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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
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You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE chamber, the year finalist series. And as our guest for this episode, we have Juliet Abdel and Bob Ross with the Greater Topeka Partnership. Juliet serves as the president of the Greater Topeka Chamber, making history as the first woman to lead the organization since its founding in 1933 she’s recognized among the top 1% of chamber executives nationwide, and contributes her expertise to various leadership and advisory boards, including the ACCE and Leadership Program of the Rockies. Juliet’s commitment to community service is evident through her involvement with organizations like the American Heart Association’s Go Red program and women of heart, as well as her service on the US Chamber board of directors. She holds a Master’s Degree in International Studies and has authored publications on female empowerment and entrepreneurship. Juliet strategic leadership has earned statewide and national recognition as she is multilingual, speaking English, Arabic and Turkish. Bob is the Chief Marketing Officer for the greater Topeka partnership, and he plays a key role in promoting economic growth and community development in Topeka and shiny County. A Topeka native Bob has extensive experience in merchandise allocation and planning, having spent over 15 years at Payless shoe source, including leading international operations in Israel, Peru, Thailand, Vietnam and Australia. Bob returned to Topeka in 2019 and now contributes his expertise to advancing the initiatives of the Greater Topeka Partnership, working alongside Juliet to drive growth and success for the region. But Bob Juliet, welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. We’re excited to have you on the show today. Congratulations to you guys, and your team has been selected as a chamber of the year finalist. It’s very exciting, but I wanted to give you both a chance to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and if you would humor us and share something interesting about yourself, so we can all get to know you both a little bit better. Juliet, you want to go first
Juliet Abdel 3:26
Sure. Thank you so much, Brandon for having us both on here. You’ve done an exceptionally a great job about summarizing our achievements, and it’s so well, and I’m just, you know, gawking at myself without even, you know, blinking an eye. But no super exciting time for us, of course, and to see our organization gets to this level and and to have this attention on a lot of the initiatives and programs that we have going on. So you know, you’ve already led with a lot of amazing things. So one interesting thing about myself is I’m branded as the self care boss, because I always continue to advocate for self care and holistic wellness by focusing on mental, emotional and physical well being. So in my personal life, I do a lot of speaking engagements. I lead Love Yourself boot camps. I am a published author, international radio show host, and that is what holds me personally accountable to my own personal goals in life, and having that balance as much as I can have in a crazy, busy world that we live in, I
Brandon Burton 4:27
love that. That’s awesome. Bob, how about yourself?
Bob Ross 4:31
Well, Julie, it’s a tough act to follow, but I will say, you know, probably a distinguishing factor of me, as I’m a proud dad of five kids that keep me very, very, very busy, and my per capita income very, very low, as I am constantly navigating their dreams. But it’s also part of the reason why I’m so passionate about this work, because I do believe what chambers can do is they really set the table for future generations, and so leaving the private sector after. For 20 years, it allowed me to discover an industry which is about, you know, investing in that future generation by creating a better community, you know, for my kids. And I think that that’s, you know, exciting work. And I think that often the chamber industry is not fully understood. But when people do work and discover it. They realize it’s, you know, really such an important part of the mission of, you know, handing off a better generation to the one that comes behind us. So, so, yeah, that’s a little about
Brandon Burton 5:32
me. That’s great not to put you on the spot, Bob. But what’s the range of the
Bob Ross 5:36
kids now? They are my youngest. She is 15. My oldest is 23 and so, yeah, so I got three in college, which is why I constantly feel broke. 24/7 is that I often tell people, it’s like, you think when they’re 18, that you are good. No, they just become more expensive after they’re 18. And but, yeah, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Like I said, they definitely keep me on my toes. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 6:00
that’s great. Um, well, Juliet, why don’t you tell us a little bit about the greater Topeka partnership. Just to give us an idea of size, staff, scope of work, you guys are involved with budget, just kind of set the stage.
Juliet Abdel 6:13
Sure. I’m going to give a 3000 foot perspective. I think Bob said it so well when people don’t understand what our industry is and how much of a hidden gem it is. Let’s even further add to that, these layers of differences between one community to the next and how Chambers of Commerce is operate. Our community is super unique because we have this collaborative structure that’s Brandon as the greater Topeka partnership. And what that essentially means is we have four organizations that have come together, that touch Economic Community Development, all agreeing to this economic vitality and pursuing this hope, happiness and wealth for Topeka and the surrounding region. And we do that through cross collaboration, through working together to advance initiatives and projects forward, and of course, through sharing resources, staff and even office space. So when we’re looking at the entire partnership, that’s upward of 40 employees that work here, about a $13 million budget that’s mixed between public and private sector, the individual entities that make us up, of course, represent collectively, the 1000 plus members that we have in the surrounding community, and that’s businesses, it’s nonprofits, it’s key stakeholders that you can think of and attribute to our population in that in our service areas, about 178,000 so the four organizations that came together, of course, were the Chamber of Commerce, which I lead, as you shared, that is A group that’s focused on government affairs, regulatory support, public policy efforts, connecting businesses to resources and, of course, to their elected officials. Go to pica, who will spend some time on as it relates to this specific effort, handles all of our economic development for Topeka and Shawnee County, focusing on business retention expansion, support, through incentives, through workforce development, childcare, and through different events and trainings that are designed to equip those businesses with ultimate success. Visit Topeka is focused on attracting people to our area and activating our residents and ensuring that people are aware of the things that that they can visibly go out and see, things they can do, where to stay, shop and dine and essentially invest in a community, if they’re coming from outside and if they’re internally here, then grow to appreciate the things that make us truly unique. And the fourth being downtown Topeka, which is focused on ensuring that our heartbeat for the community continues to thrive and continues to be available to those merchants that make up your traditional Main Street corridor. And so they focus on things like safety, Beautification and grants, and again, being that resource for those businesses that are in the area. So four powerful organizations that convene and collaborate and partner under the name of the greater Topeka partnership. We’re still separate organizations, separate budgets, bylaws. We just have this very incestuous relationship that I find my best to explain. I
Brandon Burton 9:13
think you did a fantastic job explaining it, and I love how you guys can take advantage of that overlap to be able to share some staff and some responsibilities, but still keep things separate. I also really like with visit Topeka, you talked about activating residents. I’m like that is such a great term to activate residents so well for the majority of our conversation today, what we want to do is focus on the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application that are being highlighted, and we will dive into those with much greater detail as soon as I get back from this quick break.
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Brandon Burton 12:40
All right, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’re going to cover the two program synopsis that were included in your chamber of the year application. Lindsay, it’s my understanding you had a significant, pretty significant role in the application and pulling everything together. So I’d like to hand the microphone over to you and have you highlight, I know there’s two different programs, one about an airport, one about move to Jackson. Do you want to highlight move to Jackson for us first, and what that program, what the origins were, kind of the background and and how things have evolved to what it is today.
Brandon Burton 12:36
All right, we are back, as I mentioned before the break, we’re diving into the two programs from your chamber of the year application, Bob, I want to hand the microphone over to you and have you highlight the first program, which I believe you called choose Topeka, 2.0 you want to tell us what that’s all about.
Bob Ross 12:55
Absolutely choose Topeka began in 2019 as a program through our economic development organization, go Topeka, and you have to understand the funding model for go Topeka, we enjoy a percentage of a half cent sales tax, which generates about $5 million a year, and funding that can be used to attract businesses through traditional business attraction efforts. It’s used to invest in our small businesses to encourage growth within our community, but uniquely, we began to look at how we can deploy those dollars to enhance and attract talent. And with Topeka, it’s a unique community that, you know, I often tell people, up until 1980 this community was growing at about a 20% decennial rate, but through the 90s and 2000s our growth really stalled to really be pretty much low single digits to flat as we started moving into 2020, and choose. Topeka was a program that was initiated to reintroduce our community, not just to the state of Kansas, but to the region and across the world. And part of that was driven by the fact that Topeka is a community over the last 10 years, has radically chose to reinvest in itself, with over $500 million put into our downtown with new business growth, and we’ve done the work to rebuild our community. Now we wanted essentially people to essentially rediscover it, because as late as 2020, over 40% of our workforce chose to work in Topeka but live outside the community. So the Choose program was developed with one core component, which is offering people up to $15,000 to relocate to Topeka and Shawnee County if they were to work for one of our local employers during the pandemic, we layered in a remote work incentive, which became very popular. But then in 2023 we relaunched the program as choose Topeka 2.0 we sunset. The remote worker incentive. But decided to look at, what does Topeka need to do to compete for talent and raise awareness as our community as a place to work, live and play, and what advantages could we offer that conversation? And choose Topeka 2.0 layered in a $5,000 relocation grant to those that formerly lived in our community, $5,000 to those who are transitioning veterans, because we have nearby Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth, as well as our own local Air National Guard and Air Force contingent here in Topeka. But then we also started to consider what other ways could we attract the workforce we need in our community? And we began to look at just the strengths our community had to offer. And we noticed immediately, Topeka has a very strong and proud Hispanic heritage. Often say there were three communities or three groups that originally founded the city back in the 19th century. They were abolitionists, freed slaves and Mexican immigrants that came to build the railroad. To build the railroad, and so for over 100 years, our Mexican community, you know, has thrived for 92 years. We have a vibrant Fiesta, and we really have a lot of Latino excellence within our city. So we decided, You know what, let’s capitalize on that, knowing that there are 100,000 Spanish speakers in the Kansas City Metro, which is 45 minutes to our east, and there’s over 300,000 Spanish speakers across the state of Kansas, how do we begin to reach out to them and let them know if you’re legally eligible to work and Topeka and Shawnee County, we want you that this is a community that’s Very welcoming that we have jobs here we are growing. And how do we begin to speak and engage with them about the programs, like our incentive programs and other assets, which makes peak a really dynamic place to live. And so what we did was is we essentially started producing all of our collateral in Spanish, including 110 page tourism and relocation guide. And then we began to also court our national media, because we enjoy a great relationship with a New Jersey based PR firm, and we began to really just talk about this intentionality with Spanish language, and that really captured a lot of interest. We were able to welcome Telemundo into our community. And October of 2023 we were able to get the Wall Street Journal here. And there was a disruptive element to a community that identified Hispanic migration is a solution to a problem, not a problem. We also worked with local nonprofits, and there’s a group called top city promise, which began to actively work with refugee groups that were legally eligible to work in the United States following the onset of the Ukraine war. And through that program, although they’re not eligible for the incentive per se, we were able to essentially come alongside them and see what we can do to connect them to employers. And that particular program brought over 200 Ukrainian refugees who had work eligibility through the United for Ukraine program, we were able to get them job placement at a 90% rate, serving important workforce needs within our community. And I will say, after our Telemundo appearance, that particular moment went viral across Spanish language, Tiktok garnering billions of views across the Spanish speaking world, and really drove a highly motivated population to find a way to Topeka. I mean, we had, within days, people showing up at our door saying, you know, knocking on our door, asking for information about how they can relocate their business to Topeka. We had one gentleman, his son and his grandfather, who have a business in New Jersey, who said they heard about Topeka is a great place for Hispanics, and they wanted to see what they could do, and so we had to rapidly spin up our Spanish speaking staff to be able to engage these communities also address some misconceptions about the program, and, you know, really kind of harness that momentum. It has proven to be incredibly successful, to the point where the Brookings Report released data at the spring of this year, which showed that 99% of Topeka is growth over the last year, was from foreign born groups, and that’s a tremendous movement, because when you do live in Kansas, you’re in a community which is fantastic, but we’re often considered flyover country. So you know, trying to get a mobilized workforce from around the country that is considering where they want to live, getting on their radar was the first hurdle. So we tried to activate every vehicle at our disposal. And so I think between the incentives and our foreign language outreach, we were able to really make a dent and reverse a trend some additional metrics showing how the progress has. Worked. You know that decline in population or stagnation has been reversed to the point in 2023 we led the state of Kansas in population growth. We now boast one of the top 10 housing markets in the United States, and in the fall of 2023 we ended up rising up to be the number one housing market in the United States, according to the Wall Street Journal and realtor.com so this, this intentionality focused with, you know, a pretty bold use of funding really helped push us forward we’re now. One of our biggest concerns is, how do we keep up with the housing demand? Because Topeka was not quite ready for the shift in momentum that we enjoyed. That was
Brandon Burton 20:40
going to be one of my questions. There’s going to be these the fallout from such growth so quickly. And I love how you said you took what may be considered a problem in some communities and really seeing it as a strength, as an asset and an asset. But when you have that kind of rapid growth overnight, that that creates other problems, right? But absolutely, but problems we’re all happy to deal with because it means progress. So I can imagine, when there’s in most communities, there’s a pretty large segment of the community that has a certain level of comfort with how things are, and then they see a disruption like this that comes in, even though it’s a good thing that are going to be kind of that squeaky wheel in a community. I’m curious, where was there any attention that needed to be paid to the policy side of this to make sure that everything Bob talked about making sure people are legally able to work in the community? Juliet, what what was the approach from the policy standpoint? Yeah,
Juliet Abdel 21:43
that’s such a great question, and it’s, it’s always one of those where explaining the structure really explains how we approach everything, because we know that things naturally happen as initiatives are are brought forward. So there are three things that I just want to quickly unpack and all of these amazing comments that Bob threw out there. One is, of course, from a policy perspective, we’re here for our business community and make sure that that it is favorable for their continued growth and for them to continue to thrive in the space that they’re in. And we know a crucial component to that is things, not only in the space of economic development, but to really pare that down even further. That touches workforce development. It touches housing and it touches cost of living, and that’s all of those marry into this economic prosperity piece that we spoke to earlier. So this initiative was one, as Bob was sharing earlier. You know, it really was focused and came out of our Go economic development arm, but it touched a number of different sectors in our community, as he shared, right the military component transitional soldiers that touches our chamber, because we have a military Relations Council that’s purely designed to build this defense ecosystem to support with workforce development opportunities for those that have served. I mean, Kansas has over seven different installations across the state, and we have, of course, our Kansas Air National Guard that’s here, are 1/90 refueling wing, and then Forbes field. So it naturally had that overlap that’s there. The component of the housing piece is super interesting, because I don’t know what community isn’t feeling a strain on housing. We just have had such a boom in all places possible. And so to that, you know, to that end, we’ve always continued to advocate that we need to come up with simpler and easier solutions for those that are looking to do business in our community, to find it easy to enter our market. And what are those things that we can do to make it more of an opportune environment for someone to invest in building new homes or building homes that are the missing middle we have a number of our businesses that support a diversity of housing. So it’s not just one type of housing. It is all of them that we are looking to try and continue to see come live, the single family homes, the condos, affordable housing, and the whole gamut. Because it’s people become economically more mobile. They they also transition into different types of rentals or home ownership. And then the component of you know this perception is everyone’s reality sometimes. So semantics are really important in this conversation. That’s why we specifically worded it as legally eligible individuals that are here because we know that all types of residents contribute to our pipelines, but we also rely on a significant number of workers that come from outside of the US to feed into our different industries. And so our continued approach has been we need immigration reform that makes sense, while we understand that we want to protect our nation and our interests and and keep as much focus on the process as possible, and really having a great structure. There is a backlog on worker visa permits. There are times where individuals are here and they’re here working, but it’s been delayed in their process to continue to. Send out, and that creates uncertainty. And anytime there’s uncertainty, it causes disruption in our businesses and their ability to kind of forecast moving forward as well. So I know that touches a few different things, but I wanted to throw it out there, because as Bob was sharing, I was like, Oh, this is another piece we we overlap, and that that relationship that we have helps us in making sure the messaging is appropriate, and we’re thinking of all the things that we can
Brandon Burton 25:25
possible. Yeah, I like to think of it as job security at the chamber. You know, you guys create a great program that drives, you know, workforce development and economic development, but it creates other things that you need to address now, you know, like we talked about with housing and and things like that, immigration reform, things that that need to be addressed and and keeps the the relevancy for what the chamber does. But let’s, I love that program. Let’s shift gears and and turn the focus on the second program. Bob, if you want to highlight what the second program is, you guys submitted on your application?
Bob Ross 26:01
Yeah, absolutely. You know, at Topeka, like many communities around the country, you know, back in the 1980s this city invested in the development of a real destination Mall. It was a million square foot piece of retail real estate. Vanna White came to cut the ribbon on it. It really embodied everything that the 80s and 90s and early 2000s represented in terms of mall traffic and became a real draw across the state, like most malls across the country, towards the 2000 10s and going through the pandemic, that piece of real estate in our community, which anchors a billion dollar commercial corridor for us really started to see distress. You know, shopping patterns were changing. That million square foot piece of retail real estate began to decline to the point where we only had about 25% occupancy in it, and we had a more predatory real estate developer purchase the mall post pandemic, without really the intention of developing the asset for long term success. So our community recognized it as a potential real challenge, not just to you know, our continued ability to attack or attract and retain talent, but also to really project ourselves as a destination across the region. And we were fortunate that in 2023 one of our major employers, advisors Excel, saw the potential in that real estate to make it a development project which could enhance their own growth plans, but also give back to the community that gave them success. So advisors Excel is one of the largest financial marketing firms and wealth management groups in the country. They have over 1000 employees, and they are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, and their rapid growth has led to increasing demand for how do they keep up with the ability to work from work and provide office space for all their staff within Topeka, their founders identified the mall is a solution to this challenge, and they purchased that mall with the intention of redeveloping it into 400,000 square feet of office space as well as 600,000 square feet mixed use dining restaurant lifestyle space. Because as also, offices and employers across the country are figuring out how to incentivize workers to be back in the office and be happy about it. They really saw the ability of creating this new mixed use campus as a way of really rewarding their employees for being back in the office space, contributing to that sense of corporate culture, but providing the amenities that they need. So now how the partnership features in this particular conversation, we began to think of ways that we could enhance this effort and draw awareness for this retail redevelopment project, and what our team decided to do was to look at how we do our annual meeting and re imagine that is a way of being a part of this catalytic announcement of a new future for Westridge Mall. So we took our annual meeting, we moved it into the mall, and we really created a 1980s themed mall party, and brought in a popular 1980s pop star, Tiffany, known for her mall tour during that era, to really headline our event. And everyone came and themed attire. You know, you had stonewashed jeans and people tight rolling their jeans and neon T shirts. And we also worked with our local businesses to essentially re skin the food court so that it would look like a 1980s food court. And this really proved to be an exciting event for our community. It normally annual meetings tend to be kind of closed off events where people buy their tables and we still. Had that element involved in ours, but since it was held in the food court, the programming and the experience was also open to the public for the first time. So you did buy tables as normal, but the public was invited to kind of stand outside of the event zone and enjoy the the concert, hear about the community’s progress, and it really proved to be an exciting way of kind of jump starting that mall project and raising awareness for it on a national scale. As our as advisors Excel and their team looks to reintroduce that property to national retailers and bringing businesses back. So I always like to use it as a way of encouraging chambers of commerce across the country to get creative with their programming and see how even existing things that they’re doing can be leveraged, leveraged or reimagined, to provide added value to their businesses and economic development
Brandon Burton 30:56
projects. That’s awesome. I’m having all these flashbacks in my mind of the 80s and what the malls look like in their hat. So I’m curious, did you guys serve hot dog on the stick and Orange Julius?
Bob Ross 31:06
We did. We absolutely had an we did. We had an Orange Julius sought. We also set up a GTP shots the instead of glamor shots, where people could get a feather boa and get their their pictures. So we brought in a DeLorean from Back to the Future. We really created a pretty exciting event, especially for those that grew up in the 80s and 90s. It it re awoken people how much they loved having the mall space, and got people excited about the project, because we know it’s going to be a couple of years before this mall gets rebuilt and redeveloped. So it got people really engaged and looking for ways to be a part of the momentum. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 31:43
So Is there plans to continue? You talked about enhancing the efforts that this mixed use development space looks like as a chamber. Do you guys have continued plans to try to continue drawing a focus there and keep that excitement up for the development
Bob Ross 31:59
Absolutely. Yeah, the partnership. We’re fortunate, because we do, you know, share assets across all four entities. And so we actually do leverage our ability for graphic design, for marketing, to be able to support our key economic development projects as a way of enhancing how go to pica. Can invest in projects without investing dollars. So we work very closely with the team of advisors Excel and the mall management team creating collateral which allows them to sell the community and to help them to tell the story of whites. Peak is a great place for retail and restaurant to invest in. And we also work very closely with those retail site selectors as they visit, by meeting those teams, and once again, just talking up why coming back to this mall and coming back to this community at this time is a great opportunity, because retail and dining isn’t always a focus for economic development groups like go Topeka, but We see these kind of passive ways to engage that are not necessarily dollar incentive driven, is an important way of contributing to that ecosystem, because if you don’t have great retail and dining, it’s hard to get the people to move and it’s hard to get the businesses to relocate. So we’ve gotten very engaged and just actually led a tour last week of them all, and spoke about what this project means for our community.
Brandon Burton 33:24
That’s awesome. I love it. And the idea of using your annual meeting as that delivery system to highlight the development in the community, I think is such a great idea. And I’ve seen other chambers utilize their annual meeting for similar purposes, and probably not to this scale, but, but it’s a great, great tool to utilize. As we begin to wrap things up, I wanted to to ask you both for chambers listening who want to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you both have to offer and trying to accomplish that goal.
Juliet Abdel 34:00
You know, I always say the sky is the limit in our industry. We are we’re so unique and fortunate that we can get creative and we can be nimble and agile and and and our hands being involved in so many parts of our community allow us to do that and really to have champions that surround those efforts. So don’t be afraid to kind of be bold and look at look and seek those opportunities. And then the other part of it is for us to continue to be relevant. It’s super necessary for us to take those bold opportunities and not continue to do what we’ve always done, because what was working decades ago, or, you know, years ago, isn’t what works today, and if we continue to do the same things over and over again, then we start losing our relevancy. And so to be and continue to be relevant, we have to have a pulse for what’s in the community, and be brave enough to take those bold, bold actions to guide and steer those conversations
Brandon Burton 34:59
Absolutely. Great, Bob, what thoughts might you have to share?
Bob Ross 35:02
Yeah, I would just say, just I speak to a lot of chambers across the country about the idea of what the partnership model represents, and I think there is incredible value in getting those kind of community stakeholder organizations in each city together, even if they’re not a part of a formal partnership, to really align on shared mission and value. So getting your main street, your tourism, your eco Devo, your chamber of commerce around the table, figuring out your strategy and working together to advance with one voice. What I found that hurt Topeka during those years in which population stagnated, you had each of these different verticals, all kind of marching to their own drum, all kind of fighting for their own turf. And we hit a point in our community’s growth where we needed to come together, and our business leaders pushed for it, and so that created the partnership, where it forced every entity to give up a certain amount of authority and autonomy, but allowed each one to now activate more powerfully because they’re not operating alone. They’re able to share costs, they’re able to share vision, and so even if a chamber is not able to create a partnership model, just be very intentional about seeking out and working with those stakeholders in your community so that you don’t have to do this alone, and that everyone is working together off the same script. And I think when you can do that, and you’re all singing along to the same song, your entire community is going to thrive as a result.
Brandon Burton 36:29
Yeah, absolutely. Juliet, I’ll focus this question to you, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward.
Juliet Abdel 36:41
You know, I think what we’re seeing now already is this review of membership and investment in our organizations, and the older concept of, you know, you join and you get as much as you put into it, it’s becoming increasingly less likely to be the case because, because more and more people are occupied running their business day in and day out, and so the ability for us to become more of an extension of their team, continue to pivot and do things for them ahead of when it impacts them, and provide them solutions to them ahead of time. I think that’s where we’re seeing most success in our industry is continuing to be relevant, continuing to be forward thinking, and continuing to know that it’s not this join you have to come to every single thing, but it’s invest instead, into what opportunities around you that continue to ensure that you thrive, and that that would probably be where I feel the direction is, you know, There’s a I’ll point to, and this is because here’s my board plugin for ACC. I’ll point to the horizon initiative that was just released. And if you’re not privy to this, the study that was conducted was after, you know, over a decade from the last time that we had a study, and the idea was to try and look at what does the future of chambers look like, and how do we continue to operate? But some of the contents of that study really focused on being catalytic, convening and champion your community, and in operating in all of those spaces simultaneously as an organization that continues to breathe life into into the populations that we serve. So if you haven’t already done so, pick that horizon up, because it has some really good nuggets of the things that you can be doing and things to watch out for and really start to incorporate into the future.
Brandon Burton 38:31
Yeah, for anybody who’s is just living under a rock and doesn’t know horizon, look at the original one from 10 years ago, and look at 2.0 and you’ll, you’ll kind of be blown away to to read the the first horizon initiative and and to realize how spot on it really was, and if we look at that forward with the 2.0 I anticipate similar accuracy. So, so before we let you go. I wanted to give you both an opportunity to share any contact information for people who may want to reach out and learn more about the programs that have been highlighted, or just in general, how you guys are doing things there in Topeka, what would be the best way for individuals to reach out and connect with you both?
Juliet Abdel 39:16
So I will, I’ll start, and then I’ll throw it at you, Bob, but GreaterTopekaPartnership.com has all the information about all these organizations and the functions of what we do and how we operate, also has links to the any external affiliate entities that we have underneath us, as our social media does as well. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and several other platforms. I will say personally, you can find me on LinkedIn, Juliet Abdel and I always am open to new friends and more friends, and that is the way that we continue to support one another, is by continuing to grow our network, sharing those best practices and seeing seeing when we need that support, if there’s others that can help lend that. So you can find me on LinkedIn. You can also find me on Instagram at Ms. Juliet Abdel, or on Facebook, and happy to connect with you on any of those platforms.
Brandon Burton 40:05
Perfect, Bob. How about yourself? Where can people find you or reach out to you?
Bob Ross 40:09
Absolutely. I encourage anyone they can reach out to me directly at bob.ross@topekapartnership.com as Juliet said, you’re welcome to also reach out over LinkedIn. You know, we’re just happy to use our experience to help other chambers really kind of solve problems. And we’ve had to solve a lot of problems ourselves over the last, you know, seven and 10 years. So anything we can do to kind of, you know, share from that with our our peers is always a welcome conversation to have. So I encourage anyone to reach out, and we’re happy to have a conversation.
Brandon Burton 40:39
Very good. We’ll be sure to get all that in our show notes for this episode as well, to make it easy to connect. But wanted to thank you both for spending time with us today on chamber chat podcast, for highlighting these programs and and really the great impact you guys are making there in the Topeka area, and continue to make those, those big, bold moves and continue impacting your communities. You guys are doing a great job, and I wish you guys Best of luck this chamber of
Bob Ross 41:06
the year. Thank you. Thank you.
Brandon Burton 41:09
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