Category: Placemaking

Create a Thriving Community with Nikki Devitt

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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.

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Our guest for this episode is Nikki Devitt. Nikki is the President and CEO of the Petoskey Regional Chamber of Commerce, a passionate community champion. She’s honored to lead an organization that emboldens positive outcomes by building a culture of thriving business to create a thriving community. With a background in broadcasting, management and marketing, she works creatively to build relationships and connections that foster positive change and growth. Nikki currently serves as chair of the Northern Michigan chamber Alliance, a coalition of 18 chambers and economic development organizations advocating for rural central business policies. She was appointed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer to serve on the Michigan statewide Housing Partnership to help facilitate Michigan’s first ever statewide housing plan. She’s on the board of directors for ACCE, a board regent for the US Chamber Institute for organization management, and is on the board of directors for the Michigan Association of Chamber of Commerce professionals. She’s a graduate of the US Chamber of Commerce business leads fellowship program, the Association of Chamber of Commerce executives, leadership and diversity cohort, and is a US Chamber of Commerce, Institute of organizational management graduate. She is a member of the Petoskey noon Rotary Club, and she donates her time to the Northern Community Mediation, Little Traverse, Pacific Theater and Women’s Resource Center of Northern Michigan. Nikki lives in Petoskey, Michigan, and spends as much time as she can hiking and enjoying all the beauty Northern Michigan has to offer. And Nikki, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Thank

Nikki Devitt 3:01
you, Brandon, and it is Petoskey.

Brandon Burton 3:06
I should ask these questions before we start.

Nikki Devitt 3:09
It’s okay. It’s Petoskey, Michigan. There’s a long history there, which is pretty fantastic. So thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity. It’s just absolutely a wonderful thing that we can do to as chamber professionals, to speak to one another, to learn from other one another, and share from one another. So I really appreciate that very much. And being here something interesting, I guess, or unique. That is, you know, not in my bio, although that sounds interesting in a lot of ways, I guess, is that. So I do have a broadcasting background about 10 years, and also spent a little bit of time as an audio book narrator, so something that kept me busy when I wasn’t on the stage. So I’ve spent a lot of time as well performing since I was a child, and still perform in our local community theater. Very

Brandon Burton 4:05
cool. So what type of broadcast it was? TV, or right? TV? Radio? No. Radio. You were built for this. This is awesome radio.

Nikki Devitt 4:15
I’ve done a few podcasts here and there, yes. So I was, you know, started out on the sales and marketing side, and then eventually was lucky enough to have the honor to be operations and programs for a very large cluster of stations, and spent quite a bit of time on the air as well. So kind of did every facet of it. And broadcasting is a fascinating industry, and I think until I ran into the chamber industry, I thought there was probably nothing as challenging. And then I entered chamber life,

Brandon Burton 4:49
yeah, and the story is still being written, exactly. Well, tell us a little bit about the Petoskey Chamber of Commerce. To give us an idea of the size staff, scope of work, budget, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion today,

Nikki Devitt 5:05
absolutely so our chamber is is, like many, I find it so fascinating. How many chambers are over 100 years old? We’ll celebrate 105 years next year, and we are so Petoskey, Michigan, is located at the very pretty much northwest tip of the Lower Peninsula. So for those who aren’t familiar with the lower and upper peninsula, I am about 35 miles from the Mackinac Bridge, and then I can be in our beautiful upper peninsula, which to Michiganders, as we like to call ourselves, is just a place that is hard to describe, unless you have the opportunity to be there. So Northern Michigan is a wonderful resort community. We’re built on a tourism economy. So our chamber is unique in the sense that we have a very thriving year round community. Our population in the city of Petoskey, or townships, if you will, incorporate, it is about 16,000 our county has about 34,000 so we’re not very large, but we essentially triple to quadruple that population in our summer months, and also have a huge uptick in our winter months as well, because we are a year round destination with our beautiful Lake Michigan, but also fantastic ski resorts. So there’s all kinds of things that you can do. So with that in mind, and our Chamber’s history and our community’s history, we’re also put in a situation where we are lucky enough to be on places in our state that has a huge tribal history. So Petoskey actually is goes back to Ignatius badass gay, who was the first Chief of our area, way back when, and the late 1700s or late 1800s and so our community is very diverse in the sense that we have a very rich cultural history here, and yet we cater to a new element of people coming to discover this region. So we have about 770 members. We’re one of the larger chambers in the state of Michigan, especially geographically and population wise. And we have four full time staff, and about 500,000 is our budget. So we do a lot with a little, if you will, from a small staff standpoint, and I like to consider us an impact chamber. And so that means that while we still host a farmer’s market every summer and do an art show in the summer in our beautiful park, we are a very much an advocacy chamber. So we’re very involved in our community’s future, whether that be economically, how we look at it, from a prosperity way, and also still maintaining that traditional programming of networking events, we like to call them connecting events, and then a very heavy programming piece that we utilize to make sure that our members have the tools at their disposal to grow their business, enhance their employees and enhance their relationship within our community and those around us. Oh,

Brandon Burton 8:07
that’s awesome. There’s a lot going on, and I’m always impressed by the chambers that can do so much with you know, little staff, and it’s just it’s a great testament to the work that you guys do. So sounds like you’re doing great work. And we’ll focus our discussion today on creating a thriving community, which is going to go on very well with the continuation of what you shared with us so far, but we’ll dive in much deeper on that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, Nikki, we’re back. So as we talk today about creating a thriving community, what sort of things have you seen? Obviously, every community is a little different. Every chamber is a little different. What works for you guys? Aaron Petoskey and to create a thriving community? And it sounds like I don’t know, I’ll let you define what you see as community, because I think the definition of community kind of changes over time.

Nikki Devitt 11:18
It does change. I think one of the most important factors that we take into consideration at our chamber is that the line between the business need and the community need is not a line at all. They are so interwoven within each other, we believe that from our standpoint, that our businesses only thrive when our community thrives. So we’re really looking at things in our community that impact our community and therefore would impact our businesses. So things that we hear about all the time now and more and more chambers are really into this space. Is what is that workforce impact? Is it housing? Is it childcare? Is it education? Where are the hurdles? Where are the places that our businesses need to grow and enhance themselves? We talk a lot in the state of Michigan about attracting talent, while we very much know in Northwest Michigan that we need to attract talent, we also need to retain talent. And so for us, the thriving community is giving our businesses the tools that they need to really, truly be the best that they can be. And we believe that, you know, it’s a basic conscious capitalism standpoint, if you will, the advancement of the human quality of life happens when your community is doing sustainable business practices. So that is everything that’s looking at, are you taking care of your employees? Are you taking care of your environment? Are you looking at the future of what your community could look like? So for us, we call it just chamber passion, and when you want to build a thriving community, you have to remember that first and foremost, everybody is involved, and everyone has a voice. And as we all know, that can be a very difficult prospect. With 770 members, not all of them have the same exact needs. So for us to make sure that our community thrives and our businesses thrive, we have to be nimble and we have to be ready to if we don’t have the answers or the resources to make sure that we find them and provide them for our businesses, so that our community can grow, and that everyone who wants to live and work in this beautiful, incredible place that I get to call home, has that opportunity

Brandon Burton 13:35
that’s awesome. So you touched on a ton of things there in that response, and as I, as I revisit some of that, I’m hoping you can dive in a little bit deeper. But as you talk about creating a thriving community, you talked about for these businesses to be the examples you gave, are you taking care of your employees in the environment and but then you talk about all the voices that come from people in the community and the businesses, and 770 members. So there’s a lot that needs to go out from the chamber, and a lot that comes in, as far as you know, feedback and data and so forth. So what is your approach? Because it’s hard to tackle everything all at once, so there has to be some strategy and how you build a thriving community. What, what approaches do you do from a strategy side to implement some of these things? First and foremost,

Nikki Devitt 14:29
it’s collaboration. You can’t do anything alone and community. I mean, by definition, is the work of many, not the work of one. So as a chamber, you have to realize that you are, at best, the collaborator that no one else can be. So you have to put yourself into the position when you’re looking at the issues that impact a community’s success, especially our members. Success is who needs to be at the table and whether as the. Where you’re leading those conversations, or you’re participating in them as the voice of business, you have to make sure that everybody that needs to be at that successful roundtable discussion is always there. So I mean COVID, I think we use as an example in chambers now more than ever, and I think it’s a fantastic thing that we do chambers. Were able to step into a space where we were working with our municipalities, our local government, our state government, as well, as you know, our human resources elements within our community, whether that be your health department or your hospital. How are you making sure that everybody knew what was going on and what challenges were coming for your community? It’s that same concept, except you do it for every issue that you have. So always making sure that, from a strategic standpoint, you reach out to the players that need to be involved for whatever that issue is. So if it’s housing, are you making sure that you have those relationships and that they have the information, say, from a you know, what your planning and zoning committees look like. Do they understand where the challenges are? Have they heard a business, whoa, why they can’t get employees or retain employees? Do they understand that it could be something that is within their power to address and change? And then, are you also making sure that the voices that come in are not just your big business, but your small business. So I think it’s that one first and foremost is strategically you have to if you’re talking about a thriving community, collaboration has to be your first step, and the recognition that you can’t do it alone. And it’s going to take many, many people to work on each of these individual issues to push a community as a whole forward. Yes,

Brandon Burton 16:43
yeah, you said it very well. Collaboration, as far as the what you have to work with within your staff, with within the office, how do you how do you disseminate, you know, all the things you need to do to kind of spark that collaboration and take some of the voices that you’re hearing and taking them back to those other partners in collaboration.

Nikki Devitt 17:07
I think you said it really well, though. You said with your staff. So I think that’s kind of it’s like, you know, if you’re gonna talk the talk, walk the walk, one of the first

things we do, and we’ve understood with our staff is we all have different skill sets. We all have different places of passion. We work with our members differently. So while we have defined titles and roles, we are a staff that works very collaboratively at all times, because we understand that, whether it be convening a work group to discuss child care challenges in our community, or whether it be instituting a program of work that is going to be more HR focused for some of our businesses, that helps them understand some best practices for talent retention that we have to be able to nimbly flex between those things as staff to make sure that we’re putting our resources forward, just as we’re asking our community members, our community leaders and our agencies to do to work together. So you’ve got to kind of lead with that mentality from a strategic standpoint as well, or you will burn your staff out in seconds. It does mean that we’re constantly having to adapt to circumstances within our community. Sometimes you put a lot more effort into one topic or one challenge, and then three months later, that’s something that you have to put a little bit on the back burner because something else has elevated itself into being a prior need for your community. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 18:39
I can see that for sure. So I’m curious, do you guys segment your membership at all to see, like, which ones have you know this need, like you’ve mentioned? HR, so if that is a need for, say, 20% of the businesses, business members, do you segment that or do you leave it open for any member? Because maybe there’s a need you don’t know about. I’m just curious on the approach. We do a lot of

Nikki Devitt 19:02
targeting. So everything that we offer, especially from a programming standpoint, or when we do say, you know, we do a housing Town Hall, we do Hot Topic conversations on childcare, on workforce, on legislative issues, all those things. So it’s always open to our full membership and our community as well. We make sure, especially if it is an issue that drives the community, that it is something that is open to anyone in the community, regardless of membership, when our programming is focusing on those talent attraction issues, what’s the corporate Transparency Act look like? What does the you know, latest Bill look like in the house? That how it could impact you? And there’s a lot going on with Michigan right now, and some of those, those we will open up to our home membership, but then we take a strategic approach from a staff standpoint, and say, who should be at this table? Who do we have to reach out to and maybe give a personal invitation to make sure that they are part of this conversation and or. Knowing that we know our businesses well enough, because we’re still a really small town, that which ones are going to be greatly impacted by whatever this may be, or who’s going to get the most of a benefit fact from it, and who do we make sure that they understand? So it’s always an open ended approach to everything, but then we dive down after the fact, usually give it a little bit, see where the interest lies, see who’s excited about it, and then start doing those targeted approaches by segmenting our membership based on just our category structure and how we know them. And that seems to have always worked quite well for us.

Brandon Burton 20:35
Yeah, sounds like a great approach. The worry I have with segmenting is that, you know, somebody gets invited to attend, and you have a seat at the table, and somebody else says, I had no idea the chamber even does that, not that they wanted a seat at the table, but they need to know, you know what? What is it the chamber does, and being able to get that messaging out there, so your approach seems to be well balanced, and it’s open for anybody, but then kind of hone in on those that that really need to be there. So some

Nikki Devitt 21:03
of our individual members always need that you know that special touch, and we know that, yeah, you have to know your membership well. You have to know your community well, especially when you’re taking this kind of approach. And always keep in the back of your mind that no matter what your best intentions are, you may, at some point, make someone feel like they were left out. And you have to be prepared and ready to, you know, remedy that in the best way that you can. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 21:29
so going back to the title, or the topic for this discussion, is creating a thriving community. And I’m asking, on behalf of a listener in, you know, I’m not even going to name a state, because I don’t want to get in trouble with anybody, but

Nikki Devitt 21:45
you’re doing it right now,

Brandon Burton 21:48
in the middle of nowhere. That says, you know, Nikki’s doing great. This is a, you know, she’s doing fascinating things, but she lives in a beautiful part of Northern Michigan. Got a lot of tourism. It brings people in year round. It might be a smaller community, but the reach is so much bigger. You know, I’m here in, you know, fill in the blank. How can somebody who maybe doesn’t see their community in the same light as you do? I can feel the love that you have for your community. Others may not have that same view, right? So, how can we, how can we help someone get excited about or to have that ability to create a thriving community? Because I think your enthusiasm drives that as well.

Nikki Devitt 22:30
I think, well, the first thing is, is, if you don’t feel that way about your community, why are you there? You have to have the passion for your community. First and foremost, I would be remiss if I, you know, I realize I can paint a picture that makes it look perfect, but you know, we have some huge challenges in our region and in our community in general, in that we are, while we are a, you know, mid sized, you know, chamber and pretty big for our area. We’re also in a very rural, remote area. It just happens to be pretty but rural areas come with a lot of challenges. I think my the bane of my existence will always be infrastructure. Water and Sewer are the absolute barrier to housing or commercial development or anything that we could possibly look out for future, forward thinking. And also we are a very, I’ll say, a non diverse community. So in a lot of ways, that presents challenges as the world changes, as our business needs change, what we are able to that’s just push forward is a strong sense of a term, but what we’re able to introduce our businesses to. So we have a lot of challenges, and it’s very difficult sometimes, when you see something that’s a pretty shiny Penny, to understand that maybe the other side isn’t so great. So you have to have passion, first and foremost, for your community, and you have to look at, what are our resources that make us unique. What is something about our community that makes us special? Why do our businesses choose to invest here and stay here? And you have to really believe that that is something worth fighting for and getting behind and really, really protecting, if you will, protecting from the mindset that your community isn’t special, because every community is special, if you really look into it and find what that is that makes it a place where somebody wants to live and work, and why a business wants to be there. So I think finding the passion is the first piece, and then the second piece to that comes with being aware of what your challenges are. Being aware there are obstacles you will never overcome. You can’t you can lay the groundwork for somebody 1015, 20 years from now to tackle that issue, and you can make sure that that’s an aware, an awareness to your community. But you can’t fix everything, but you have to love it first and foremost.

Brandon Burton 24:57
Yeah, I love that. The question you ask is, what makes your community special? Or find something to find, find what that is. And I’ve seen some communities that you know, what makes them special is a certain industry you know, that thrived 50 years ago, that maybe isn’t around in their community anymore, but they still recognize that. They still do a parade about it. They still have roots, you know, in that industry. And I think that’s great for a start. And then let’s look at what’s that next thing, you know, what this area was great for this industry for a reason. How can we make things great again? But I love that passion needs to drive all of it. So, absolutely fantastic. Um, so I like asking this question for listeners out there who are looking to take their organization up to the next level, or they have that that goal or desire in their mind, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them in trying to accomplish that goal?

Nikki Devitt 25:57
I think you have to take a very strong assessment of where you are and where you want to go. I mean, it’s strategic planning. 101, where are you today, and what makes your chamber what it is in your community? What? What do you do so well that the neighbor chamber couldn’t, couldn’t top it, that they want to, they want to R and D, that they want to rip off and duplicate that all day long. So taking stock of where you are and what you do well helps you determine where you want to go and what you can do better. And really, truly believing in your organization and your community is the first piece, and a very, very important piece, is you have to have the right people in the right seats. Everybody has to be on board to go with where you want to go and grow how you want to grow. And that’s a hard conversation sometimes, especially from a CEO standpoint, is to is everybody rowing the boat in the right direction? Because I truly believe that the best chamber is the chambers that is is a team. They are. They’re almost like an organism. They work so well together, and they believe so much in their mission and their vision and where they’re headed. So you have to make sure that critical piece is into place, or getting to that space in time that you want to and that goal that you have for your organization is either going to be something you won’t achieve or it’s going to take you a long time and a lot

Brandon Burton 27:28
of heartache. Yeah, I like that strategic planning 101, you got to have a vision of know where you are and where do you want to go and how you’re going to get there, so and have

Nikki Devitt 27:39
grace and space with yourself. Know that it takes time, and know that you’re never going to get everything in the time frame. You think either, you think we can do this in a year, two years, two years go by, you go, wow, we only moved the needle about 60% remember you moved the needle? Yeah, and remember that you went from where you were to where you are now, and that’s progress. And really, truly, credit yourself for that. Credit your team.

Brandon Burton 28:07
I wish I could remember who said the quote, but how people overestimate what they can do in a year but underestimate what they can do in 10 years, right? So absolutely moving the needle, but in that 10 year range, you’re really gonna see progress. Well, Nikki, as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Nikki Devitt 28:29
You know, I truly believe I’m a big I would say supporters is an understatement. I’m a believer in acces Horizon Report, when the first one came out, it was so, let’s just say, comforting to see that. Here’s, you know, our national chamber organization, saying, these are the places chambers belong and should be, and the things that matter. And thinking, all right, we got 10 years to get there, and then 2020 hit. We all went, Oh, wow, look. We we just did all that in five years. Yeah. And so it comes back to kind of what the core theory really truly is of, you know, the horizon initiatives. And if you are not familiar, if you are listening and you do not know what the Horizon Report is. And by the way, little hint tidbit that the updated 2035

reports out. It comes out by very shortly. So we’re super excited about that,

but you have to look into that, because it really truly talks about that chambers are the most trusted entity. And the future of chambers, it’s limitless, because we truly, truly are the conveners. We truly are the entity that isn’t just the voice of business. We’re the voice of communities. We have the power to shape and build not just our businesses, but our communities and the Horizon Report, really. Helps you kind of hone in on that and and say, there’s, you know, nine of the different initiatives, and they’re everything from timeless to timely to linchpin initiatives. And it gives you the opportunity to look into it and go, okay, my community, this is never going to be an issue, or it’s not an issue that my chamber is willing or ready to get behind. But there might be others that you look at and say, Yes, this is something we need to go because these are things that are going to affect us all. I mean, we know without a doubt scarcity and abundance and political and social fragmentation, and you can’t even get into what technology is doing as far as affecting business and our future in the population shifts that we’re having, these are all huge, huge things, and and chambers, really truly are the only entity uniquely positioned to engage in all of them and really truly make a difference.

Brandon Burton 30:57
Yeah, sounds like you’ve drunk the Kool Aid too. So that’s

Nikki Devitt 31:01
I did. I can’t deny it.

Brandon Burton 31:04
Going back and looking at the first Horizon Report, for somebody who’s just hearing about it now, to go back and look at it, you have the advantage of hindsight, of saying, Wow, that you know, this really came to pass, like this really the way? Yeah, I mean, it’s, it kind of makes your, you know, hair stand up on the back of your neck, because you’re getting it absolutely

Nikki Devitt 31:24
does. Because if you could read it and think about the fact that it came out, you know, with the intention of being having come it would all come to fruition by next year. So it came out 10 years ago, and you look at it and realize that 2020 you as a chamber professional, whatever month it was, April, May, June, July, whatever, in that year that you woke up that day and you went to bed that night and realized what you accomplished from a chamber perspective, and you read that report and you go, Oh, wow. Okay,

then I just hit all nine of those in eight hours or 12, depending on what you were working but yeah, yeah.

Brandon Burton 32:04
Very good. Well, Nikki, this has been fun having you on. I love your energy. I love the enthusiasm. I love the impact that you’re making there. Toski, thank you for being with us today. Please share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you. Where would you point them to?

Nikki Devitt 32:22
I would absolutely and I’ll spell it because Heaven knows you can’t pronounce nobody. Don’t worry, nobody can pronounce it. Petoskeychamber.com and that’s P, E, T, o, s, k, e, y, chamber.com and my email is really easy. Nikki, nikki@petoskeychamber.com, and I would love to hear from anyone and just wish everyone the best for 2025 because I think that chambers are going to be needed once again, like we always have been, percent, you know, over a century, now more than ever. So this is our time to really bring our communities and together and elevate our businesses

Brandon Burton 33:02
Absolutely, and we’ll get that in our show notes. Make it easy. People don’t have to spell. They can just click and make it easy to connect with you. But thanks again. This has been wonderful, and wish you the best as you continue to build a thriving community.

Nikki Devitt 33:17
Thank you so much.

Brandon Burton 33:18
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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.

Our guest for this episode is Ryan Tarrant. Ryan is currently the President and CEO of the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce and Experience Jackson, Jackson County’s destination marketing organization. In this role, he leads a strategy and vision to improve the regular quality of life in Jackson County for businesses and residents through advocacy, collaboration and destination development. Ryan previously served as the Chief Operating Officer of Business Leaders for Michigan, the state business roundtable, which he dedicated to making Michigan a top 10 state for jobs, education, widely shared prosperity and and a healthy economy, where he oversaw the execution of the organization’s work plan and public policy engagement strategy. He also has prior experience as a chamber executive, where his success included securing more than a million dollars in public funding for an award winning talent attraction and retention initiative, and created a robust advocacy strategy that drove community infrastructure projects, place made, placemaking activities and engagement with local, state and federal officials. Prior to his work in membership based organizations, Ryan held a variety of positions in government and politics, serving as chief of staff to US Representative John Molinar and as a district director for us, rep dave Camp and run numerous federal campaigns. Ryan has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Saginaw Valley State University, and he and his wife, Cheryl, have two mostly adult children and reside in Jackson, Michigan. Ryan, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you a chance to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Ryan Tarrant 2:59
Yeah, thanks, Brandon. You know, reading through that bio, it’s starting to make me just feel old. You know, I didn’t feel that old before. And you know, have those Boomer, growing children that tend to go leave for college and then come home and stay for a little bit. So, you know, hopefully we’ll be empty nesters soon. But yeah, I grew up in a mid sized town similar to Jackson, you know, we’ve got 30,000 people grew up in Bay City, Michigan, and, you know, great town had a, had a great upbringing, you know, you had the river, you had the lake, you know, grew up, you know, sailing and doing those things. You know, they have a sailing association. So, you know, really, every kid in the community can go out and learn to sail. And, you know, just, just kind of a fantastic place to grow up and live, you know, real sense of community. But one of the things, you know, it’s a traditional Midwest blue collar town, and so, you know, over the years, as you lose some of that manufacturing, you know, I think there’s a tendency for people to kind of say, well, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re just, you know, I think Madonna called it the dirty little town, because she grew up there as well. Okay, you know. So, so I think for me, you know, growing up in Bay City, you had a region, and Bay City kind of always felt like that, that little bit of a red headed stepchild. You had Midland with the headquarters of Dow, and you had Saginaw that was twice as big and, and so, you know, you always felt a little bit less than maybe, but, you know, so I think that’s what’s kind of drawn me into to the chamber world.

Brandon Burton 4:31
Yeah, it turns into a fighter. It sounds like little scrappy. Yeah, yeah, that’s good. So as far as the the chamber goes, what? What’s the size look like? Staff, scope of work, things you guys are involved with?

Ryan Tarrant 4:48
Yeah. So our chamber is about little shy of 700 members, you know, budgets little north of 600,000 and then I also run experience Jackson, which is our destination. Marketing organization, which is actually housed in the same building, but has a completely separate board, had combined. We have a staff of 10, and then the combined budgets, you know, roughly about 1,000,006 or 1,000,007 between the two. So two distinctly different missions. You know, from the chamber perspective. We we have a strategic plan that, you know, really tries to put our members first. You know that customer service, what our events look like. How are we connecting our members? You know, you’re kind of, if anybody thinks of a chamber, it’s, it’s that traditional chamber experience, but it’s really only, you know, probably a quarter of a third of what we do. You know, the other two pieces are, how do we impact our community? You know, what kinds of things can we? Can we take on? Can we convene and collaborate on to to improve the community? And then the third leg of the stool for us is, is that government affairs and advocacy work? You know, here in Michigan, we we’ve seen some some changes for businesses on the public policy side. And, you know, how do we, how do we push back on that when we need to? How do we, how do we work with our elected officials on some of those issues? And, you know, so over the last year, I’ve been here about 14 months this year, we we’ve had some issues with aggressive panhandling, you know, coming out of the out of the pandemic, I think a lot more communities have dealt with, you know, homelessness, panhandling and some of those types of issues, maybe more than they had in the past. You know, we got to the point where in our downtown, specifically, it was getting pretty aggressive. We have a self described progressive city council, okay, who had had pushed back on it for a long time and and so we spent about nine months working with them, to come to a compromise agreement early in the summer, to to kind of abate that a little bit as far as that aggressive behavior, as far loitering and accosting. And so, you know, had some success there. You know, we go after a lot of different state appropriations, earmarks, if you will, to to kind of ramp up projects, and that’s kind of the scope of what we do. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 7:04
well, that should set the stage for our discussion today. You guys are busy, for sure, get your hands in some several things and making an impact, but we’re going to focus our discussion today around thinking big and some of these big swings you guys have tried and these ideas that that come to you, and I’m excited to dive into this conversation and learn from these things you present to us today as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, Ryan, we’re back. I mentioned before the break. We’re talking about thinking big today. So in all these different areas of work that you guys are involved with, what are how do you incorporate thinking big? That might be the better way of asking it. How do you incorporate it? You know, every

Ryan Tarrant 9:53
community has its own personality, I would say. And you know, a lot of places in the Midwest you look at and. And and those these communities kind of take a look. And, you know, in our state, if you’re in a mid sized community, you look and you say, Okay, well, you know, Grand Rapids and Detroit sort of get everything and you know, and they’re doing a phenomenal job. I mean, you know, we all know, know about the NFL draft in Detroit and things happening in Grand Rapids with beer city, and then you’ve got Traverse City up north and and so they get a lot of play and a lot of a lot of credit for things. And I think we can, we can have a little bit of fall into a little bit of a rut where we just sort of expect to get, get what we get, and move forward, and nothing really changes, you know. And I think we take a little bit of a different perspective on it, which is, you know, kind of that, why not us? You know, if, if there’s, there’s these opportunities out there, you know, I mentioned appropriation as far as the government advocacy side goes, you know, why not us? You know, if you’re not even asking, you’re never going to get anything, and everything’s always going to be the same. You know, downtown Jackson seen a lot of redevelopment over the last decade or so. I mean, it’s really come back. You have restaurants, you have businesses downtown, and, you know, we have Consumers Energy, which is, you know, either number one or number two, as far as the biggest energy companies in the state that’s headquartered on one end of our downtown, the other end of the downtown, on the other hand, has something called the Hays hotel. It’s this historic hotel, 10 stories, and it’s been vacant for 21 years. And as I came into the community, and you know, I we would talk about the Hays hotel, and you would have people who would just kind of roll their eyes because they’ve all heard it before, and something’s going to happen with it. You know, fast forward and, and there’s a developer who’s who’s committed to it, and, and, you know, through our conversations with them, learned that there was a little bit of a gap with with all of the the different funding components, you know, you look at over the last couple of years, the increases in interest rates and labor shortages and supplies. And so, you know, it would seem that every time they would fill a gap, there was, you know, maybe another hurdle at the back end. So, you know, we kind of took a look at that and said, Well, you know, what if we tried to hit the easy button here a little bit. And so we engaged with our elected representatives at the state capitol and and kind of had that conversation and said, Look, this is, this is sort of that, that transformational project that kind of completes downtown and books and bookends Consumers Energy to then start to infill some of those, those side streets. You know, we were successful in securing we, we actually asked for $3 million and secured four and a half million dollars. Wow, yeah, they treated it a little bit like the 2023, housing market. You know, you put it up for 100 and they give you 150 right? But, you know, those are the types of things that you know, if you say, why not us? And you make the ask, you know, it’s okay to fail. You know, nothing changes if you fail, but nothing changes if you don’t try either.

Brandon Burton 13:05
Yeah? So, and if you do fail, you learn something, and you can apply it to the next, the next, you know, big idea, right? That’s exactly right, yeah. So, as we talk about big thinking, I I can’t help but think of you can’t have big thoughts if you don’t have big vision, right? If you don’t see a bigger plan or bigger vision for your community, can you speak towards that as to how you see Jackson County, what the possibilities are, what how you would like to see yourself in the future, and to be able to apply that to these big ideas that you’re working towards?

Ryan Tarrant 13:42
Yeah, I’m a big fan of, you know, looking at what others are doing and kind of figuring some of those pieces out, like, what are those aspirational goals? You know, I mentioned Grand Rapids, you know, there’s some other communities out there. We actually transitioned one of our team members into more of a data and analytics role, you know, he has a skill set for it, and so, you know, he’s been doing a lot of this. And, you know, not just kind of the, you know, hey, we’re going to do a community assessment and ask people how they feel. You know, we’ve been doing those for 40 years. And over the last 60 years, the city has lost 40% of its population because people’s feelings aren’t based on anything that you know maybe is real or or achievable. And so, you know, we look at at similar communities and find those comparable communities, then, you know, okay, what are, what are their chambers doing? Who is that, that sort of spark plug in the community, that organization, or that individual, you know what? What’s caused them to grow to, you know, achieve additional educational attainment, those types of things. And so, you know, for us, over the last couple of months, we’ve started to look at some of those things. And you know, you can look at Grand Rapids, and the things that we found are, you know, the two biggest keys to to growth seem to be, you know, persistence in your goal and strategies. And you. Yeah, and then, you know, having sort of some spark or some leader that that actually moves it forward. And when I talk about that persists, persistence, when you look at Grand Rapids, you know that that downtown redevelopment in Grand Rapids started in the mid 70s when Gerald Ford was president. You know, the Secret Service, when he became president, told him he couldn’t do a parade in His own hometown because there were so many vacant buildings and they couldn’t secure him. So, you know, fast forward a few years, and they had a conference center come in, and then, you know, and then it was a civic arena, and then it was a medical mile and a four year institution. And it’s been driven by, you know, collaborative efforts, but also by a couple of larger corporations or families that are located there. You know, similar things can be seen around the country. You know, you look at Bentonville, Arkansas with with the Walmart and Walden family, and then you look at places that that have the opportunity to do those things, but maybe don’t have that one or two businesses or individual that individuals with wealth that can kind of pull it off and keep people together. And what does that look like? You know, I talked to our peers in Mankato, Minnesota last week, and, you know, talking to them, and that persistence is there too, you know, they, they’ve, over the last 40 years, had these 20 year plans. I mean, they’re telling me they’re on number three. And so how do we create that? I mean, you’re talking mid 80s, yeah, how many changes of leadership have we had in since the mid 80s? You know, I’ve been in in communities where where you look at things and you go, Okay, there’s this collective group of leaders who have this vision and support each other and collaborate. But then you have one or two leave, and you have another one retire. And if, if that vision isn’t written down, and you’re not not pulling in those successors immediately into that, those leadership roles and to help with that vision, it starts to fall apart. And so, you know, it’s, it’s that keeping people together and that consistency in what you’re doing. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 17:06
now I love that, the creating that vision, and being able to see where there’s certain individuals in a community that maybe carry more influence they might, and I’m not talking necessarily elected officials, but you gave the example of the Walton family, and, you know, they’ve got money, they’ve got influence, big business. How do you get those people within your community to kind of, I don’t know how to say this, in the way that that I intend, but to engage, but to to not be so hyper focused on their individual business growth and success, but to be able to look at the greater picture of the community and get them to engage in the community, to see it grow and success and succeed by applying some of their skills and connections and abilities to the greater good

Ryan Tarrant 17:55
and and I think the biggest, the biggest key there. I mean, you know, you talk to economic developers. And you know what number one or number two is always people, if you’re talking to site selectors, on what’s the first thing they look at if they’re going to go into a community, right? It’s, do you have the quality and quantity of workforce, you know? So when you start talking to those, those you know, whether it’s an individual or a larger corporation, you know, everything I try and do comes from a perspective of, you know, talent, attraction, retention. You know, is this something that’s going to help us attract and retain talent, or is it just something that that we’re doing to do and how does it move the needle? You know, on our destination marketing organization side, you know, we’re making a big outdoor Bucha. Because, you know, we have something called the Irish hills in our county, and there’s, there’s opportunities for for gravel biking out there, which is the fastest segment of cycling. You know, we’ve got 11 miles of mountain biking trails, and our one of our city parks that just needs to be regrouped and maybe added to. And so, you know, how do we do that? Because now those things translate to those quality of life amenities that, you know, when one of our major corporations, or even, you know, a physical therapy organization, is hiring somebody out of college, you know, do you want to go to Jackson, or do you want to go to Chicago? And if you don’t have those quality of life amenities that, you know, you’re not going to compete with the big city lifestyle, but that’s okay. Utilize the assets you have, but make them as good as they can be. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 19:27
that makes a lot of sense. That place making aspect is huge. And I love the example you gave, the Hayes Hotel. I’m in Texas, and there’s a big historic hotel not too far from where I’m at, that has been vacant since, I believe, the 50s. So it’s been it’s quite the icon. People see it, but just now, things are starting to happen to revitalize it. And it’s great to see it’s great to see those success stories and to see it turn around. And it’s something that builds a community. Be around it too, where you can see progress happening on like, a magnified level, right? Yeah,

Ryan Tarrant 20:07
yeah. And those are the sort of transformational things that you see in a community that, yeah, you know, it’s sort of the I mentioned the last decade in downtown Jackson. And you know that that, to me, is that transformational piece that sparks the next decade.

Brandon Burton 20:22
Absolutely, are there some other big things that that you’ve taken a swing at, or, you know, that they would fall into this category of big thinking that we need to highlight?

Ryan Tarrant 20:35
Yeah, so, you know, you mentioned big things, and I mentioned, you know, a lot of lot of mid sized communities out there, you know, sometimes I think in a in the chambers, we can get hyper focused on our day to day. We’re all so busy, you know, all of those things, but, but we’ve really gotta, gotta kind of identify some of those swings. I mean, we can do that by focusing a little bit, right? Yeah, you know, making sure we’re training our sites and we leave that capacity for for those big swings, you know, but for us, I, you know, revamping those, those mountain biking trails are one of our big pushes for next year, you know, because what we’ve learned is, is, if you’re in that 12 to 20 mile range of mountain biking trails, and you develop them so, you know, you I guess, and I’m learning about Cycling right now, apparently it’s like skiing. They have green so little kids can do it and like me, and then they have black diamonds that are really challenging. And, you know, I break my neck so, you know, bringing in a trail builder to develop that and to add miles to it, so that we can draw people in, you know. And it’s in one of the, you know, I would say probably lower income or more diverse neighborhoods in the city. And so the proximity of it, you know, it’s not just doing that for talent attraction, but how do you make that accessible to everybody? So as a piece of that conversation, we’re looking at it and saying, Okay, can we do a mount like library, if you will, where, you know, a kid from the neighborhood can walk down and and, you know, show his card and essentially rent a bike without paying for it, just like the library and go ride the trails and have fun. You know, you want, you want those things to be accessible for everybody. You want everybody to be able to enjoy them, you know, and to do that because it gives you that, that sense of community pride, because with each one of those things you accomplish, it, it builds on itself. You know, we’ve got, we’ve got another nonprofit in town that’s called the hope kitchen, that’s taking the old Masonic Hall and creating a community kitchen, teaching kitchen to sort of train chefs in front of the house. And, you know, to make sure that that we have that pipeline of of talent for our restaurants, so that, you know, when somebody comes into town, or when you go downtown or to a restaurant in our community, you’re getting the service that you you expect. I mean, I think we’ve all been out to eat over the last couple of years, since COVID and and it always feels like, you know, a lot of time, I wouldn’t say always, but often times it feels like, you know, maybe that level of service that we were accustomed to pre COVID is not the same as post COVID, yep. And so, you know, teaching those people, you know how to do that, and and for us, you know, how do we support that? You know, when they need, when they need to purchase their equipment. How do we how do we help them, whether it’s with with grant funding, through the advocacy process, you know, those types of things. So yeah, so those are some of the, some of the things that that are on our radar right now.

Brandon Burton 23:33
And actually just saw this last week, restaurant that had a sign posted on their door said, No, dine in, just take out only, and it’s something that’s stuck ever since COVID and and I hope that’s because the the data is telling them that’s the best solution for them, but my fear is they can’t get the staff to do dine in or decide easier at the community the Customer Services has fallen out something,

Ryan Tarrant 24:01
yeah, the worst one I’ve seen. I saw was I actually tried to order a pizza online, and got a note when I tried to to click Order, and it said, we’re short staffed. We’re taking time to orders for tomorrow. What I got pizza from somewhere else. I think I still have pizza. So yeah, but yeah, that was the most bizarre one. I mean, they updated their their website, and they’re ordering, oh my goodness, that quickly, that you know, hey, we’re just, we’re busy, and we can’t keep up, so we’re just not taking any more

Brandon Burton 24:35
orders. Wow. But hopefully your appetite is still there tomorrow. So that’s crazy. Well, as as we start to wrap up here, I like asking for the chamber that’s listening, who’s trying to elevate their organization to the next level. What kind of tip or action item might you suggest for them and trying to accomplish that goal? So

Ryan Tarrant 24:55
I think we were, we were sort of, you know, in that mindset of. You know, about a year ago, when we were sounds like, yeah, strategic planning, right? You know, how do we elevate to the next level? We hadn’t done a lot of community initiatives or, you know, over the past few years, we hadn’t done a lot of advocacy work for our members over the past few years. And so, you know, they’ve been doing kind of this, you know, event to event kind of mindset. And so one of the things that we did was we actually developed a survey for other chambers. And so, you know, I mentioned our revenues about 600,000 so we kind of kind of broke it out into those peer chamber, Chamber organizations, and then sort of those aspirational chambers that are in that next level at 700,000 to a million or so. And we really went through and kind of said, you know, how many, how many events do you have that would be considered, you know, kind of, quote, unquote, Premier events, you know, your annual meeting, or your community awards or, or those types of things and, and, you know, how many of these advocacy pieces do you do, you know, kind of went down the line to try and benchmark a little bit to see, you know, at different levels, is, is there a different, you know, what does that look like? You know, are we doing something that’s a little bit off and, and what we found from it, you know, we had, we had, it actually ended up getting 1010, or 11 responses, you know, we, we targeted, who we who we asked. But we it was split evenly between those, you know, smaller in our our level, and then those larger organizations. And what we found was, the larger you are, the less you do. It’s hard to think about, but say it again, right? Or at least the forward facing of what you do is less larger you are, you know, because so many of us think of events, the less you do. Yeah, and it was that, you know, it felt like, as you got to that larger, larger revenue size, and you start to get north of 700,000 you know, those organizations are focusing more, doing fewer premier events, probably doing them really well. But part of that is because they’re transitioning from doing more events to more of that community based work, more of that advocacy style work. And even within that advocacy work, they’re more focused. They might pick three or four priorities that they want to work on, versus having, you know, 10 or 15 and and throwing everything at the at the wall and seeing what sticks. So, yeah, you know, I think that that next level for all of us is, is probably being more focused, you know, we, we, and we can fall into that. I mean, I’m, I’m as guilty as everybody else, right? We get so busy, you know, that there’s so many things going on, and sometimes it’s hard to to put that focus and pinpoint on on that one thing that your members need. But you know, I think at the end of the day, you know, for us, if, if we can accomplish that, that top priority, versus numbers 10 through 20, I think our members are going to be happier with us. We’re going to continue to grow, and, you know, the community is going to be better for in the future.

Brandon Burton 27:59
Yeah, but it sounds like having your new data and analytics person is a great step in that direction, to really focus.

Ryan Tarrant 28:07
It does help to look at data. You know, fewer feelings, more things based on data, really, I think, helps us move the needle a little bit. So, yeah,

Brandon Burton 28:16
I just heard the other day somebody was trying to bring back an event after the pandemic, and they put out an email to all their followers and whatnot, and said, you know, if we get enough interest, we’ll put it on. And there was like 300 or so people that responded, yeah, we want to do this. And then the person thought, you know what this is? Just feelings, you know, let me put this out there again, to the ones that said that they want to come and have them put down a 50% deposit, and if we don’t get enough, we’ll refund everything. We won’t do it, but if we get enough, we’ll move forward. And I think he said, Out of the 300 plus, you know people of interest, I think six people put down a deposit. He’s like, we’re not doing it. So I pay cancel it.

Ryan Tarrant 29:03
And I started looking at our events, and kind of said, you know, and talk to our team about if people don’t want to come to an event, you know, they may say they want it in our survey end of year survey, which, you know, we do every year, to kind of, kind of benchmark ourselves and see how we’re doing and what their needs are. And they may say they want all the networking in the world. You know, for us, we offer 22 networking events a year for a grand total of $90 you know, it, it’s literally sort of boosted by sponsors and different things. But if you’re not going to come to it, but you say you want it, we’ll just stop doing it. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 29:39
yeah. Don’t need the practice, right, right?

Ryan Tarrant 29:43
It shows that, you know, we’re a week post election. It shows that sometimes the data and the polling can be

Brandon Burton 29:48
off. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Well, Ryan, as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Ryan Tarrant 29:57
I don’t know that the purpose changes. All that much. I mean, you know, we’re, we’re still going to have that need for businesses who who want to get together, and who want to want to network with one another, develop those relationships. But I think, you know, if there’s any change at all, it’s probably that more and more of that is going to be about that, that bigger picture work that you’re doing. I mean, when we look at our community work, we’re not thinking of, are we doing this? Does it benefit our members? It’s, are we doing this? And does this benefit the community as a whole? You know, if, if the city of Jackson grows, and the county of Jackson grows and we have a bigger employer base, it certainly helps, helps our members. And so, you know, we worry less about those types of things, you know, right now, we, we are we awaiting word on a million dollar grant that we partnered with our local two year college on. And as a part of that, it’s workforce development, you know, is building out a workforce development collaborative to make sure our educational attainment is where it needs to be, and that all of our workforce development partners are working together, you know. And so about a quarter of that 250,000 would be essentially directed to the chamber to run that piece of it, you know. So, so I think you know that community based piece is probably the biggest thing. If, if people aren’t already doing that, how do you impact your community? You know, we know our businesses want to impact their community. That’s why they’ve, you know, for 70 years, sponsored Little League teams, right? You know, done those types of things. They sponsor the local booster club like they they want their people to have community pride. They want to want to see their community and be be proud of where they’re from, and say, you know, you should come visit. You should move here. It’s a great community, you know. And I think the chamber really in in most places, can be a driver of what we look what their community looks like in the next you know, 1015, 20 years,

Brandon Burton 31:48
yeah, yeah, that’s a great point. Well, Ryan, for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and maybe learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Jackson County, or maybe you’re one of the aspirational chambers that they’re looking up towards. But what would be the best way to to point somebody to reach out and connect with you? Sure my

Ryan Tarrant 32:09
email address is ryan@jacksonchamber.org, and my cell phone, because I actually got rid of my desk phone. I don’t use it anyway, is 989-708-7683,

Brandon Burton 32:26
that’s perfect, and we’ll get this in our show notes for this episode. Make it easy to find, but I appreciate you carving out some time to spend with us today on chamber chat podcast, sharing the example you guys are setting there in Jackson County and and sharing these ideas and some of these big things, these swings you guys are taking, I appreciate that, and it’s provided a lot of value to listeners today. So thank you for that.

Ryan Tarrant 32:49
Appreciate it. Thanks, Brandon.

Brandon Burton 32:50
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You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2024 chamber of the year final the series and our guests for this episode is Sandra Wilson. Sandra is the president and CEO of the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce. She joined the chamber in 2013 and before that she was a community volunteer she was the first woman to serve as Chairman of the Board for the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce in 1996 and later also as the first woman chair of the greater Paducah Economic Development Board. on a statewide level, she served as chairman of the Kentucky Manufacturers Association and on the board of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and leadership, Kentucky. She is a past board member of ACCE and serves on the local chamber advisory board for the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and as chair of the board for the Carson center Performing Arts Center in Paducah. She is the ambassador for Kentucky for the Association of leadership programs. She’s a graduate of Murray State University and leadership Kentucky and leadership Paducah and 2017 that Paducah chamber was named as chamber the year and category two from ACC. They’re also a five star accredited chamber by the US Chamber of Commerce. Sandra holds IMF IOM certification from the US Chamber of Commerce that Sandra, it’s great to have you back with us on chamber chat podcast. It’s always good to get past guests back on the show. But first congratulations to you and your team for being selected as a chamber the year finalist again, what an accomplishment. wanted to give you a chance to say hello to all the listeners and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Oh

Sandra Wilson 2:53
my goodness, Brandon. Well, thank you so much for hosting us and inviting me to be on the show today. I consider it quite an honor. And we are thrilled to be a finalist in 2024 is chamber of the year in Category Two. And we know who the other chambers are. And we look forward to seeing them at the ACC conference and visiting with them we have in the past about sharing ideas. And I think that’s really what chambers are so good at is doing is sharing ideas of what’s working in each other’s community so we can all be the best that we can possibly be for our community.

Brandon Burton 3:29
Absolutely, yes, that category two really all the categories this year, great chambers, great programs, but I’m looking at category two specifically I know them as well. And it’s a good competition all around. So whoever whoever wins, this is going to earn it for sure.

Sandra Wilson 3:48
Not be in the category with with those other chambers. So we’re thrilled about it. Absolutely.

Brandon Burton 3:54
Well tell us a little bit about the Paducah chamber Puducherry chamber and give us some perspective of the size of the chamber staff budget scope of work just to kind of prepare us for our discussion today.

Sandra Wilson 4:06
We are located in Paducah, Kentucky, and it’s in the western part of the state of Kentucky. So it’s kind of a rural area. But we’re located in the city of the rural part of Western Kentucky. And we’re the largest chamber in this area. We’re about 950 members always pushing to get to 1000 staying around that area. We have been at five staff members until the first of June, and the first of June we finally had the opportunity to hire a sixth employee. We during the last couple of years we raised money to launch a leadership center within our chamber of commerce. So we’ve hired a full time Executive Director for that will be staffing that portion of our chamber and he started June 1 So it’s been different having six here. You know you are so excited to be able to grow and add more staff. We are truly the chamber. We, our economic development involvement is we own our building we just bought our building within the last year and the greater paddock economic development is here with us are one of our tenants, we work very closely with them and helping to recruit economic development, but we’re the chamber and we work on behalf of our community, we lead the advocacy efforts for our region. We’re a hub for small business development programs. We’re the convener of people, and we love that part. You know, what we really want to do is just continually work to improve this community. So others that come here and visit it love it as much as we do. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 5:45
absolutely. What a great time to join the chamber though for the new staff member I mean, chamber the year year. Yeah. Great timing. So on these chamber, the or finalist episodes, I’d like to spend the majority of our time discussing the two programs of work that you guys submitted on your chamber the your application. I think there’s a lot there that other chambers listening can learn from and be able to scale and adapt and maybe apply something similar into their communities. So we’ll focus the majority of our time on those programs as soon as they get back from this quick break.

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All right, Sandra, we are back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re going to focus on the two programs that are submitted on your chamber the your application. If you would please introduce the first program that you’d like to address this today on the show and we’ll we’ll dive into the details of that. As

Sandra Wilson 8:34
a chamber, I think it’s really important that you look at what is going on in your community and what is the most important program or something that you need to take on and tackle. And for us, it it’s been the Department of Energy site here in Paducah for many years. But it took a different perspective in the last year and a half that planet that they announced in 2013, that they were ceasing operations and they would go into in what’s called Legacy environmental management. It was for cleanup of the site, which meant that they were still going to be there for probably 30 to 40 years and the cleanup stage. But it’s it’s it’s different than when it was operating. And it was different for us is the way our community needed to embrace the Department of Energy. So we’ve been in that phase for over 10 years now. And it became apparent to us because we got very involved with the national trade association for communities that have a department of energy side that’s in this phase of cleaning up the energy communities Alliance. We started going to their meetings we started meeting you know, we’ve always been the advocacy organization asking for money, but we for the for the cleanup, but we started looking at what needs to be done out there for the future. We really didn’t have a plan for beyond the cleanup phase, where there’s all He’s an opportunity for development, economic development to continue. So we applied for a grant with the Department of Energy to lead the reindustrialization study for that site to really map out the future. Because there there could be a parallel path for this site, you can have it the cleanup going on that we’re working with. Now, again, on our advocacy side, for the chamber, we are fighting for funding, we have fight for long term contracts, those are the things that we’re representing there. On the second side of it, the parallel path would be looking at how we could get the land that has been dedicated and managed, owned by the department of energy transferred back to our community so that we can begin to do economic development project programs, and overall economic development of that site. So we developed a grant request, and we’re very successful to get that, and we’ll be we’re about a year into it now. And we’ll be, you know, continuing throughout the next six months to a year as well on it. So with that, I have grant request had some major pillars in it, of course, that we have to accomplish. And one of those is identifying and infrastructure needs for the land that would be transferred back to the community. And in step one of that also, you had to, we had to do the official formal request from our community, for the very first parcel of land to be transferred back to the community. So that has been accomplished. And so now we’re looking at what the infrastructures would would need water, roads, all of that, to make that successful economic development. And then we will continue with working on prospects for economic development. We’ve been to national conferences to meet with companies that are interested in locating and an economic in a on a Department of Energy site, a joint adjacent to it or nearby. We’re working on the workforce. And really, we’re looking on the workforce for now and for the future. So that’s part of our grant that is really overlapping from what’s happening now, and going into the future for the next few years. And so those were the main things, those were really a little bit unusual for our chamber, because we’re not the economic development organization for our community. But we work with economic development very closely. And we have worked with the Department of Energy for so many years that we know knew that they have a lot of trust in our chamber, that we have built a relationship with them for the year. So they knew that we would take this very seriously, and that we would make sure it’s done correctly.

Brandon Burton 12:50
So what kinds of things were maybe surprising as you went through the study of trying to revitalize this this land? Was there anything that came to light that you didn’t expect? That has kind of course the direction that you’re going going forward?

Sandra Wilson 13:07
I think that identifying the companies that might be interested to come here has been a very interesting prospect. I mean, that we can’t really, you know, we’ve just put in the land transfer request, that had to be step number one, and then we’ll begin to identify who would be interested in coming here. So there’s a lot of opportunity there. The Department of Energy has a lot of funding available for developing new companies. But there’s just a lot of things that will come to light as we begin to work through this process. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 13:43
All right. Is there any specific industry or type of business you feel like would be an ideal candidate for what’s on a former Department of Energy? Land?

Sandra Wilson 13:56
There are some that are, you know, Newt, mislaid, nuclear clean energy potential for small modular reactor. I mean, right now we’re identifying those and who would consider coming here, there are a lot of fuel fabrication, a lot of things that are really all new to us, as a as a chamber, that we’ve been able to work with the context that we built through the many years that we’ve been involved with the Department of Energy to know who they may be. Right.

Brandon Burton 14:24
Now, as I think of a chamber of the year finalists, we’re really looking at chambers that are making a big impact on their community. And what you guys are focused on here with this Department of Energy land, this can be a huge impact to the economy in the Paducah area and just a change of atmosphere, if you will, depending on how that goes forward. So that I see it being a huge impact in the community.

Sandra Wilson 14:51
Thank you. I would totally agree. The decisions we are making today and that we are identifying for the future really are Setting our community for the futures for the next 50 years and beyond. Because it’s so critical that we diversify our economy here, we’ve had this Department of Energy site for 60, year of 5060 years, it was a great employer of some of the best jobs in our community they employed, you know, way over 1000, they still do that. But it’s sometimes in the peaks, I’ve been up to 1800 to 2000. And so we became really reliant on that, because we had such a good base. But it’s important that we continue to diversify all of that economy, you know, community, our size is not a huge geographical large county. So that is available land that we need to focus on for economic development for the future. We have said before, when we’re meeting with the Department of Energy, we don’t want to be part of just their history, we want to be a part of their future. And they have a lot of programs available for working with companies that are looking at the future of energy projects. Our state, for example, we had in our advocacy efforts for 2024, with the state priorities was all quite a bit about nuclear energy. And our state has a set aside, established a new nuclear Working Group advisory board that will be run out of the University of Kentucky. And you know, there’s identifying criteria for making a community nuclear ready. Prior to that our community had already identified and adopted resolutions by our city government or county government, our chamber economic development, our community reuse organization, stating that we are a community that’s a nuclear ready. And by that we meant we’ve been in this arena for many years. We understand it, we know it, our workforce knows that we’re ready to go for the next step. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 16:59
that’s great. I love what you said about, you don’t want to just be a part of the their history but a part of the future as well. So I love being forward thinking like that.

Sandra Wilson 17:11
Girl is also I’ll just say what he’s really put me out in the and a national forefront. I was able to speak at a waste management symposium earlier this year, and was on a panel out there where there were I think 3000 People now wasn’t I didn’t speak to that hopeful 3000, I spoke to a panel on a panel specific about cleanup of the Department of Energy side. But it’s put me in a whole new arena, really talking about that. And I also believe that it is putting a chamber chambers of commerce across the country in a new arena where you can show that you adjust to what your community needs are. And we saw this as a really strong need, we embraced it, we were very intentional on how we would move forward with it. And we are going to deliver the best product that we can for the Ark communities path forward, we call it our roadmap for the community. So that whoever picks it up at the end, knows exactly the next steps for land transfer, who the economic development prospects are and has their contacts and knows what they would want for infrastructure needs, and knows what the workforce would need to be. So we’re preparing our future at the community now.

Brandon Burton 18:24
That’s great. I love it. Love it, love it. Let’s shift gears a little bit into the second program that was submitted on your chamber that your application if you introduce that to us and kind of the the origins and how that’s developed?

Sandra Wilson 18:40
Well, when I talk about economic development, let me just say we say it all the time, it happens one job at a time. It’s great when you have a new company come in and they’re announcing three to 400 500. But you have so many small businesses in Riyadh in reality Chamber of Commerce for us. In located where we are about three fourths of our members are considered small businesses. And they’re reliant on the big employers around them for the customers and the you know, the activity that comes in for them. But they are truly what we would call economic development at its finest. And we have a small business cohort that had we’ve graduated 40 from the program, and we see how they are hiring people. They’re expanding. They’re opening new locations, because of the programs that they have seen that can be successful, how they can develop it and make their own business more successful through what they’ve learned in our small business cohort. We have all kinds of seminars, we have a lot of programs that go on, we get calls every day that how do you do a business plan? How do you get this will central to that was our Small Business Development Center, that chamber How does it how’s that but we have a close relationship in partnership with the Small Business Development Center. The way it is structured in our state is that I have to raise it was it was restricted a little bit where they had to raise the funding locally to keep their program open. When you have somebody that’s supposed to be advising small business owners, I didn’t, we didn’t want them to have to spend their time or decided that the chamber. And we went out in the community and the chamber, first of all, and we went to our economic development, our city or county and our local organizations that benefit from having small business development center in our community. And we were able to raise the money that was needed to keep that program open, and that you’re continuing to be a close partner with us and everything that we do for our small businesses.

Brandon Burton 20:42
So I’m curious and how you went about raising the money? Was it about just getting the the awareness out about what the need was and making strategic assets? or was there some kind of event or fundraiser I had, what was the approach to raising those funds?

Sandra Wilson 20:57
First of all, our Small Business Development Center had a great track record, so they could show the businesses that they had helped, and what it involved with jobs and with economic development, so when you go and talk to a mayor, or a county judge, and you can show them the benefits and the success that they’ve been having, it really helps a lot. And we were able to do that. So it was strategic meetings, and some phone calls. But we did go to a lot of meetings in person. Most all of them were our members, primarily, we did work with an adjoining county that had some support as well. But we that adjoining county is a really close partner with our own county and with our chamber, they’ve been very involved with us through the years. So we had built those relationships. I think everyone that we asked knew that they could trust us as well, that we wouldn’t be behind it if we didn’t know that it was going to be a very successful program. And so that that’s what we did, we mostly, I would say, went one on one with meetings. But it wasn’t an impossible sale, where it was more of an education. And let’s face it, everything at the end comes down to making the ask closing the deal. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 22:11
So you didn’t do like a mass email and say we’re collecting funds, it was more strategic and gave some intention behind that. So

Sandra Wilson 22:22
we knew that their partners were, we knew who the small businesses that they were helping with we’re working with, we knew that overall, no one wanted to lose this resource that we had in our community. I think that was someone the number one thing that we all agreed on. It was just how do we make sure that we’re doing the steps that we need to and somebody has to take the lead on anything that you’re going to do somebody has to take the lead to make sure that it’s being done, it’s being done in a timely way it’s being reported, and that everything that needs to be done, when you’re looking at raising funds, it was going to the University of Kentucky, that everything that needed to be done was was completed the way it should be. So

Brandon Burton 23:09
the raising of the funds, is that something that needs to be done on an annual basis for the Small Business Development Center? Or is it what what kind of interval was that where they need to come up with the funds to justify staying open, we

Sandra Wilson 23:21
set it up on a two year program. So everyone committed for two years, I believe at the end of those two years, we will not have any trouble continuing with that, because he’s already met his goals for the year right now, you know, and halfway through the year, so he’s got the rest of the year to continue. You know, just to build up on that and expand, the one thing that he probably needed to do was be able to expand into other counties. A lot of his work was being done in our immediate area in Paducah and the immediate surrounding area. But there are other counties in our community that did step in our West Kentucky Regional Chamber Alliance stepped in and made a nice contribution to help with them. And they represent 14 counties in West Kentucky. So it was a really opportunity to allow that this service to be expanded as well. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 24:11
that’s fantastic. Guys came in as heroes.

Sandra Wilson 24:17
So I mean, in regionalism, and how important it is that if our county is successful, it’s overflowing into other counties. And if our county next door has businesses opening, more than likely, you know, we’re going to benefit from that in some way. And so, really show the strength I think of working together to support something in your region that you know, is vital and is very important. What was

Brandon Burton 24:43
key to me is how you mentioned it was it was all built upon the relationships that you guys have built over the years to be able to go make those asked to make those connections build lean upon the county next door and to be able to make this happen and it is it’s what chambers do is convening and building those relationships and That’s, uh, you guys executed well on that. So great job.

Sandra Wilson 25:06
It was really fun, because it actually put us out in the community back meeting with our own members. But you know, the underlying factor too is we knew we really couldn’t continue our own small business development programs that we have, if we didn’t have that resource. It was critical for us to have that. So it was a great investment. Right? And resources.

Brandon Burton 25:29
Yes, yeah. So I like asking, especially as we have you on as a chamber, the year finalist for chambers that are out there listening, what kind of tip or action item might you share for a listener who’s interested in taking their chamber up to the next level?

Sandra Wilson 25:46
There are a lot of resources out there that are very beneficial. And I think you have to look at your own region to see how what what’s needed the most. And then you can rely on for us, we rely on our State Chamber, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce a lot. I mean, we work very closely with them, we rely on the US Chamber of Commerce and rely on them. And as a chamber executive, we rely on the association of Chamber of Commerce executives, there are great resources available, that if you just will take the time, that and I’m just gonna say that’s probably some of the hardest thing. That’s the hardest that you have to find. Because as a chamber, executive, chamber staff person, you’re managing a lot of different tasks, no day is ever the same. No crisis is ever the same. No, celebration is ever the same. And so you have to really be always looking to see what someone else is doing. And then the chamber rolled, you know, I think we call it r&d, the RIP and duplicate, and you make it your own. And we do that, and we’re honored when another chamber does that from something that we’re doing, if they can, if we can help them to be more successful. That’s awesome. Because that’s helping more communities to be successful, more Chambers of Commerce. So identify what’s needed in your community, look around and see how you what would be the best organization for you to align yourself with on any particular issue. And it’s going to vary from issue to issue.

Brandon Burton 27:21
I love that fact, as I introduce what chamber chat podcast is all about to chamber professionals, I’ll use the tagline that it’s your weekly r&d resource, right? So every week, you get new ideas that you can rip off and duplicate. So I love that learning from others. As we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future chambers and their purpose going forward?

Sandra Wilson 27:47
I’m gonna go back to the fact that I think you have to identify what’s important in your community, because we’re all different. We all have different challenges and different opportunities, and identify what is going to help your community and I didn’t make a determination if that’s something your chamber should be the lead on, should maybe be the second play the second roll in and pushing, sometimes you just have to push, who maybe it’s a different organization, or maybe it’s the government that should be in the lead, and you’re the one pushing them to help them better understand that there are times that you’re going to need to be in the lead and look to others to help you with that. But you’re going to have to stay relevant in your own community.

Brandon Burton 28:32
I like that trying to figure out what your role should be and what your community needs. I think a lot of chambers just jumped to the conclusion oh, we need to be the lead. And like he said, oftentimes be in that second role and helping to push it along and explain why things are important is very helpful. You’re still leading but you don’t have to take that that main charge and carry that that weight that comes with it as well. So great, great piece of advice with that as well. Well, Sandra, before we let you go, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who’d like to reach out and learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Paducah, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you. Okay,

Sandra Wilson 29:11
that’s great. I always appreciate sharing information and I can tell you that I call others all the time to ask for their advice. So you can reach us at PaducahChamber.org And my direct email is swilson@paducahchamber.org. And let me spell Paducah, Pa d u c h Paducah. And wire info if you can’t remember as well send info@PaducahChamber.org. We’ll get you through to ours and we’ll answer you.

Brandon Burton 29:41
That’s perfect. And I’ll get it in our show notes for this episode as well. So somebody can pull that up and find your email and website and all that good stuff. But Sandra, this has been great to have you back on chamber chat podcast and again, big congratulations to you and your team for being selected as a finalist for the great work you guys are doing. Under the Paducah area, and I wish you and your team Best of luck as chamber the year. Thank

Sandra Wilson 30:05
you, Brandon. Thank you for all you do for the chamber profession. We really do appreciate it. Thank you.

Brandon Burton 30:10
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Quality of Place Fundraising with Dan Culhane

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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. You’re joining us for a special episode as part of our 2023 ACCE Chamber the Year Finalist Series.

Let’s hear from Becky Womble, President of the Bastrop Chamber to hear about her experience with Community Matters.

Becki Womble 1:03
I’ve been using Community Matters for probably six or seven years now. And in a previous life, I sold commercial printing so I can highly recommend Community Matters because it’s a complete turnkey job for any busy chamber exec and it’s a wonderful, beautiful printed product whenever you’re finished. And I just I’m very sold on Community Matters. And with a printing background I just big endorsement from me.

Brandon Burton 1:44
To learn how Community Matters can support your chamber with your next publication. Please visit communitymattersinc.com/podcast To request your free media kit and request a proposal to find out what kind of non-dues revenue you can generate.

Learn how you can partner with Community Matters, Inc. to produce your next Chamber Directory, Community Guide or Map.

Our guest for this episode is Dan Culhane. Dan is the President and CEO of the Ames Chamber of Commerce in Iowa. In his current role, he’s led several initiatives including the modern modernization of the Ames Municipal Airport, the annexation of 13 of over 1300 acres for the creation of Prairie View industrial center, and the recruitment and expansion of over 75 companies to the Iowa State University Research Park and the Ames metropolitan statistical areas supporting the creation of 1000s of jobs. He is a 1993 graduate of Iowa State University with a BS degree in Community and Regional Planning and a 1998 graduate of the University of Oklahoma’s Economic Development Institute. He earned his CCD in 2000. And the chamber industry’s highest designation, its CCE in 2011. Dan has served on numerous boards and is currently a member of the Wi SS Foundation Board. He’s also served on the board of the United Way of storey County and chaired the 2017 campaign, which is the largest campaign in history and remains today. He co chaired Reggie sleep that out Reggie’s sleep out in aims to promote the needs of homeless youth as well. He’s served as chairman to several organizations over the years including the Iowa state university’s athletic letterwinners Club and the Iowa chamber Alliance, a coalition of Iowa’s largest community communities Chambers of Commerce, the professional developers of Iowa and the Mid America Economic Development Council multistate peer group from Iowa to the Dakotas. And Dan was honored in June of 2023, with the Iowa Association of Business and industries leadership for Iowa award given annually to deserving leader in Iowa, who’s an alumni of leadership, Iowa. Dan, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast, I’d love to give you a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Dan Culhane 4:09
Well, thank you, Brandon. It’s great to be here. I certainly appreciate the invitation. So I’ve been in the chamber in the economic development business for nearly 30 years. And I’ve seen it change a lot, but I still get up every day greatly enjoying the work that I get to do. Our chamber here in Ames, Iowa was about 750 members. We’ve got about a $3.6 million budget. I’ve got 17 people that do a lot of good work every day in to county area that encompasses the Ames MSA, which is about 125,000 people. You know, I’ve often heard and I’ve since repeated that if you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber. I think they’re all different. I think they reflect the needs of the board members and the communities in which they serve. And we’re certainly no different. Ames is a vibrant university community, home of Iowa State University with 32,000 students. And so that creates a level of dynamic that’s really powerful for chamber work and economic development work and community development. And so we do a lot of community development work along with the very traditional chamber work that most Chambers of Commerce to do that I’m pretty excited about. You know, in terms of something that unique or that most of you may not know about me is they often quipped that the reason I came to Ames, Iowa in the first place, was to play baseball at Iowa State and I got to stay and play baseball at Iowa State because I get hit a curveball. And so I played three years at Iowa State, they’re on their baseball team had a great experience, ripped up a knee pretty good my junior year, and then I was done. And but nonetheless, it was it was a rich experience. And it’s even a neater opportunity for me now to be back where I went to school, leaving the Chamber of Commerce and the economic development organization here in this region. I’m

Brandon Burton 6:01
sure you still get a few curveballs thrown your way, as a chamber exec

Dan Culhane 6:05
every day.

Brandon Burton 6:08
You’re the right guy for the job, you can hit those curveballs. So very good. Sam, thank you for for touching on that. The Ames chamber itself, just the the size, you mentioned the the number of members and your staff and what kind of scope of work as you mentioned, one, if you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber. What areas are you guys involved with, as far as the work goes at the chamber?

Dan Culhane 6:32
You know, Brandon, it’s incredible. When I got here, there, there I was the I was there was five of us at that time. And so we’ve grown immensely. And we’ve grown as as a staff, as the work has, has come to come to our table. And so we do the most traditional of chamber programming, leadership development, public policy, a wide variety of events, we do over 100 events every year. So we’re in that’s in that from that standpoint, we’re a very traditional Chamber of Commerce. Beyond that, we’ve also got an economic development organization. We do a lot of workforce development, workforce programming, career fairs, things of that nature, internship programs. And so we’ve got our hands on a lot of things that maybe some traditional chambers may or may not do. But we’re also doing community development work in the smallest of communities in our two county area, where we’re helping communities of 700 people with infrastructure grants and other other grants and opportunities for new housing starts. And so we’re, we’re engaged in housing more today than we were probably two years ago. Housing is certainly a need across our country. We all know that, but it’s certainly needed in our region. We’re also engaged in childcare, in helping with childcare grants and a variety of programs to enhance the childcare slots that we have in our region, for our for our workforce, you know, workforce is such a big piece of of all that we do. We have to support childcare, housing, and things of that nature, to support people that are going to work in our companies.

Brandon Burton 8:18
So I’m hearing more and more chambers getting involved with paying attention to childcare and helping that out as far as the workforce needs go. And for those listening is you hear certain trends being repeated over and over, it might be worth looking into and seeing what your community needs in these areas of work, specifically in childcare and workforce. And then in education, I mean that it just snowballs right and all these different areas. But childcare specifically I’ve seen as more of a newer area of interest in the last couple of years of chambers get really getting involved. And my ears are kind of perking up every time I hear it now because I think more chambers are seeing the vision of the value that comes to their community by paying attention to childcare. So for our topic of conversation today, we’ve kind of narrowed down our options and things that could discuss today we could we could probably talk for hours and hours. But we’ll we’ll talk about fundraising for quality of place projects. And we’ll dive into that and much more detail since we get back from this quick break.

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Siobhan Kenney 11:32

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Brandon Burton 12:16
All right, Dan, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re we’re highlighting the fundraising for quality of place projects in your community. First of all, I think just to maybe the light level, the field for everybody listening, so to speak. In some communities, it may be the initial reaction is, well, maybe we’re not a quality of place, maybe we don’t have anything that draws people in or, you know, really attracts people. I think we need to maybe attack that thought or maybe that misnomer. First, before we go on with the rest of the discussion. What What would you have to say, with that initial thought that some people may perceive about their community?

Dan Culhane 12:58
You know, I think that no matter what size community you’re in, you’re always trying to do something to make your community better. And so I I don’t think we’re any different than anybody bigger than our community or smaller. There’s always those quality of place enhancement, those amenities, those livability amenities that are important, because you want to make yourself as a community as attractive as you can for that next company, that next employee that has come that’s going to work at your hospital or, or your next superintendent of schools, whatever it might be, you want to you want to check all those boxes, so people choose you. And so that’s where I think we focus in our region on those quality of life assets, and how do we help support communities in accomplishing those things. So that ultimately, we are more attractive to an external audience that’s contemplating either an investment or a life change, job change, by coming to our region.

Brandon Burton 14:01
I think that’s a good point. Because whoever it is, you’re trying to attract whether it’s a new superintendent for the schools or somebody at the hospital or whatever it may be. Your community may be exactly what they’re looking for. Maybe they don’t need the huge community or the super smaller, you know, whatever you feel like might be attractive to other people. Your community does have something to offer to the right person for what you’re trying to fill for. So keep that in mind and look at those assets that you have to promote. So I love that perspective. You said having those check boxes for people that choose you so love that. So when you think of aims, think of quality of place, what what sort of projects are you guys working on around the quality of place, and then we can get into the fundraising aspect here in just a moment.

Dan Culhane 14:50
You know, while Ames is a pretty vibrant university town we still have needs and the biggest project in most recent memory that that Our organizations worked on was an indoor Aquatic Center, a public indoor swimming pool, if you will. And the community had voted down a very, very large Wellness Center, I think it was called a healthy life center. Here in our community, it ended up being close to $50 million. It just blown up to everybody had something in it. And as a result that it just didn’t garner any attention when it came to the voters. And so when that failed, the the need for an indoor Aquatic Center and market this size, it didn’t change we didn’t have we never did better with that the high school and high school have been torn down, they built a new high school, they built the new a new facility, a new swing swing facility, the AIMS is that a lot of state state championship teams swimming, but that new pool was dedicated to the student population. Now there’s a number of indoor water basins in our community because of the university, but in terms of rank and file citizens in our community that they wouldn’t necessarily have access, they needed something. And so we went to the city and said, Hey, we’ve got to figure this out. And we broke it into really three pieces, there was a state program called the Iowa reinvestment district program that we applied for the city put in a percentage of the money. And then we promised to raise the other third. And you know, that was a awesome task, but we did it. And the fact of the matter is a lot of chamber professionals like myself may think, well, that’s not our role. But again, it goes back to what what the needs are of your community. And I saw that as a need for our community. And so we pushed hard to get that done. And they’re breaking ground next spring out of $32 million indoor aquatic facility near our downtown, which will also be catalytic for the downtown portion of our community as well. And so that’s certainly a community asset or an amenity that we identified as a real need, and at the same time, will also support other things in our community.

Brandon Burton 17:10
Absolutely. I love that and being able to attack it from you know, the three different arms, as you talked about with the state program, the city, and then the chamber picking up that, that remaining third. I’m always curious, you know, with whether it’s fundraising or messaging of any sort, as a chamber tries to push out messaging or attract donors in this case, what is the messaging look like as you go about the fundraising? Did you have kind of a list of people that you wanted to target? Or was it just kind of broadcast to everybody? Or how kind of the what’s the methods behind it about the approach? So good, great

Dan Culhane 17:48
question. So in this instance, what I really focused on was our companies making an investment in this facility, and talking about how this would be impactful for them, in retaining people, their workers, and attracting workers. You know, we routinely are one of the lowest MSA is in the country for unemployment, pre pandemic, we were at 1.2%. And usually number one in the country for unemployment, which that’s great, but because you got to be known for something. But at the end of the day, you still need to attract new industry. And so for a variety of reasons, we continue to do attract industry while our unemployment rate was that low. But Consequently, there was still a need for for more workers. And so that was the that was kind of the the angle I took with a lot of our funders was I said, this is an opportunity for one more arrow in your quiver to attract that next worker, that next engineer, that next software engineer, that programmer, or that production worker at 3am. That’s got a large facility in our community. And that resonated with people because they knew that they needed more assets and amenities outside of work to attract those people. And that worked really well for us in raising the dollars for this for the 1/3 of the project. I

Brandon Burton 19:12
like that and that kind of answers. My the next question that I had is going to be how did you help these employers catch that vision that this project, this aquatic center is going to help to attract and retain employees and really see it as a workforce issue rather than a, you know, a new amenity center or a new asset to the community but really, it became a workforce issue? Was it was a well received? Did you get any pushback on it? Did you learn anything along the way about maybe how to change the approach at the next business that that you guys talked to?

Dan Culhane 19:48
You know, I, I learned, I guess what this process did was reinforced, something I might have already known. And that is the big national or international companies that are in your community. Knee. They’re not as though they’re not always as quick to support things like this their processes harder. Our best supporters were locally owned companies, locally owned small businesses and large, that really understand greater good. One of our core values here at the US Chamber of Commerce is actually the term greater good. Because there’s so many things that come across my desk, where if you really looked at a very traditional chamber organization and say, well, that’s probably not our fundraising for a public project like this, in most places probably wouldn’t be there. I raised money with another person in our community, a business leader for our airport a number of years ago. And again, making sure the airport has adequate hangar storage and things like in a new new terminal, we’re gonna have partial service here, but a small terminal building that better represents the community. That was something else, we raised the money. And again, so it was a need for our community. And we said, well, if not us, then who? And so often, I think chambers are faced with that decision, if not us, then who. And so a lot of times chambers step up, it can be for the smallest of projects, new banners for the downtown, somebody putting on the Fourth of July parade, or raising $10 million to build a new aquatic center, it runs the whole gamut. And I think that’s, that’s why chambers are powerful and effective. And every community, it’s because they step up and say, well, we’ll take care of that we’ll help we’ll support that. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 21:36
I love that. And then the example the the airport as well. And I’m sure you’ve got other examples you can point to of really creating more of a quality of place their names. As you go through the process of evaluating because I know as a chamber, you know, all the projects cross your desk, right? And you kind of have to have a filter of, yes, this is worth our time. And this aligns with our mission and purpose as a chamber, versus those that other people just don’t want to do. And they push to the chambers think I know what the chamber should do this, right. So when you look at that, because I can see where some people would say, well, this doesn’t necessarily fit directly with our mission. But how do you apply that filter as to what what is worth the attention, especially when it comes to quality of place improvements in your community?

Dan Culhane 22:24
Well, that’s that’s a tough process, because almost everything can be applied to that makes our community better. And so that’s where a board of directors really comes in and can help someone like me helped make that decision. Because oftentimes, if you ask my staff that’s sitting outside my door right now, they, they would probably all say Dan says yes to everything. And I really don’t but we say yes to a lot of things. Because we again, understand greater good. We’ve got a nonprofit radio station here in our community. We’re a sponsor. I don’t listen to it very often. But I know people do and it creates community. And so we support that. There’s a thing called the Ames tuba Christmas that happened two weeks ago, it’s a professor of music at Iowa State who puts this thing on and they they fill a 17 seat 700 seat auditorium on the I was a campus for this three times over the course of a weekend. And we provide some dollars to that to support that, again, because it’s about greater good. And so that’s, that’s probably the litmus that I put on a lot of things is, does this does this enhance our communities as our make our community better and stronger? Certainly the volunteer, nonprofit radio station, there’s, there’s, there’s community there. And so anywhere, we can help build community or support building community, there’s a good chance we’re going to try and participate at some level. It’s like a lot of things in our community. We’ve done a diversity, equity and inclusion program here at the chamber. It’s not the biggest one of chambers. It’s certainly not the leading one in our community. We’ve got a very strong city, and a very powerful university. But we’re at the table too. And so I look at a lot of things like that, and others, where if if we’re not at the table, we’re conspicuously absent. And so we try to be participant be a participant in supportive of a wide variety of things in our community. Because as a chamber of commerce as the voice of the business community in our region, we should be able to Yeah, and

Brandon Burton 24:33
you don’t need to be the driver of all the things but being at the table is important. Yeah. So I’m curious on the fundraising aspect. Do you typically when you fundraise for these quality of place projects, are you doing it internally and just having staff dial for dollars and go out and meet with members? Are you using a third party or what how do you make the approach to these come On the capital campaign?

Dan Culhane 25:02
Well, in the in the instance of the aquatic center, you’re looking at the fundraiser right now, I raised the money for that. And I don’t like to say I, but that’s really what happened. It was, it was, I was probably the best equipped to do that, you know, I’ve also been in the community long enough now that I can I can get the appointment and, and maybe lean in a little bit on some of our business leaders to say, hey, this really is the right thing to do. You know, and so I think that my tenure here, made that probably an easier process than if I was brand new in the community. And I was knocking on doors, introducing myself as the new leader of the chamber. Oh, by the way, I’d like $100,000 for this aquatic center. So more often than not even even our even our capital campaigns for our organization. Usually, I do most of that. And now there’s a rule in the in the chamber and economic realm world that says, the staff should never be asking for money, because they’re asking for money for their salaries. And I understand that, but at the same time, I do think more often than not staff and the president and CEO of the organization, typically know the numbers better than anybody. And so they can articulate the best. And that’s why I won’t argue with anybody about what’s, what’s the right way, the wrong way. But I would just say that, in our instance, my senior leadership team and myself are probably best equipped to talk about the finances of the organization, far better than anybody on my board of directors. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 26:35
I would agree. And I think as you’re out making those asks and visiting with the businesses, they see the passion, they see your commitment to building the community. There’s no question about what does Dan do for us anyway, right, like you’re out there working it and, and building on those connections, and really seeing names grow and develop, and that, you know, match the vision that you would see and hope for?

Dan Culhane 26:58
Well, you know, as we were talking before we started the day, Brandon, you know, you can’t, you can’t fake it in any business really, right. You either you either are well set well suited and match to it, and have a passion and a really a real desire to see. In this case, a community to get better, or your business community get better. It just can’t fake it. And if you’re faking it, people will know right away. So passion is pretty important in any any job, but certainly in the chamber business.

Brandon Burton 27:27
I love that. Is there anything else is in regards to fundraising and quality of place projects that we might want to consider going forward? If I’m just picturing the Chamber’s listening that have projects kind of crossing their desk or maybe floating in their mind? What are some of those things to consider before moving forward or as you move forward with some of these projects?

Dan Culhane 27:52
Well, you know, you can, you can talk about raising a lot of money, like for an aquatic center, or you can talk about raising money for a new program and site or chamber. I think you’ve got to develop a plan. And you’ve got to articulate why it’s important, why your community needs a why your chamber needs it, why your chamber needs a Workforce Program, or why your chamber should do it in our city leadership, business, whatever it is, why you should add another employee, you have to be able to lay out a plan for how that will positively impact the chain your chamber, but also your your community, and your business community and your members. And so I think that that’s the key to doing anything related to trying something new, is Think it through a similar plan and doesn’t have doesn’t have to be a 20 page document. It can be I’m kind of an executive summary kind of person. It can be a one page that says here’s why this is important. And then really understanding what the what the what the the problem is you’re trying to solve, or the opportunity you’re trying to capture, and are being able to clearly articulate why that’s important, whether it’s to your board, or to local elected officials or the broader community. I think that’s the key to doing anything related to fundraising or starting new programs is being able to, frankly sell it in a manner that shows the true value of moving forward.

Brandon Burton 29:19
Yeah, I don’t know that I necessarily like this. This example, but when you think in politics, you know, there’s a new piece of legislation that’s being discussed or something’s being presented there. Politicians are really good at getting their talking points in order. And their staff talks about it’s almost word for word, you know, they’re just last step and barrel you know that exactly what they’re gonna say. And I see that being very similar to if you’ve got a program or initiative that you’re trying to raise funds for. Your whole staff needs to understand this is the why this is how it’s going to enhance our community. Here’s the main points about it. So if anyone if anyone gets a call And when they’re standing in the line at the coffee shop, or, you know, taking their kids to soccer practice and somebody asks him that it, boom, they’ve got the answers, they’ve got those talking points, you can go right to it, and being able to do it with a passion. So the pizza recipient hears that and thinks this really is something of importance, and then need to give some give some attention to this.

Dan Culhane 30:21
That’s exactly right. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 30:24
But I think that’s, you know, some great points, a lot of value there for listeners to, especially as they tried to level up the quality of place in their own communities and going about fundraising for it. As we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to see if you had any maybe tip or action item for listener who is looking to take their chamber up to the next level, what might you suggest for them?

Dan Culhane 30:52
I would suggest that people lean in lean, and other volunteers, and probably more importantly, lean in on your peers, you know, I, I still have people that I lean on, and say, Hey, I’m not sure if I should do this. And so I’ve gotten mentors out there even for being as in this business, as long as I’ve been in it, I’ve still got peers that are older than me, they’ve been in this business longer than me. And there’s value in that, you know, we want to put a smile on someone’s face, ask ask for their advice. And when someone want to appear, calls me whether I know them or not, I’ll always take that call. And because people have always taken like, and I think the chamber business can be a lonely place, you know, there, you don’t have three, three counterparts in your community, you can go talk to, you need to reach out across across the geography to be supported by others. And so I think that’s where I think I’ve been successful is I’ve never been afraid to ask for advice, or ask for help. And on the flip side, I’ve also been quick to help others, because I truly want people to be successful in this industry, because I kind of stumbled into it. And it’s a it’s a wonderful industry. And it’s it’s a lot of fun. My days are different. Always. And as we talked earlier that yes, there are curveballs. But you know, at the end of the day, then they’re not insurmountable. And I think business leaders, members, local elected officials and people like that, they understand the importance of the work that chambers do. And they want you to be successful too. And it’s a lot easier for, for them to understand what you’re doing if you’ve got an open line of communication. And you’re also, you’ve got a level of humility, where you say, we don’t really I don’t know about that today, but we’re gonna figure that out. And you call your peers.

Brandon Burton 32:59
And I love that. That’s a great piece of advice. And we’ll we’ll give you a chance here in just a moment to share your contact information. So people can call them put a smile on Dan’s face and kind of learn more about how he’s doing things, their names, but I wanted to ask is we look forward to the future of chambers? How do you see the future chambers and their purpose going forward?

Dan Culhane 33:24
So I think that chambers will continue to have to find new new sources of revenue. That’s probably the biggest, biggest key, we’ve certainly seen a bit of consolidation. We’ve we’ve picked up some smaller communities, economic development and chambers here in the last few years, primarily because there was a time where one person could do everything. And that’s just not, that’s just not practical now, you know, and so I think continuing to look for ways to partner regionally, but also continuing to diversify your revenue streams. And that’s going to be an ongoing challenge. Like in any business, and I think that’s what a lot of chambers don’t always think about is that they are a business just like your your local manufacturer, the shoe store down the street of the flower shop. We’re this is a business. And so how do we continue to diversify our revenue so that when one one source dries up, this new source takes care of that. And so I think chambers will always have a role because communities need leadership. And chambers are a great place for leaders to be born. You know, I, I think as I’ve gotten older, I’ve actually seen my ability to help mentor my board chairs and my board members, who more often than not now are either my age or younger. And it’s might be their first our first entrance into a board leadership role. And so fostering that in In developing those leaders, it’s really important, not only for your chamber, but for your community. And so whether it’s diversifying your revenue, or building leaders in your community, I think chambers will always have a role. But we have to continue to evolve, just like our businesses do.

Brandon Burton 35:18
I love that. As you’re giving that vision of your future of chambers, we could have talked the whole episode about different revenue streams, for chambers and kind of ideas there could have talked about mentoring, you know, those future leaders in your community that’s so important, maybe a little uncomfortable, you know, the first couple times you do it, but as you catch the vision and see, and kind of, you know, help these people progress along their path to being a leader in your community. So important. You’d mentioned before there is a certain loneliness in leadership, but you help bring those along and help them kind of catch that vision you’ve got others to talk to, and then maybe they won’t be so lonely once they’re in your place down the road. I don’t know if I cut you off. It looks like you had something to say. Maybe, please. Okay. Okay. So, before I let you go, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect and, and maybe learn from you as a mentor, just you know, learn more about how you guys are doing things, their names, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect, you

Dan Culhane 36:29
can connect me and connect with me in a variety of ways. Again, my email is dan@ameschamber.com. You can call my office at 515-232-2310. Or the best place to reach is my cell phone 515-290-0447. You can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, all those things. I’d love to talk to you. I might learn something, there’s a good chance I’ve learned something from you. And so this, this is a great business, I encourage people to engage. I’ve got a lot of young people that work for me, which is awesome. I’ve had four people leave after a few years of me and run from chambers of their own. And that’s really gratifying to because I think I’ve helped them see that this is a really good professional career path. And so please give me a call. I’d love to talk. And Brandon, I appreciate you and, and you give me the opportunity to be on your podcast today.

Brandon Burton 37:34
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Portland Metro Chamber-2023 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Andrew Hoan

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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.

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Our guest for this episode is Andrew Hoan. Andrew is the President and CEO of the Portland Metro Chamber, which was also a Chamber the Year Finalist last year. Andrew joined the organization in 2018 with years of successful business association executive leadership experience. Previously, Andrew served as the President and CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, which was a word of the 2017 New York State Chamber of Commerce of the year. He’s a resident of Rose City with his wife Karina and children, Theo Rocky and area. For those of you who listen to the podcast for a while may remember Andrew from last year’s chamber, the year finalist series if you want to go back and check that out was episode 185. But Andrew, I’m excited to have you back with us on Chamber Chat Podcast, congratulations to you and your team for being selected again as chamber in the year finalists. Love for you to say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you a little bit better. Sure,

Andrew Hoan 3:12
thanks, Brandon. And hello, everybody. And just thrilled to be back here for several reasons to be on the podcast, of course, but then also to be a finalist for chamber of the year. And it really is it’s a super honor. Because you realize that chambers everywhere, especially in big cities are facing so many challenges, and working so hard to bring our communities back and to be positive in a post pandemic world. And it is not easy. And so to be in consideration is an honor. And we’re up against Boston Orlando, which are incredible cities and awesome Chambers of Commerce. So we’re excited to go to Salt Lake City and compete but also just to be in that mentioned is exciting to be on this show to talk about is even better. So you know, for those that don’t know me, I feel really special because I’ve gotten to see and live in different parts of the world. I was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which we call the fresh coast. And then I moved out to Brooklyn, New York for nearly two decades. So I lived on the East Coast. And then my wife was recruited to come out here to Portland, Oregon. She’s a incredible physician and surgeon and so we’ve made our home here on the Left Coast. For almost five years. I started my job precisely five years and four days ago. So it’s been a wild ride. And that’s a little bit about myself. Well, happy

Brandon Burton 4:38
chamber anniversary there. Portland. will tell us a little bit more about the Portland Metro Chamber just to give us an idea of the scope of work size staff budget just to kind of prepare us for our conversation today.

Andrew Hoan 4:55
Sure. So the Portland Metro Chamber was founded in 1870. So we’re 153 years old, and it’s had an a storied history throughout throughout the years. And the modern iteration came about in 2002, where the downtown business group and the Regional Chamber of Commerce decided to form an affiliation and legal binding agreement between the two. And ever since then we’ve been known as the alliance. And so our modern chamber was established in 2002. And today, between the three affiliates that make up our alliance, the chamber, downtown Portland’s Business Improvement District, and partners in diversity, which is a diversity, equity and inclusion workspace effort. We have nearly 30 staffers, we have 2200 members, and we serve the 213 blocks of downtown Portland, with Fishel downtown business improvement district services like security and cleaning and retail promotion and marketing and things that you want downtown’s to be. So that’s who we are. And we just launched our sort of newest name and brand identity, we brought forward the the chamber name again, because it was sort of hiding in the background. And we also launched the three year strategic plan as well, simultaneously. So we get to the sort of be in the position now, to be proactive and looking into the future. But that’s a little bit about ourselves and about where we’re going.

Brandon Burton 6:32
Awesome. Yeah, I remember last year, the downtown Yeah, portion of the work that you guys do really caught me by a little bit of surprise, it says a chamber that that’s not something you normally hear chambers doing, but something you guys take on and then are in our managing well. So that’s, that’s definitely unique. So the way that I like to structure these chamber, the year finalist interviews is to really focus our attention on the two programs that you guys submitted on your chamber, the year finalist application. So maybe just at a high level, mentioned what the two programs are, and then we can circle back and a little more depth on each of those.

Andrew Hoan 7:15
Sure. So I’ll start with the first one. And it’s it’s unusual to hear good tax news for businesses, especially out here on the West Coast. And so I’ll start with our successes, on something that took a whole lot of time and effort. And that is completely reforming the business tax codes here in the city, county and our metro region, which is a government body as well. And the result, the headlines are this, because of our actions. The year that began here, 2023, every locally headquartered company will see their business taxes go down. And before this year, we had the unfair condition where businesses that that were from other places could operate in our community and not pay local taxes. And so clearly, that was unfair. And so we reached an incredible, call collaborative opportunity with our local governments, local elected officials to synchronize and change all three levels of governments tax codes simultaneously. And it took two years to do this, it took a lawsuit, and it took a lot of elbow grease. But we got to where we wanted to where all government side in their best interest to support their local business community, noting that it was not going to impact their revenues, and that it was going to strengthen our economy. And so this happened at the very tail end of 2022. And we were able to share the good news with our members and the region. And beyond that Portland, Oregon, and our region can work together on tax reform to the benefit of our local employer community, and that it wasn’t us versus them conversation. Again, though, it did involve a lawsuit. So there was a little bit of angst there at the same time, not gonna lie. And it created what I think to be the conditions to further improving the tax conditions for our business community here. And it’s no secret that we pay very high taxes in this region. Voters have elected to do that time and again, but it was it was too much in our community, our business community, our economy were hurting. And so this was a collaboration and then I think, a shared victory by all three governments that we were very proud of. And we built on that success ever since then. And I’d mentioned before we started talking that just this last May, we were able to, for the first time in over a decade, as the Chamber of Commerce, defeat a local citizen. tax initiative that was just really, really wacky. And we not only defeated it, but the victory margin was 80% opposed to the new tax and 20% in favor. And so I would just ask anybody to think about whether or not anyone’s agreed at 80% on anything in any community of late. And to note that Portland, Oregon, where, you know, socialist registration is out numbers, Republicans in our community was able to defeat a tax measure that that squares with your perception. And so I’d say not only did we reformed taxes, we prevented new ones from happening. And now we’re having really honest and open conversations about what’s the right thing to invest in as a community, whether we’re overburdened, and that doing it in a way that’s super antagonistic, but more collaborative, and focused on what our core issues are. So that’s, that’s number one that may need

Brandon Burton 10:51
to file in amendments with your chamber your application to be able to include that part, right. But eating? Yeah, it’s true.

Andrew Hoan 10:59
We thought about it, you know, and it was the success to was shared by a lot of people it was, you know, we have citizens initiative, like a lot of communities do. And people endorse or, you know, either side, yes or no. And what was a point of pride for us in this effort was that almost every single elected official in our region joined us. And usually, we would be in these opposing sides on tax issues. But I think we proved from last year when you work together to reform taxes, that it can be a win win. And so I think we built trust. And then we built on that trust so that they were able to join our side openly, and then involved community groups, specifically culturally oriented organizations that don’t traditionally take sides on taxes, but that we had also build trust and relationships with so that they were our chief spokesperson. And it wasn’t the business community saying no new taxes. It was our Asian Pacific Islander community, our Hispanic and Latino communities. And you know, our Congress member was one of our chief spokesperson, Earl Blumenauer, who’s not exactly a conservative anti tax leader. So we had great success there. And we’re gonna keep working on it and keep building trust and collaboration on these issues that impact our businesses.

Brandon Burton 12:16
So I’m curious with that initiative, what, what really no, we’re kind of going out of format here. I wanted high level and then details we’re getting into the details. So yeah, what was that driver that made you guys society needed to focus on tax reform in your city, the county and the Metro

Andrew Hoan 12:33
is so unfair on the surface, and we had a complete disconnect. So the business taxes that were created locally, we’re not aligned with our state business taxes. So it started off as sort of basic, this is just bad policies, you just looked at the surface of it. And you know, you’re a company that’s that’s headquartered in Portland, and you’re paying one kind of tax to Portland, and you’re paying another kind of tax to Oregon, and just was creating a sort of administrative mess. So you had a good problem statement. And then secondly, you looked at a company that might be safe from, you know, not to pick on Arizona, but let’s just call it a law firm from Arizona. Could be sir, you know, serving a client here in Portland. And a Portland law firm serving a client here in Portland, and the Portland law firm was paying an Arizona one wasn’t. So there was just fundamental unfairness there. And so by capturing out of state activity here locally, by doing what’s called market based sourcing for our taxes, we were able to capture that out of state activity, which again, it just was principally unfair, and most other locations had moved to that type of taxes. And we were the only organization that could do that sort of really heavy, frankly, boring work. But that was really important to our members absolutely no, resulted in the net savings, because that same Portland firm now is paying less in taxes versus the Arizona which is just getting to parity with a local companies. So there was there were that problem statement that just we couldn’t get away from, and we’re the only entity that could could drive it. And then it was for our members, they are going to see significant financial benefit from this. It’s not a lowering of the rates. It’s just fairness that allows their burden to be decreased. And it was just a matter of convincing the governments that it was a win for them to because when Oregon did this the state, it resulted in a net increase in revenue to the state. And so we were able to demonstrate that hate past can predict the future. You win, we win our companies win this is this is a win win. So it was just a matter of getting through the hard work of opening people’s minds to doing tax reform work and not thinking about it like it’s it’s an antagonistic experience, but a collaborative and positive one where everyone can win.

Brandon Burton 14:52
Yeah. Now that that program that tax reform definitely makes a big impact throughout the entire metro Oh yeah, like you explained the city, county and Metro. And so I’m thinking we need to kind of shift gears into your your other topic and let’s dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Brandon Burton 18:25
All right, Andrew, we’re back. So what is the second program that you guys submitted on your application for chamber the year?

Andrew Hoan 18:33
Sure. www.OregonStateofSport.com. And as someone who moved here from the outside, you know, there’s a big difference in culture between Brooklyn, New York, and Portland, Oregon, it lasts similarities, but one of the big cultural differences is that Portlanders are very demure, you know, they don’t want to talk about their successes, they want to be humble. And that’s that, to me is a positive value. And in Brooklyn, you know, you go to Brooklyn, and people are like, Hey, I’m from Brooklyn, and you know, this is the greatest city on earth and don’t mess with us. And so I think it’s interesting, because when I came here, you know, you realize that the region had completely failed to capitalize on the thing that it is truly better than anybody else had, which is what we design the world wears. And whether you’re in outdoor, you know, high adventure activities, or you’re in fitness, you know, you are either climbing on Metolius gear, or you’re running in Nike sneakers and and what we make and wear and design here, everyone is wearing and yet nobody knows about that. So there’s a fundamental disconnect between our economic strategy and the way we market our region, and our own sort of cultural desire to be humble and not talk about our successes. Have, we decided coming out of the pandemic that we needed to focus on a new economic strategy that was predicated on our strengths. And it is one thing, but it was going to be a Portland, and valus are collaborating along with our state partners, and so we formed a quick analysis of proved what we all know that we have more companies, we have more employees. And we produce more economic outcomes in the athletic outdoor team and recreation, business ecosystem than any other place in the country. And that we wanted the world to know. So we launched this brand, this name, this website that’s focused on all the things you want, business attraction, growth work workforce development partner with academic centers, and cross regional collaboration, in part inspired by the work of our peers over in North Carolina, that has been branding themselves in a way the Research Triangle for a long time. So there’s this sense of focusing in on cluster based economic stress assaults and good outcomes for your business community and grows local businesses. And so after we launched this analysis, and this branding exercise, we’ve gotten to work on the policy front. And this has been adopted by our city’s economic development corporation, our region’s economic development corporation, we have a task force bill that’s nearly out of the state legislature right now to establish this as direction for our economic focus for the state. And we’ve had huge wins locally, where it’s pivoted the entire way that our local governments have thought about economic development, where they are pairing their objectives with supporting the state of sport ecosystem. And that’s resulted in simple things like huge wins on events like Formula E, which is going to be happening this weekend, specifically, because we’ve focused on attracting these major athletic and team based conferences and competitions to an entire expo center that is now going to be repositioned, and repurposed as an indoor athletic competition facility, one that will be unrivaled in the entire west coast, because we’re capable of hosting these types of large scale events. And we proved it last year, with the world Track and Field games, they came here for the first time to America. And right here in Oregon, where the first Nike was produced over in Hayward field in Eugene. So we’re building on our strengths. We’re converting that into a real economic development synergies and major investments by our local governments. And we see this as a huge potential to build on the economic engine that’s already driving growth, and to catalyze cross regional collaborations between places like bend and Eugene and Portland that didn’t always work together before, even though that’s we’re the flagship city. But they’re the places that have the major academic centers and the research campuses. So this is about borrowing from other people’s playbooks building on our successes and being a chamber that leading an economic development strategy, because the private sector knows how to get this done. And so we’re putting our voices first. And we’re bringing our governments along with us,

Brandon Burton 23:25
right. Now, to me, it makes a lot of sense. And you’ve got those other models that you can look at, like you mentioned the Research Triangle, North Carolina. And it makes a lot of sense to bring those synergies together. How has it been received throughout the community as a, I guess, community at large, right, because it’s a large area that you’re talking about. But from you know, those those natives to Oregon who may be a little hesitant to be boastful or to showcase you know, the good positive wins, things that are happening, how’s that been adopted and kind of changing that mindset of, you know, we’ve got something special here to show off to the world.

Andrew Hoan 24:06
I think that it’s now become a marker, because and I’ll give examples of this. Portland is in line right now, to attract a WNBA franchise, and our United States senator who’s the Chair of the Finance Committee, US Senate, Ron Wyden is working with us and our coalition to do the attraction of a WNBA franchise to Portland, and it fits all the things that we care about. So it’s about aligning our values and our culture, along with economic strategy and doing in a collaborative way. And we’re making that hard pitch right now to attract a franchise. Secondly, we’re also in line for a Major League Baseball franchise and so we have an MLB initiative here. It’s really going to be us on the West Coast and maybe a couple other cities that are vying for an expansion team but we are laying the groundwork now with our partners in government. To build a new stadium here in the city to acquire the land that makes that happen, and to make that hard pitch to the commissioner’s office about why Portland is the right place. So what it’s done is it’s just sort of the light bulb went off, you know, everybody’s like, Oh, right, yeah, we are the center of athletic and outdoor activity. And, yes, these big franchises are exciting. But who wouldn’t want to be a WNBA team in the place where Air Jordans were great. You know, come on, it’s just an incredible opportunity. And, you know, we really are in the Pacific Northwest, we don’t have that sort of galvanizing team base right now. Because you know, if it’s not in Seattle, or in Portland, it doesn’t exist. And there’s a lot of space between us and the rest of the country. But we’ve seen that the community embraces this type of economic development strategy already, because they’re just ravenous fans. And I’ll give an example, Major League Soccer opened up here, you know, over a decade ago, and the Portland Timbers and thorns are unrivaled successes, the thorns is, I think, arguably the most successful women’s soccer franchise on earth. And the brand and imagery in the fan base, loves and embraces the team. And it’s just to us the revelation, that community is already there. We in the business community just needed to sync up with the way that people in Portland felt about themselves for so long. And to give it a name and a brand and identity. So now all these efforts are finally working together in a way that is super collaborative and is going to move the needle if we land these two franchises, they’ll be game changers for

Brandon Burton 26:46
quite literally game. So that is super exciting. And I guess you need that balance after working on all the tech stuff, right? The super boring, the super exciting, you got to get out of that contrast. No these things they don’t happen overnight, right like to be able to be in position for Major League Baseball franchise or WNBA franchise, like if you guys weren’t already doing things well in that in your community to be able to attract the attention and be be a major player in that the running for these teams. It doesn’t happen overnight. So this is exciting stuff. I’m going to be, you know, keeping my eye on on Portland and seeing what happens here the next, you know, short future. But as we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share maybe any tips or action items for listener who is really wanting to take their organization up to the next level what what kind of tips or advice might you offer to them?

Andrew Hoan 27:52
You know, I think reflecting now, five years into this job and the conditions of the city, our policy and our effectiveness five years ago versus where they are today. It was a really hard transition for me personally to come to Portland, where it felt like the business community was reviled that the job was impossible. And we couldn’t get anything done today feeling like there’s nothing we can’t do, we just have to be selective about what we engage in. I think what has borne the most fruit, which I believe is the thing that no chamber person should ignore, is to understand that you are inheriting an instance that will live beyond you. And that you have to focus on the fundamentals to be able to do the stuff that we’re talking about today. And when I mean fundamentals, I really mean inwardly looking staff and board development. And I look at our board now versus where it was five years ago. And this is not about somebody did something bad five years ago, it’s just we didn’t have strategic direction, we didn’t have goals in terms of behaviors and outcomes on our board. People didn’t understand how we’re making decisions. And it took a lot of time, effort and energy to build a strategic thinking on our board. That right now I can say looking at it five years on is what actually allows us to do the things that we do and it gives us the authority and influence that we need to be able to do our work externally. Because we have the weight of a highly functionally functioning collaborative board. And then secondly, on the staff side, you know, I think this gets right now everyone’s talking about building corporate culture. And you know, I think it’s almost become a cliche now but we have all gone through this unbelievably impactful experience last three years and staffs across every organization chain numbers are part of that have really gone through their own emotional journeys, physical ones tragedy, you know, political upheaval, you know, everybody’s feeling that impact about where we are as a society. And so as a chamber leader, and executive, you got to take care of your teams, because I look now at our staff, they work together, they support each other so that they know if if, if, for whatever reason, they’re dropping balls, or they’re just maybe lagging, or something’s impacting their work, or they’re stressed out and challenged, that people have their back. And that’s really a good thing. So staff and board, don’t ignore it, focus on it, and every investment you make into those two buckets will pay dividends in the long run.

Brandon Burton 30:50
I love that, that, uh, that response seems well, so well thought out. And the things that really stand out to me is, like you said, when coming in there and looking at some of these tasks as being impossible to now kind of be an unstoppable, right. Collective, but also looking at at the institution, you know, living beyond you, I think that’s huge to give that perspective, and, and we’re all making that that impact right now. And in your moment of time, but what you’re building and the community around you is going to live on well beyond you. That’s powerful. So maybe along those lines, how do you see the future of chambers going forward and their their purpose going forward?

Andrew Hoan 31:36
Well, you know, I think about chambers, I think about, you know, I’m biased towards the fact that we tend to represent, you know, large urban centers, you know, I think that’s probably most people know that every single city, big and small, has a chamber of commerce, and states do as well. But I think most people really connect with their local Chamber of Commerce, because it’s like, Who can I trust to tell me about what’s happening in my city and in my town, and chambers tend to be that unassailable voice of reason. And I think of it now more importantly, because cities and downtown’s we’re looking at very differently. You know, the, what happened with the pandemic and hybrid work will completely up and what happens with urban centers in the future. And I think that’s the Chamber’s of the future. Where we are today has never been more critical and understanding our downtown’s and downtown’s matter, because they’re where everybody comes together. They’re welcoming places. And right now they are hurting. I don’t know one city anywhere in this country that isn’t feeling that there’s something that’s really challenging the fundamentals there. And I believe in cities, I believe in urban centers, and chambers play a huge role in thinking about what comes next. And so the chamber the future, is focused on how do we future proof? How do we adapt, learn and create a more vibrant center city for all and I think that’s what we all need to be focused on talking about as we move our organizations into the future.

Brandon Burton 33:18
Yeah, I think that’s a that’s a good vision, looking forward. And hopefully, we’ll prove out well, his chambers have that focus on on the downtown’s and the city centers. And I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who might want to learn more about how you guys are doing things, they’re in Portland, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you? Sure,

Andrew Hoan 33:44
you can reach out to me at andrew@portlandmetrochamber.com brand new email, but serves the same purpose. And I love to hear from people across the country. We love to work with other chambers. And so I would love to hear from you and reach out and happy to grab a virtual cup of coffee or if you ever in Portland, we welcome you in our home. And we have a beautiful office that overlooks this resplendent environment. City and say you’re always walking with us.

Brandon Burton 34:16
Awesome. I appreciate that. We’ll we’ll get your email in the show notes as well. But everybody got to take Andrew up on that offer of that virtual cup of coffee or, or just learning more about how they’re they’re doing things. They’re in Portland. But Andrew, it’s been a pleasure having you back on the podcast and talking all good things Portland. Wish you and your team Best of luck as chamber the year and I look forward to chatting with you next time.

Andrew Hoan 34:46
Thanks so much, Brandon. Take care.

Brandon Burton 34:49
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