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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 the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, 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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Brandon Burton 0:54
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Our guest for this episode is John Brewer. John is the president and CEO at the Billings Chamber of Commerce in Montana, which is a five star credited chamber through the US Chamber of Commerce. The Billings chamber developed and manages the Billings tourism improvement district visit southeast Montana and the billings chamber foundation. John currently serves on the WAC board of directors. His past chair of the Montana association of Chamber of Commerce executives, serves on the ACCE board served as their emerging cities chair and serves in the US chambers committee at 100 advisors. Before moving to Billings, John was president and CEO of the Spokane regional convention and visitors bureau in Washington, of course, he has a BA in Communication Arts from the University of West Florida, and he and his wife Carrie have four children and two grandkids. But John, I’m excited to have you with us today on chamber chat podcast, I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so they can get to know you a little
John Brewer 2:10
better. Hey, Brandon, well, thank you. It’s, it’s good to see ya. It’s always the most difficult question I think is sharing something interesting about yourself, right? Because golf that I find interesting other than I do it a bore. But you know, my wife and I, I guess if I were to say one thing that we’re passionate about, and it’s been kind of unique is that for the 20, some years, 25 years, we’ve been together, we’ve been fostering dogs and my wife has a heart for people in need and animals in need. So we’ve had everything from 12 Puppies running around the house to a dog in a wheelchair to other special needs type dogs to try to help find them a home. So for us, it’s been fun as well as it’s been rewarding to to help connect the animals to their lifelong homes.
Brandon Burton 2:57
That’s awesome. So if you had to, if you had to guess over the last 25 years or so about how many dogs have been through your house, the Bowl number
John Brewer 3:08
- We were much more active when the kids were at a different age and things that now we kind of go one at a time, I think more more because of our age than any grant. But it’s great. He’s working with debt dog adoption agencies around the country. And when they need a home. He’s kind of opening the doors for him. So I love being part of that.
Brandon Burton 3:30
That is awesome. As dogs need that. Yeah. Well tell us a little bit about the Billings chamber just to give us some perspective. Before we get into our conversation. Obviously every chamber is different. But give us an idea of size staff budget scope of work that sort
John Brewer 3:47
of bragging about Yeah, first. Yeah. You mentioned your that five star credited chamber several years ago, we were chamber of the year through atpe. So we’re proud of the work that we’re doing. We’ve got an incredible board of directors that kind of let us be unchained to go and figure out what needs to be solved in our chambers really focused on being one of those kick butt chambers, if you will, and problem solver and as far as tackling big community issues, as well as those core things that most chambers are involved in. For us. It’s business growth, business advocacy, community development. And then we are also as you mentioned in the intro there, the managing organization for our tourism entities both visit Billings and visit southeast Montana 13 counties and two Indian Reservation within our region here. So, you know, having that balance of connecting business to the you know, millions of visitors that come through here on their way to Yellowstone National Park or Little Bighorn battlefield sight of customers last stand or along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Were in a great spot to not only be a business hub as the largest city in Montana, and A tourism area where people start their journey by flying in and got the largest airport and great internet interstate connectivity. But our chamber has right now just over 1100 members, they employ just under 15,000 people. And we are hovering around 90% retention and we love that number. It’s solid. And we’re just we’ve been on a growth cycle, both from a revenue perspective, as well as the membership perspective. So our staff has grown by four FTE in the last 12 month and we’re brought people on who are focused in in the finance world, we need to do some things you’d mentioned that we just launched our foundation at the chamber. And we’re also bringing people on to help take care of the workforce issue that every community I think in the country is facing.
Brandon Burton 5:54
Now that you guys definitely have your work cut out for you, that’s for sure. It’s curious, have you guys seen an influx in tourism since the TV show Yellowstone came out a couple years ago?
John Brewer 6:05
It’s funny how many times we’re asked that question, right? Yeah, we, you know, Yellowstone, in where that shot is probably about a four and a half, five hour drive from us. But you know, Yellowstone Park has seen a bump, we hear lots of people on their way and talking about it, the detrimental side to that is now the state legislature feels like we’re getting all this free advertising that we should just pull that we get about $2 million annually for tourism funding. So they’re like, we don’t really need that anymore. Let’s reinvest that in affordable housing and other needs in our communities like public safety. So we’re in the middle of our legislative session that meets every two years, and kind of all hands on deck for those battles. And they are they are plentiful. We’ve got 4000 bills that have been introduced. And so yeah, it’s exciting. Yeah, it poses some challenges.
Brandon Burton 6:54
Right. Now. We were one of those families. Last summer, we were gonna go there and about I think two weeks before we went the, I think was the North Loop got closed down with the mudslides and stuff. And so we ended up kind of rerouting what our vacation was going to be because they were only letting in you know, every other day, depending on your your license plate numbers. They’re like, that’s a long hike.
John Brewer 7:19
And interestingly enough, our visitors director at the Chamber, her brother is the superintendent at Yellowstone Park. So when they were going through that kind of a lottery of license plates, you know, we were hearing about some of that, and that was an interesting process. But yeah, they were hit very hard, still not fully recovered, hit the egg industry in our region. But you know, that’s another thing that chambers are always geared up to, to try to do is, you know, be prepared to help whether it’s, you know, all the rains in California flooding hurricane. So another exciting role, though, per chamber and pillar solving those community problems that they hit.
Brandon Burton 7:54
That’s right. So getting back to, I guess the topic for our conversation today. As great as billings is, and you know, we want to get get honed in on a certain topic here. So, what we decided to cover today is, you know, every, every chamber, every community is vastly different. And as we get into the topic of diversity, equity inclusion over the last few years that looks different in each community. And as we talk with John today, we wanted to kind of focus on the why for Thayer Dei, what did they you know, hone in on and focusing on as they worked on diversity, equity inclusion, and we will dive into that much deeper as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, John, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break diving into what was the why for the your diversity equity inclusion efforts there the Billings chamber and how did things kind of evolve into what it is now.
John Brewer 11:43
And I think that word evolve and evolution is so important because I think so many of us in the chamber world and maybe as just citizens of the world, you know, we hear a lot about D E I and it strikes us all differently because words do matter. And as we were developing the name of the work even it was a lengthy discussion for many diversity, equity and inclusion or triggering words or they have a stigma to them. And and I think this evolution of white white chambers are involved in Dei. Now, is it an important context to understand I mean, for us, everything that we do these days is revolving around workforce, workforce development, workforce retention, Workforce Education. And this is one of those areas that I think we just push aside or think that we’re doing okay in and ignore. And I feel that chambers are masters, developing these type of networks, to include people so that they have a voice and to include opportunities for individuals to grow. You know, we convene people as chambers to solve problems, whether it’s public safety, or wetek. We talked about a minute ago, floods and community disasters, we bring people together for their expertise. But we also as chambers convene people to help educate them to help them grow. We have small business networks, which is a diverse individual group, we have young professionals and women’s networks and veterans groups. All of those address diversity by a DDI program just brings it all together. And understanding you know, because I think when I when I first got into this, and it’s only been a couple of years from the Billings chamber, so we’re in our infancy. But diversity doesn’t mean a person’s skin color alone. And I think that’s where we often go, you know, I’ve never personally been a female, I’ve never been in a wheelchair, I’ve never been a person of color. I’m not gay. I am, who I am. And I’ve got my political leanings and my religious beliefs. And we’re all so unique that for us and for our organization, what it means for us as the why and what we need to accomplish is to have a better understanding of others to meet them where they are, to help them feel a sense of belonging so people can bring their authentic and best selves to work. And so that companies can have the tool that they need to build a strong workforce. As I mentioned, your retention and recruitment is just so important. And I think many of the chambers that will be listening, but also the tourism economy. For us, we have about $625 million in visitor spending and direct visitor spending over 625 million. And over the last several years, our call center started getting questions in regards to I’m a person of color, am I safe? I’m a person in the LGBTQ plus community do I belong? And so between the visitor economy and just working with our members to help build that, that sense of belonging in a workforce so that the companies can, you know, tout themselves legitimately as being a Quality place to work and help employees grow?
Brandon Burton 15:03
Absolutely, I think that’s so important, it just creating that that place of belonging no matter what the diversity is of the population, and like you said, you’ve never been a woman. But yeah, that sometimes that gets overlooked, you know that, you know, there are different segments of the population, whether it is gender, or I think race is where a lot of people go to and you think the bet, are you a veteran? Are you disabled? Are you you know, what are the different things and and more and more, it feels like there’s new labels being put upon people or that are people that are associated with with new labels and and groups that they need special attention, they need to be considered, especially as they enter
John Brewer 15:50
the workforce. And I want you know, everybody who works, you know, bringing it down to the micro level people that work at the Chamber, I want them to feel that regardless of their backstory, where they come from, challenges that they’ve had in their life, that they feel that we are a place where they can grow, and they are important and their voices heard. And, again, whether it’s a person of color, and in Billings, we are about 88%, white, we have a strong Native American population, we’re close to the Crow Reservation, as well as the Northern Cheyenne. And you know, their workforce right now. They’re at about 50% unemployment there. And they’ve got workforce and a college and we want to find ways to be better in billing, to help bridge that workforce gap to help grow, but they have a unique culture that, you know, some from I think that the white heritage might just see the native culture and say, you know, what, they don’t show up on time, they’re don’t work as hard. The work ethic is different. And it’s these issues where it is just different. And once you learn how to address those, boy, we’re missing out on some big opportunities. If we don’t and, you know, for us, it was to better understand what we didn’t know at the time, we surveyed our membership a lot and asked a lot of questions to help even determine whether this was something that we should be getting into. And we had about 78% of our members say, we have needs and there’s nobody leading in this space in Billings in a space, I mean, connecting business to Dei, and 78% of our members said we need to do this. Billings is friendly, you know, we’re a great community, we’re welcoming, but we’re not diverse, and simply not knowing how to address diversity. And like we just talked about the breadth of diversity. I was surprised kind of how hungry some of our members were for tools that could help them grow. Absolutely.
Brandon Burton 17:51
And, yeah, I feel like that’s one of the biggest challenges we have in our day is being able to be inclusive of all the diverse segments of the population and diversity, you know, division has that same root word of division, right? So in different segments of diversity, there comes a lot of strength, you know, as you can come together with, you know, whether it’s a women’s group or, you know, different races gather together, or its sexual orientations, there’s some strength coming together for that. But as society is as a whole, and as the workforce as a whole, it becomes very divisive, or it can be as we have all these different segments. So how do we incorporate everybody give them a place of belonging, make sure that they understand that it doesn’t matter, any of the subsets of the population you belong here, we want you to hear that. Yeah, say how have you have you guys approached that?
John Brewer 18:51
Well, we spent a lot of time again on the name when we talked about belonging, and we had all these nice acronyms and flowery words that we just decided that you know what we’re going to hit this head on, we’re going to have difficult conversations, and we’re going to be that place where people will feel comfortable coming with their tough questions, because like you say, dei and woke and all of these over politicized word, you know, it all boils down to, how are we helping our members and our employees feel like they belong. And we’ve developed a four part strategy for our dei work, and most recently launched a program called you belong and billing. With the end we launched at our annual meeting just a couple of months ago. The idea being that Montana and billing was ranked in the top three states and communities in the United States where people were moving to over the past couple of years. And we knew that brought a diversity of thought and diversity of political backgrounds, the diversity of color and so on. And we set out with this initiative to help an employer once they bring somebody in from another community, help them to onboard them to the community. So as an employer, we all have our onboarding programs, you hire somebody, you give them the one on one in the organization, they immerse in your culture at your organization. But we’ve found in our hearing, over time, so many of our large employers were losing people, because they couldn’t find their footing in our community. And for a variety of reasons. So as new people move here, we’ve got this community onboarding program, if you live at old Welcome Wagon feel you’ve just moved here? What should I see? And do where’s my theme, you know, where can I connect with things that interests me, whether it’s, you know, brew, trail walk, or arts and entertainment, the music scene. But more importantly, we felt it was a one on one human connection, so connecting them to other newbies that have just arrived in Billings, as well as community leader. So that this, you know, couple year ramp up time, I’m learning a new job and learning a lot of other stuff, buying a house, getting my cable connected all that stuff, we’re now going to deliberately help you find ways to get involved in the community getting involved in the chamber. And we think over time, we’re gonna be tracking that, and seeing what kind of retention rates employers are going to have, because there’ll be doing this onboarding, and then connecting to our leadership programs and connecting to elected official, and finding a way to get involved in our dei work if they choose. So that’s one very significant initiative that in its early phases, and we’re excited to see how it progresses.
Brandon Burton 21:34
Yeah. So and I like how you surveyed your members. And you said that you’re going about this, you know, when it boils down to what’s good for buildings, what’s good for your members. But really, there’s a huge outreach component of this to saying that you belong here, and you’re talking to people that are not Chamber members, that you’re talking to people that are not yet part of the community in some instances, but being inclusive and saying you belong, we have a place for you. But really focusing with your membership to create those places where they can belong and, and make them feel part of the community. So I’d like to, the focus is on billings in the members, they’re really that outreach component. I think this is so important.
John Brewer 22:17
In the outreach piece, one of our four core goals for dei mission was not only outreach so this one is relatively new, the outreach to outside of our borders. But within our membership, that continual dedication of space in our E News and other communications to dei content, celebrating Black History Month, and Martin Luther King Day, for example, and making sure that we’re able to provide kind of an upcoming calendar of here’s where we used to be set aside and set aside some dedicated time to to celebrate different populations. We launched a dei website, billing dei.com, and it has videos and to get books to read, and a downloadable toolkit that we actually partnered with it. Since they partnered we borrowed from the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, they developed this amazing resource. We worked with them to tweak a little bit to be billing centric, redeveloped it launched it and provided contacts and information on this website that helps businesses with their onroad or their onramp. You know, I want to start with I don’t know where to begin. What step one, I’m just in the early phases of wanting to introduce belonging into our organization, or we’ve been doing this for years, and what’s next for that company. And so some of our early adopters that really helped get the brand and part of a successful initiative, like takes funding. And some of our early adopters that stepped up, were some of the names you heard of, you know, corporate, large, major corporations such as Exxon and Keio International, based here and billing. A number of financial institution came to us with significant financial support to help us develop the structure, build a website, hire an individual to spearhead this work. And that’s meeting that goal for us. But making this sustainable, this could not be a fad. That, you know, it’s the talk of the day, let’s get behind this because it’s new, and then it disappears. It has to be sustained. So we built this into the fabric of our organization, found the funding and are really happy with with that continued growth and the continued support partnership from our members. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 24:36
So is the majority of the, I guess information and training for members? Is it digitally based on the Billings to ei.com? Or do you have any in person kind of stuff? I know you had mentioned the community, you know, the community onboarding has a personal touch that as far as getting the members position Well to be inclusive and welcoming for everybody. And what does that look like?
John Brewer 25:05
Yeah, so one of the very first things we did, this is out of my comfort zone. And we started. So we brought together a steering committee that has now evolved to an advisory board of 15 individuals that bring different perspective. And we decided early on, we needed to launch that personal touch. So for four sessions, now, we’ve had a diversity, equity inclusion, and an implementation dei class that’s consisted of four workshops. And those go over a four month period. And they’re followed by four community roundtable discussions, and then network opportunity. So after those four months, people will go through that they go through a graduation ceremony, we celebrate them. And then they become kind of part of our alumni email chain now of keeping them communicated with on a high level. But that step was big. And then once a company has graduated, so many people through that program, they’re then designated as a Workplace of Choice, and they get some language, we’re working on another piece to that that would be more of an identity for them. But they’re able to utilize those resources and promoting their organization as a quality place to work. So that has meant over the last two years for us 150 graduate full classes almost every time, those 140 50 graduates represent just over 30 businesses that employ 16,000 people. And that was our goal was to reach the major employees to begin with employers to begin with, knowing that they would cast their net out to their employees. And our goal, starting last April, and moving forward now is to engage many more small businesses. And part of the funding that’s come in, through our sponsors has been dedicated to scholarships for those that can’t afford it.
Brandon Burton 27:03
And it’s great. That was one of the questions that we’re going to have is there’s some kind of certification they get afterwards as a company, and you got into the depth of that with those workshops and the ability to kind of workshop together and around table and stay as part of that alumni group, and build that strength throughout the community. And then thinking with these major employers, 16,000 people being affected, they’re not all going to stay at the same player forever. So they’re going to move around that training is going to go with them as well. So casting that net, you know, wide within these major employers, I think is so key. And it’s such a smart move. I wanted to see as we start wrapping up here for I know a lot of chambers have some sort of a D and AI initiative, but it’s gonna see if you have any tips or action items for chambers listening, who want to take their organization up to the next level, what what would you suggest for them?
John Brewer 28:04
Yeah, that’s a great question. And you know, whether it’s dei specific or otherwise, one of the things that after our one of our first dei workshops, the presenter, who we’ve engaged as our contracts service provider to lead these workshops, gave me a bottle of wine, and encouraged me to enjoy it with somebody who I don’t know who doesn’t look like me, think like me is different. And I just that stuck with me. And I’ve got that here on my desk as a constant reminder of, you know, we’re engaged with a lot of people as chambers, we have strong networks, but there’s so many groups and individuals out there that we don’t know. So I’ve carried that on. And we do gift cards for staff and gift cards for others in the past, and have handed them out and said, You know what, here’s here’s a card for your favorite brewery or a card for a coffee shop. only caveat is you got to go find somebody to enjoy it with who you don’t know. And that really helped us as we were, again, evolving our advisory board and bringing those unique places around the table. Because we just have such a propensity to go back to that comfort zone and say, Hey, I’m gonna go grab this person and that person because I know they get stuff done. And I have a comfort there. That really helps, I think, just think differently and put you in that uncomfortable zone of of growth.
Brandon Burton 29:28
Yeah, yeah, I love that tip. That’s a hopefully everybody’s making a quick note of that. To get out of your comfort zone. Go enjoy time and conversation and a beverage or some food, you know, with somebody who’s different than you. And there’s a lot to be learned by doing that. John, I’d like asking everyone I have on the show as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
John Brewer 29:59
Yeah, I think there’s, you know, wide open plate for us to be successful and incredibly impactful in our community. But it boils down to leadership. It involves, you know, the makeup of our boards of directors and the professional staff that we have membership leadership and engagement. But there are there are some incredible roadmaps out there and somewhat crystal ball that we all need to be paying attention to and, and watching as they are updated. And, and, you know, I look often towards work that was done several years ago to ACCE and the horizons initiative gave us great perspective on emerging demographics and political polarization. WAC II is an incredible resource for their three C’s evolution of chambers becoming catalysts, and champions and conveners. And, you know, if we look to those roadmap, but he said at the very beginning, all chambers are different. But there’s a certain kind of structure a solid foundation that makes us unique, and I think will continue to provide value and make us relevant and not only relevant but essential as we go forward in such a digital age that we still have that ability to bring people together, that can really impact our communities in substantive ways.
Brandon Burton 31:23
I love that answer. And you know, how spot on was the horizons report? Right? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So I’m glad you brought that up. And in going from relevant to essential, I gotta upload Casey Steinbacher book, you know, that same title, great book, and any, any chamber pros out there, I haven’t read it. It’s a Kindle version. So you got to download it, but it’s a great read. John, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information. So anyone listening who’d like to learn more about how you guys are doing things there and billings, specifically about you know, creating a place of belonging with the your business growth there. What would be the best ways to reach out and connect with you
John Brewer 32:10
always best to reach me via email and that’s john@billingschamber.com. Again, just perusing our website with our BillingsDEI.com. There’s some great resources and a wider breadth of contact information and then then our website at Billingschamber.com as well.
Brandon Burton 32:30
Right? Well, we’ll get all of that in our show notes for this episode. So if anybody is driving and couldn’t get in, jot those down, just check out the show notes and scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll have all of John’s contact information there. But John, thank you for spending time with us today and sharing how you guys are creating that that place of belonging through business growth there and Billings and the example you guys are sending. I really appreciate it. Thank
John Brewer 32:55
you, Brandon means a lot. I appreciate that.
Brandon Burton 38:24
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