive challenges that are hard, they’re long term, and fixing the endzone always moves. So fixing these challenges really means making it better. And that that changes year after year, initiative after initiative, it never really goes away. And that creates stability. And that should hopefully create fundraising opportunities and grant funding and membership retention, and all the things. So that’s my one takeaway, and it was a really long answer. But I really want to share that if we can do that. And we can shift our thinking away from technical into adaptive, that chambers are going to fly, we’re going to thrive, because we’re going to be so uniquely positioned that no one can do what we do.
Brandon Burton 29:01
Yeah. So I like the idea that that adaptive challenges have long term implications. And I know you mentioned at the beginning of the episode about retention, and that kind of plays into here. Is there. Is there more you wanted to touch on with the aspect of retention before we wrap things up? Um,
Chris Romer 29:22
no, I don’t think so. I mean, I think that if anything, it’s really just when we talk about retention, there’s so many ways to spin that as retention of employees retention of people in our communities retention of business, retention of membership. I think if we as chambers, have had this mind frame of tackling big problems in our community and approaching it in an adaptive relationship driven manner. Then our work becomes central to the success of the community. And if we become central to the success of the community, we have solved retention at each of those levels that I talked about.
Brandon Burton 30:06
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. So the question I asked everyone as they haven’t on the show is about the future of chambers, which I think you kind of touched on with your your tip there. But how do you see the future of chambers in their purpose going forward?
Chris Romer 30:21
Yeah, I did lead into this a little bit or leak into this, if you will. But the I think the future of chambers is really, really bright, with a caveat. And that caveat is if we roll up our sleeves and tackle the big problems, our purpose, our purpose needs to be around that, that problem solving. And again, when I say problem solving, I mean, making things better versus versus traditionally fixing things. But we can make things better. I think all the finalists that you’re going to be talking to throughout this series, probably have one, if not both of their synopsis, focusing on how they made their community better. And I think that’s a lesson for everybody within the chamber of business. And if we can focus on our purpose being problem solving, and how we do that, knowing that it’s really hard, knowing that it’s long term, knowing that it causes some sleepless nights, knowing that it’s probably not going to go over well with everybody in our community. And we’re going to have the courage to do those things. Boy, the future of chambers is so bright.
Brandon Burton 31:31
Yeah. encouraged as important in that, as you mentioned, so absolutely. Swing big and have courage. Chris, this has been fun to have you back on chamber chat podcast. I love the pieces of advice you share the experiences you have, and especially the impact you guys are making. They’re there in the Vail Valley. I’d like to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who’d like to reach out and connect with you and learn more about what you guys are doing there at the VVP we’re what would be the best way to connect with you. Yeah,
Chris Romer 32:06
you can find all of my contact information on our website at VailValleyPartnership.com. That’s VailValleyPartnership.com. I can be reached at cromer@VailValleyPartnership.com. And you can find me on most of the social channels and my phone numbers on the website as well and all of that, but VailValleyPartnership.com is your best place to go.
Brandon Burton 32:31
Very good. So back from Episode 21, I think was your first appearance and we’re at episode 285 Now, but this has been a blast, Chris. Thanks for being with us. Again. Here. You’re on chamber chat podcast today and wish you and your team the best of luck.
Chris Romer 32:48
Thanks so much, Brandon.
Brandon Burton 32:51
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