Category: Podcast Episode

Retention Strategies with Tonia Stephenson

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Brandon Burton (00:00.92)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today’s guest is a powerful, today’s guest is a powerhouse community leader and economic development, Tanya Stevenson. Since 2018, Tonia has been at the helm of the Burke County Chamber of Commerce as President and CEO where she’s dedicated herself to strengthening businesses and forging meaningful community connections. Her deep roots and chamber work span back to her early career at the High Point and Lorenburg, Scotland County chambers. But Tonia’s commitment to service doesn’t stop there. She’s spent six impactful years as executive director of the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club in High Point, revitalizing facilities and expanding youth programs and securing stronger financial future for the organization.

Tonia holds a double major in business administration and home furnishings marketing from High Point University. She’s a graduate from the US Chambers Leadership Institute and earned the prestigious CCE designation in 2014. Her leadership has earned accolades like businesswoman of the year and 40 leaders under 40 and multiple chamber honors.

She’s a dedicated board member and passionate community advocate. And when she’s not leading or serving, you may find her hiking a trail or cross stitching a new design or enjoying a weekend getaway with her husband, David. Tonia, we’re 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 share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Tonia Stephenson (01:50.776)
Oh, if I share too much about myself, people might think I’m crazy and shouldn’t keep listening. So, yeah, just take that out. You know, when I think about things that are interesting about myself, it really goes back to my personal life and people find this interesting and I found it interesting. Back a long time ago, we won’t tell how many years because I can’t tell anybody I’m 29 if I tell my years.

Brandon Burton (01:55.726)
We can edit, so no.

Tonia Stephenson (02:20.403)
My husband and I got married at the North Carolina Zoo Logical Park. It’s the largest zoo in the world at this point. and people say, you got married at the zoo? it’s like, I’m the only official wedding ever to be held at the zoo. There’s a lot of people have gone out to the zoo and they’ve taken some witnesses and a preacher and gotten married in front of the whatever animals they wanted to. And, but we actually rented the zoo and, got married, had our official.

Big win, 350 guests. We were followed by the national press. We had cameras in our face through the process because all of our local news followed us. And then by the time that we actually got married, it made the national press. So it was a big deal. And everybody, you know, we laugh and joke, and I say this in front of my husband. You people say, why’d you get married to the zoo? And the zoo was a very big part of our courting years.

And we wanted to get married outside and wanted to find a beautiful place. And back then wedding venues were not a dime a dozen like they are now. And I called the zoo and said, hey, I want to get married out here. And they said, you know what? We’d love to do that. That’d be a great marketing tool for us. So we tried it. And the marketing team said, we’ll never again do this. So all these years later, we are the only one that has ever done that. But we have great experiences and beautiful pictures.

Brandon Burton (03:35.084)
Yeah, you broke it.

Tonia Stephenson (03:45.208)
It’s just a great thing to look back on. so, oh, what I was gonna say is I got married there too because all my in-laws were already there. I didn’t have to invite them. So they were in the cages, you know, but they were all there. My husband and I joke about that. And he says that we have good time with it, but it was really a great experience. And I think that says a little bit about me is I love the outdoors. I love animals.

Brandon Burton (03:55.406)
Were they in the cages?

Tonia Stephenson (04:14.517)
I love doing things different. I don’t like to do things like everybody else does it. And so that’s little bit about me.

Brandon Burton (04:24.034)
There you go. That’s cool. I was going to ask why the zoo and all that, but you covered it pretty well. So I’m glad the in-laws were able to be there. That’s important. That’s great.

Tonia Stephenson (04:33.525)
They were all there. Yeah. It was great. And it turned out to be a beautiful day. It was a hot day in June, but it was great. The worst part was having the, poor little best man, the channel 12’s cameras was so close into his face. I was like, bless his heart. He can’t even move without the cameras being right there.

Brandon Burton (04:52.974)
Well, tell us a little bit about the the Burke County Chamber to kind of set the stage for our discussion today. Help give us an idea of the size, staff, scope of work, budget, things like that so we know what kind of chamber you’re coming from.

Tonia Stephenson (05:08.193)
Well, I consider us somewhat of a medium sized chamber. We have 640 members somewhere around there. People in the chamber world, know that changes on a daily basis. And we’ve grown it quite a bit. Since the seven years I’ve been here, we were at 450 seven years ago. So we’ve grown quite a bit through the years and very proud of that. We are located in the foothills of North Carolina.

Brandon Burton (05:18.839)
Right?

Tonia Stephenson (05:35.954)
A lot of people know Hickory and Asheville and we’re somewhat in the center of that and our northwest of Charlotte and our east of Asheville. So great location, big cities around us, but we’re still a small town and we’ve got some great amenities here. Just a great place to live and work. We do serve the full county and it is a big county. It’s amazing. It probably would take two hours to get from one end of the county to the other.

Part of our county is up high elevations and then part of it is east and lower elevations. So we’ve got some mountains here. We have four full-time employees on staff and one contract employee. Our budget’s about a half a million dollars. And it’s just, we continue to grow and we’re excited to be able to serve our community.

Brandon Burton (06:31.17)
Very good. And are you guys, are you strictly chamber? Are you tourism, economic development, strictly chamber? Okay.

Tonia Stephenson (06:35.275)
We are strictly chamber, which I like being that way. know a lot, exactly. I know a lot of chambers have to do with economic development or tourism, but I’m thankful that we can just focus on our members and not have to try to juggle all those balls. Although I admire the people that do.

Brandon Burton (06:40.59)
It allows you to focus on that mission, yeah.

Brandon Burton (07:00.716)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, that definitely. Yeah, yeah, that definitely does help set the stage and the Carolinas are such a beautiful part of the country. So it’s no wonder you’re able to have a thriving chamber there because people want to be there so.

Tonia Stephenson (07:03.287)
but I have great partners.

Tonia Stephenson (07:18.985)
number one in business, three out of the last four years. So we’re very thankful for that.

Brandon Burton (07:27.118)
Well, our topic for conversation today, we’re going to focus most of our discussion around retention. And that’s a topic that every chamber out there should be paying attention to and monitoring, you know, as kind of one of those KPIs, you know, to see how your chambers performing, getting that feedback from your membership, your investors, you know, what is that retention looking like? So we’ll dive in deep on this as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right, Tonia, we’re back, as I mentioned. So before the break, we’re diving in today on the topic of retention. I’m sure you have a unique approach. Every chamber looks at different metrics a little differently. But as you look at retention, what is it that you guys really hone in on? And what’s your approach that makes you maybe stand out as a chamber, highlight your wins, and help members stick around for the long term?

Tonia Stephenson (08:25.793)
Yeah, you know, a lot of it, I don’t know if it’s unique. I think it’s, for me, it’s spending the time with our members and spending one-on-one time and making sure our members feel like they are as important as any other member. And that’s real important to me. I know in the chamber world, I’ve heard a lot of my colleagues talk about how they spend a lot of time with their big fish. And I’ve heard, I’ve sat through so many…

seminars, webinars, trainings on how important it is for us to spend time with the big fish. And I know a lot of people believe that. I do, I do make sure that they feel appreciated. But for me in this chamber and in any chamber that I’ve led, it’s always been about every member is important and every member needs to feel like they are a big fish to us. And so we spend a lot of one-on-one time and

And I sometimes it doesn’t make sense in the budget world, but at the same time in the world of what our members say about us and how they’re talking about us in the community makes a big difference. And so there’s a lot of things that we take time to do that some of you listening may say, she has lost her mind, but maybe I have. It has worked for us and it takes, it does. So here I am.

Brandon Burton (09:44.066)
That’s okay. It takes a special person to lead a chamber. yeah.

Tonia Stephenson (09:50.32)
And our retention rates have really shown it over the years and we’ve had extremely great retention. So some of the process that we go through is when a member joins, the day that they join or the day after they get a thank you, a handwritten thank you note sent from me and welcoming them to the chamber family and being a part of what we do and you you have a team of four now that you didn’t have before.

our membership person and our director of operations person, they personally meet with every new member and sit down with them and find out about their company and what they’re doing and where they need help and where they’re struggling. And we always ask the question, what keeps you up at night? Because we know that what keeps them up at night is what we can do for them and hopefully help them in those ways. Our membership person sends a welcome email and in that welcome email, it explains all the tools that

the digital tools that they have that they can sign on into our member portal and that they can put all the information in there if they have any problems. She sits down with them and like walks them through it. There’s a welcome post on all of our social media that goes up within the few days that they have joined and that member post tells about their company. It thanks them for being a part of the community.

It has their logo in there. It has a link to their website and of course, tagging them on that site as well. So then when it comes to three months that they’ve been a member, our membership person calls them and checks in on them, sees what’s going on, how are things going. At six months, our board member calls them and checks on them and see how they’re doing and what we can do for them. And then at nine months, they get another call.

and just checking in. When they renew, they always get posts out on our social media so that they can know that not just them joining means a lot, but them sticking with us means a lot as well, and that we want to continue to give them the promotions that they have. Promotions is really big for us. Most of our members are small businesses that need that promotion.

Tonia Stephenson (12:10.647)
A lot of them, can’t afford big ads and radio. They can’t afford big ads on TV. We don’t have local TV here, so that’s not even an option for our folks. So promotions is big. we do a lot of promotions through, one thing we’re doing today is Friday. And so T-shirt Friday is something we do and we promote our members. So today we’ll spend our entire, most of our entire day out going and talking to our members.

The t-shirt we have on is one of our members and that member gets constant promotions throughout the day So everywhere we go we’re taking that person with us and the member will get anywhere from usually about 20 20 posts today on that on that one member and then of course there that’ll be 20 members that will get Various shout outs throughout the day and promoting whatever’s going on. We always try to be

aware of events that are coming up. So, you know, it might be that we’ll go to somewhere and say, hey, don’t forget they’re having this big sale this weekend, come out and shop or the festival’s happening this weekend, come out and see them at the festival. So we’re hitting as many people as we can with that, which people love that. And now every time I go into the bank on Fridays, they want their picture taken because they know that that’s something we do. And I was like, you know, I can’t get y’all every Friday.

Brandon Burton (13:35.522)
and it’ll get shared. They’re working the system, they know.

Tonia Stephenson (13:38.454)
But the bankers love it. They’re working, yeah, that’s right. And so that’s something we have a lot of fun with. And it does take a lot of time, but our members love it and they know that they’re being cared for and that they’re being promoted. And a lot of them have said, hey, I’ve gotten business. I’ve gotten a lot of business from that little thing. We feel like it’s a little thing for them, it’s big.

In addition to that, quarterly we actually get all of our ambassadors together and we get on a trolley and we go out and visit about 16 members and one day we take them gifts. We call it Surprise Patrol. And so we get out and we go into a business and we say, surprise, we’re all here. we, you usually 10, 15 people showing up to your business on a trolley is sort of shocking. And all the ambassadors will bring a gift from their business to that member.

and it’s all about saying thank you for your membership and we appreciate you. And we’re not asking for any on any of these things. We’re not asking for money. We’re not asking to support anything. We’re not reminding them that they owe dues or anything. It’s all about, we appreciate your membership and appreciate you and wanna thank you. And then of course, on Surprise Patrol, they get gifts as well. So that’s always a lot of fun days and all of.

Brandon Burton (14:59.79)
So about how many members are you guys able to visit on one of those surprise patrol visits? Wow.

Tonia Stephenson (15:04.567)
We get about 16 in a day. So we hit quite a bit and we’re promoting our ambassador members as well. So we got the 16 members that we’re visiting, but then there’s 10, 15 members who are ambassadors, who their businesses are getting promoted as well. So 30, 35 businesses are getting promoted in that day. And it’s just a fun day and a great time to…

show appreciation and remind people that we’re here and we’re supporting them and helping them any way we can. It’s always interesting because after every Surprise Patrol, I have members say, hey, how do I get on that list? And I was like, well, we’ll put you on the list for the next time. So it’s a lot of fun. Once a year, our ambassadors and our board and the staff all spend a week delivering our new directories.

We call that operation. Thank you. It’s it’s a program that’s been around for a long time in chambers, but it kind of went away. I’ve always had worked in operation. Thank you just because I think it’s so important. So we we have some type of gift that we give. It’s a small gift and it’s usually a got a corny saying on it. Something like this last year we gave payday payday candy bars out and it said every day is a payday with you as a member of the chamber so.

It’s cute and corny, but people love it. They love seeing us come because again, we’re not there asking for anything. We’re just there to say hello, say thank you. We take pictures throughout the day, post them on our website. mean, post them on all our social media sites. So they’re continually getting thanked and they’re continually getting promoted through these things. And so they’re all real important to us.

And then in addition, you know, we do all those calls that the staff does and then the board does at six months, but our ambassadors are making personal phone calls to our members as well. So the ambassadors are making five to 10 phone calls a month on our members just to say, hey, you know, is there anything we can do? Check in on you. What’s going on with you? What can we do? And so that’s really helpful because a lot of times our ambassadors learn things about our members that we don’t know and that

Tonia Stephenson (17:22.827)
gives us an opportunity to know and it’s that gives us 25 more people out there calling on members and checking in on them that we can’t, you people can’t get to all of them. And so they really helpful with that. And then there’s little things that we will remember and do that. I don’t think that is normal in the world of of anywhere. But for me, you know, I look at them, our members as customers, you know, we.

If I hear that there’s gonna be a ball game, I tell you make a note and I’ll call and say, hey, did little Johnny win his ball game? And that means a lot to them. Or I’ll shoot a note and say, hey, I was thinking about you. We do a lot of notes about testing, if we got some kind of medical issue, we have birthdays listed and we send personal birthday cards, handwritten notes, we send sympathy cards.

We spend a lot of time on these types of things and some people might say, well, that’s just a waste of time in the business world, but it is not waste of time. I’ve had people that, like I have one gentleman who said something about his, he had knee replacement recent, I mean, he had knee replacement a few years ago, but recently he said, you know, that was the sweetest card I got from y’all. And he’s like, it was the best one I got from, you know, it was from y’all.

Brandon Burton (18:41.474)
Wow.

Tonia Stephenson (18:42.057)
And he’s like, who would have thought that my chamber membership would have gotten me thoughts during my surgery? And so we really try to watch out for those little things. And we watch social media closely to see that they’re posting, that they’ve got issues or concerns. Then we reach out and let them know that we’re there to help them and support them through that, throughout whatever that they’re going through, or to celebrate with them when it’s good stuff.

and they remember that we remember those types of things.

Brandon Burton (19:12.686)
Yeah. So with these, uh, with the birthday cards and sympathy cards, I can see how that could get, you know, a little arduous, you know, to try to get all these, uh, cards out. So how do you, how do you manage that? Is it, are you focusing on the primary rep for each business or how deep do you go with, you know, if they’ve got three or four contacts as a, with their membership, I don’t, how do you kind of filter who or how you’re able to send, um,

those kind of cards too.

Tonia Stephenson (19:43.728)
We really don’t filter. Yeah, we really don’t filter. If we know it, we send it. And if they’re a member, we don’t really filter. yes, takes some time, but it’s not overwhelming amount of time. And it takes five minutes to fill out a card and stick it in the mail.

I usually fill it out first and sign it from your Burke County Chamber family and then write a little personal note for me. then everybody passes around, they sign a little note and off it goes. it brings return on investment of 10 minutes of time maybe and 60 cents stamp or however much they are now.

Brandon Burton (20:38.86)
Yeah, by the time this comes out, the stamps will be more.

Tonia Stephenson (20:39.447)
$4 car, mean, it’s really…

Well, that’s true. The stamps go up every day, it really has. you know, and it might seem like it’s arduous, but it hasn’t been. It hasn’t been. It could get that way. don’t know. But, you we just try to keep up with the best we can. And when we hear things that we miss, it’s like, whoa, we’re so sorry that we didn’t know that. And people, nobody’s ever fought at us for it or anything. So, so no, there’s not really any filter on it. If we know it and

we can do something to at least acknowledge and know that people will, for people to know that we care that we do that.

Brandon Burton (21:18.978)
Yeah. So there’s a couple things that you had touched on I wanted to circle back with and just maybe get a little bit more information. So one is with the onboarding of new members. You talked about different staff members meeting with the new members and kind of doing the orientation onboarding. Are these members coming to the chamber office? Are they going to visit these businesses at their location? Is it a mixture of both? How do you try to schedule that?

Tonia Stephenson (21:29.132)
Mm-hmm.

Tonia Stephenson (21:45.6)
It’s a mixture. A lot of people want to come to the office and see our office and meet the whole team and we’re a great location. So a lot of them happen at the chamber, but then a lot of the members say, come see my place and come take a tour or whatever. So it’s really a mixture. And for the member meetings, have where tier dues. So we have bronze, silver, gold, platinum and titanium.

Brandon Burton (22:05.934)
That’s good.

Tonia Stephenson (22:15.415)
Bronze members, our membership team takes care of it, but if it’s Silver and above, I’ll actually have that member meeting with them as well, just so that they know who I am and that we all care about. I we all care about them regardless, but I do take the time to spend time with the Silver and above members when they’re first joining.

Brandon Burton (22:34.124)
Yeah, yeah, that’s good. So I really liked what you mentioned about T-shirt Fridays and being able to wear a T-shirt of different businesses in your community, different members and going out and taking pictures and posting them. Do members enroll in that? Do you proactively reach out and say, hey, do you want to send us a T-shirt and be included in the next T-shirt Friday or how does that program work?

Tonia Stephenson (23:00.031)
The only thing we have to do is have a t-shirt Friday and we end up with more t-shirts. I don’t know how many. I have quite a collection. Well, we’re not quite there, but yeah, we have quite a collection. That’s for sure. So every time we go out, typically I will come back with four shirts. And so we don’t really, we don’t charge for that, which, you know, we kind of talked about, it’s like we might all.

Brandon Burton (23:04.389)
Right. I can imagine what your closet looks like, right?

600 different t-shirts with logos on it

Tonia Stephenson (23:28.607)
start charging for this program. But we have some great events and we do fine with other things. And so far we’ve not charged because that way all sides of our members can participate. Nobody feels like that they’re really left out. And so we say the only charge for this program for T-shirt Friday is the cost of four T-shirts and you just provide us your shirts and we’ll wear them on that Friday.

Brandon Burton (23:30.147)
Yeah.

Tonia Stephenson (23:56.002)
So we start out that morning, we take a group shot of all of us in our shirts and what’s really cute is sometimes there’s stuff on the back. So we have to turn around and have pictures of our backs so that we get the information on there. And our initial post out is the four of us in our shirts and we tell a little bit about the company and we give the company’s website address and how to get in touch with the people and what their specialties are. And then,

From there, it’s usually individual selfies with our members or the group of members. Because we really want to catch a lot of people and sometimes we can’t catch them open. So sometimes we might be out by a sign and say, you know, telling about some company. Or sometimes we’re on the side of the road taking pictures and people are looking at us like we’re crazy. Recently, we have a new bank who’s building a new location. And so recently I stopped at the corner.

Brandon Burton (24:38.998)
Yeah.

Tonia Stephenson (24:52.119)
where there’s like, you know, basically like rubbish, you know, in this big, big parking lot right now, but they’ve got a beautiful plan and design that they’re getting ready to build. So here I am by the construction fence, taking a selfie with the picture of the bank that’s coming. And people just looked at me like I was idiot or they blow their horns and I was like, hi, yeah, it’s just me taking a selfie with the pit, know. There really is a purpose here.

Brandon Burton (25:13.186)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (25:19.042)
Follow us on Facebook, right?

Tonia Stephenson (25:22.199)
It’s like, yes, I might be crazy and do things differently, but here we are taking a picture with the fence. But it’s really, it was a good promotion because a lot of people didn’t know that that’s what was going on that location or they hadn’t been driven by there to see what the beautiful rendition looks like. And so it’s just about…

just about promoting what’s going on in the membership and promoting the members and what they’re doing and what their services are, what their product is.

Brandon Burton (25:53.058)
Yeah. So the other thing I wanted to ask about is you mentioned staff and ambassadors going out to deliver your annual directories. You had a name for it. Operation Thank You. So with Operation Thank You, I mean, you get, I guess, roughly about 30 people going out in the community to make these personal interactions, these personal deliveries. that sound about right? About 25 ambassadors and staff?

Tonia Stephenson (26:00.504)
Operation thank you.

Tonia Stephenson (26:17.783)
about 50 people. We have between 20 and 25 ambassadors. I have 20 board members, four staff, and then sometimes we recruit spouses and other people. So usually 50 or 60 people will help us out throughout the week. We do it in half days, we do it in teams of two so that it’s easier if you drive up to a location, somebody jumps out and delivers and jumps back in.

Brandon Burton (26:25.174)
And the board, okay. Yeah.

Tonia Stephenson (26:45.495)
Of course, sometimes we end up sending out to salespeople and they’re parking in every parking lot and introducing themselves to every person and having long conversations. And I’m like, guys, you’re not getting the books delivered if you’re doing that, but they’re doing their jobs. So, you know, I’m just thankful that they might get four delivered in the morning time, typically you can get 30 to 50 delivered in the morning and again in the afternoon.

Brandon Burton (26:57.228)
Right? Like I’m multitasking, yeah.

Tonia Stephenson (27:14.845)
if you get in and get out and keep moving.

Brandon Burton (27:17.9)
Yeah, yeah. Now I really like that plan and it’s a great way to have a for sure like an annual touch point with each member as you as you get those delivered and hand delivered. It goes a long ways with the payday bar or whatever that gift is so that’s awesome.

Tonia Stephenson (27:34.284)
Yeah. Well, when I was in, back in my day, when I was doing membership and learning the role and learning about chambers and figuring things out and sometimes, and the high point chamber that I was at for many years, we were quite a large chamber and, and it was hard to get to all of our members and to, to, to touch them throughout the year. And so a lot of times they only heard from us, was when they got their renewal notice and,

And I don’t know how many times I’d hear, it’s like, all you want is my money and you don’t really care about it. And even as a membership person, it broke my heart and I’ve tried to do my best to not, for that not to be the way it was. And our whole team, we all had a great heart about it, but we had 1300 members and there were six of us and still again, you just can’t get to everybody.

As I’ve learned throughout the years, I really don’t ever want a member say that the only time I hear from you is my renewal notice. And, and if, if that’s the only time they’ve heard from us, then shame on us. And, and so that’s what, and you know, my marketing person can say, but look at the hits that they get on our website, regardless of they hear from us, you know, they got these hits on the website. They got, no, I want them to hear from us. I want them to know. Yeah.

Brandon Burton (28:57.134)
It’s got to be meaningful to them, right?

Tonia Stephenson (29:00.511)
I want it to be personal for them. Their business is very personal, know, especially our small business owners. Some of our small business owners has their entire life savings wrapped up in that business. And when I say that they are part of the chamber family, when I say that the four of us are part of their team, I want them to feel it and I want them to know it. And I want them to, when they’re losing sleep at night, I want them to pick up the phone and say, here’s my troubles. And

We go to work to try to figure out what those troubles are. If they don’t ever see us, they don’t ever hear from us and they don’t, and if we are nothing but the email that comes in that says, hey, here’s your dues, they’re not gonna do that. And then when they get that email from the dues, they say, why do I need to pay this? And I get that, because I mean, money’s tight a lot of times. And so I wanna give them a reason that they say, I can’t afford not to pay this. And that…

That’s our goal with every phone call, with every visit, with every post we put out. That’s our goal is for them to know that they need us.

Brandon Burton (30:06.434)
Yeah. Well, I love all these touch points. I love the recognition. I love being able to show the member value to the chamber. These are all, I’m going to call them tactics or strategies, but that kind of cheapens it. I mean, it really is showing that you genuinely care about these individuals, these businesses and their success. I don’t think we can have a discussion about retention without me asking, can you share what your retention rates look like?

Tonia Stephenson (30:36.513)
We’re typically between 92 to 94%. So we typically lose members because they’ve moved or they’ve closed. And sometimes with, I don’t know if other chambers are having this, but over the last five, seven years, banks, because corporate says they’re not gonna be a member. Makes me so mad.

Brandon Burton (30:41.526)
something to celebrate.

Brandon Burton (31:00.94)
Yep. Yep. Or Walmart, we’ve been seeing that. So, yeah.

Tonia Stephenson (31:05.892)
So far, Walmart’s a really good member for us, so I hope that I don’t see that from them.

Brandon Burton (31:08.78)
That’s good. Hopefully they hang on. Yeah. Well, as we begin to wrap up, but I’d like to see whether it’s based on our discussion or any other thoughts for the chambers listening who want to take their organization up to the next level. What kind of tip or strategy would you share with them and trying to accomplish that goal?

Tonia Stephenson (31:30.611)
One thing that I have always done and is real important to me and I think your podcast fits right in with this and I think it’s great that we have this as a resource. I’ve always had a mentor or multiple mentors. I’ve always found my neighboring chambers and made friends with them and made sure that they’re some of my closest friends.

and colleagues and somebody I could call on. So when I moved here, that was the first thing I did was look up my neighboring chambers and introduce myself, except for I had two that was precious and they reached out to me before I could get to them. And I have a neighboring county to the west that she and I call each other our chamber sisters because we just know that we’re there for each other.

So I think having mentors is very important and talking to other chambers and not just chamber mentors, but I think just having mentors in general, especially if there’s something that you’re not good at and you see it in somebody else, it’s great to spend time with that person and say, hey, can we go to lunch and just learn from that person, watch them. And then I think being a mentor to others is real important. And I know for me,

I’ve taken on several younger chamber professionals and spent time with them and tried to help them. And every time I’ve done that with the intentions of me trying to help them and help them learn and grow, I’ve found that I’ve learned and grown just as much through the process of being a mentor as I have having mentors. So I think that that’s just so important. You can learn so much, and especially if you’ll learn it with the right attitude and then go back and try to apply things that.

Brandon Burton (33:07.008)
Right. Yeah, it’s helpful.

Tonia Stephenson (33:21.547)
that makes sense. Of course, we all hear things and learn things all the time and it’s like, well, that would be great, but there’s no way I can put that on my plate. No, there’s no way. But to be intentional with trying to really, especially in areas where you know that you need to grow, learn and try to grow as much as you can in those areas.

Brandon Burton (33:39.18)
Yeah, I think that’s a great piece of advice. I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of Chambers of Commerce, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?

Tonia Stephenson (33:51.416)
That’s a very interesting topic because I found that in during COVID times, we had to really think about chambers and what we were doing and how we did things. And we had to really pivot and change a lot of our ways of thinking to stay relevant. And I think that’s so important in the chamber world is that we stay relevant. And I think that there was a time at least for the chambers that I was working with that

it was maybe hard for us to be relevant, when some technology seems to have taken over a lot of what we traditionally did in the past. And so I think for us to update our what we’re doing and always look for new ways to do things and new ways to present ourselves and being relevant in the business community and being on top of what the business community needs and individuals need and taking care of those things are, there’s just.

So important. I think that it’s real important that chambers be chambers and work with businesses and know that we are here for business community. We are business association. We’re not a social group. We are not here to everybody socialize and have a good time, but we are here to grow business and help our businesses in whichever way that they need. Being a voice for the business. Our chambers very active in governmental affairs, so.

That’s one thing that sets us apart is we are, I always say if the business community was a body, stick figures all I can do, we would be the mouthpiece of that body. And we got to be the mouthpiece for our businesses because we are the group that is gonna be standing up for our businesses and making sure that our businesses are heard. And that’s what our role is.

But always being able to, always looking for ways to change and grow is just real important and staying relevant I think is so important.

Brandon Burton (35:51.98)
I’d be curious how you would label the rest of the body parts, but that’s okay. Well, that’s a discussion for another time. but this has been great having you on the show. I appreciate these tactics, these ideas, these ways of showing your care for your members to really nurture those relationships. I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you maybe as a mentor.

Tonia Stephenson (35:58.488)
I’ve never really thought about the rest of the body, so I’d have to think about that.

Brandon Burton (36:21.954)
or just to get ideas of how you’re doing things, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?

Tonia Stephenson (36:28.161)
Sure, I appreciate the opportunity. First podcast I’ve done, so hey, this might be new thing for me. But yes, Burke County Chamber of Commerce, I’ll actually give my cell phone number because reaching me at the office is sometimes very hard. My cell phone number is 336-689-5438. And you can email me at T. Stevenson, it’s tstephenson@burkecounty.org.

So email me or call me or text me either way. I’m happy to always help out fellow chamber people when I can and talk to fellow chamber people. I love learning from them. So be happy to talk to anyone.

Brandon Burton (37:15.66)
That’s perfect. We will get that in our show notes to make it nice and easy. But again, this has been great having you on the show. Thank you for setting aside some time to be with us and share these insights. I think it provided a ton of value for our listeners today. So thank you. Thank you a lot.

Tonia Stephenson (37:30.935)
Thank you, I appreciate you.

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Sane Center Media with Ed Sealover

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Brandon Burton (00:01.106)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today’s guest is someone who brings both journalistic rigor and strategic insight to the world of business policy in Colorado.

Ed Sealover is the vice president of strategic initiatives for the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, and he’s the editor of the Sum and Substance, a news site he launched in 2023 to dive deep into the intersection of business and state government. Before stepping into his current role, Ed spent nearly three decades in journalism reporting for

represented outlets like the Denver Business Journal, Rocky Mountain News, and the Colorado Springs Gazette. His exceptional reporting earned him 140 state, regional, and national awards, including the prestigious title of Colorado Journalist of the Year in 2020. Now, Ed leads the impactful initiatives at the chamber, including workforce development and environmental sustainability through the chamber’s Climate Action Task Force.

Ed lives in Wheat Ridge with his wife and two children. He’s here with us today to share his insights on Colorado’s evolving business landscape and what’s ahead. Ed, welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m excited to have you with us today. Love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening and if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Ed Sealover (01:37.432)
Well, thank you, Brandon. I appreciate it. Hi again. I’m Ed Sealover, VP at Strategic Initiatives and editor for the Colorado Chamber of Commerce. I’ve been here since February, 2023. And in my prior life, it was not just a journalist for 28 years, but I’ve actually authored two books. One in 2011 called Mountain Brew, a guide to Colorado’s breweries. That was a look at all 101 breweries that were open in Colorado at the time. And then the 2016 book.

called Colorado Excursions with History Hikes and Hops, which is a 30-day guide to traveling Colorado, stopping each day at one historic site, one natural site, and one drinking site, what I like to think is the best of Colorado. So that’s what I do in my spare time. Travel, be a dad, and find great beers.

Brandon Burton (02:27.085)
That’s awesome. also drive tourism in the state of Colorado too with your book, right? That’s awesome. Right. That is awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about the Colorado Chamber, obviously a state chamber, but help give us an idea of

Ed Sealover (02:31.597)
I hope so, and certainly with all the trips I take, I drive in as well.

Brandon Burton (02:46.094)
size involvement that you guys are involved with staff just to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.

Ed Sealover (02:54.699)
Yes, thank you. The Colorado Chamber of Commerce, we have about 400 direct member businesses, but we also represent about 80 local chambers and trade associations. So we like to think we represent thousand plus businesses when we’re going out there and speaking on things. We have a staff of 15 people. So we keep it pretty tight and on budget.

and we, we do a lot in the state policy realm. That’s kind of where we play our part where we’re very active at the Capitol, in both, proposing and opposing and pushing, for certain pieces of legislation, and in regulations, we’ve gotten very involved in trying to make sure that state regulations are realistic in what businesses can do. So, we’re kind of a, a big policy wonk group here.

speaking for the businesses of state of Colorado.

Brandon Burton (03:52.316)
That’s great. you know, occasionally I’ll have somebody on from a state chamber here on the podcast. And I love to just have the reminder of what a great resource the state chamber, whatever state the listeners are in their state chambers, such a great resource.

for the individual communities, the regional chambers, just as that really the advocate to help understand what’s going on in the state level and keeping things aligned. So appreciate the work that you guys do.

Ed Sealover (04:22.317)
Absolutely. And again, we oversee the Colorado Chamber Alliance. So we hear directly all the time from our chamber members across the state. I’m often speaking to those groups as our other members here. And we understand that we can’t represent business without representing the small local businesses that are asking their local chambers for help.

Brandon Burton (04:42.236)
Yeah, absolutely.

Well, our topic for discussion today, we’ll spend most of our time talking about what I’ve termed this topic as a sane center media. So we’ve obviously got the left and the right focused media, you know, in the traditional media outlets. But when we talk chamber work, when we talk, you know, really moving the needle in communities and the things that affect business, really it’s aligning in the center and being able to see where the truth lies amongst

all the chaos that’s out there. So we’ll spend most of our time on this topic as soon as we get back from this quick break.

All right, Ed, we are back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re talking today about Sane Center Media. I know you’ve launched something pretty unique, pretty interesting there at the Colorado Chamber. You want to tell us what that is and kind of what the origins for this?

I’ll say it, this new site, what it came from and what the dream was and how it’s evolved. you

Ed Sealover (05:48.141)
Absolutely. And thanks for asking about it. The Summon Substance is a website, tsscolorado.com. It’s free for everyone to see. That came about kind of from my decision in 2022 that I was done with journalism after two and a half decades in the field. I needed to move on to something and I wanted to do something a little more proactive as well, but I didn’t want to stop writing. And so I had

I had talked with the Colorado Chamber CEO. She was one of my best sources in covering the state house. And just talked about, what could a guy like me do? And she thought it would be a good idea to bring me on and to actually launch this site. And one of the reasons was, and I told her, if I leave the publication that I was at right now, they’re going to give up on the Capitol. though they didn’t right away, they eventually did pull out of covering the Capitol.

And I said, because of that, nobody is going to be covering the business issues of the Capitol the same way. So I suggested, look, if I come onto the chamber, I need to write a pretty detailed newsletter for the members. And Lauren Furman, our CEO, was the one that had the vision. She said, no, no, no, the heck with the newsletter. She said, let’s put up a website, because the website not only will allow our members to see what’s going on, but will allow policymakers to see and understand the business issues as well, because too often, and think this happens in every city,

media outlets focus on kind of the hot button issues. There’s guns, there’s social issues, there’s things like that. But we need people to think more about business issues and how that affects everyone even more so than these hot button issues do. And so she had the idea, we’re gonna put up the website, we came to the name Summon Substance to try to really show that this…

This shows every angle of what we’re trying to do here. And the one, I don’t want to say demand, but the one thing I said is, look, but if we’re going to do this and people are going to pay attention to is this cannot be chamber communications. This can’t be just PR on our side. We need to show both sides. And she said, yes, go for it. And so what it is, it is a

Ed Sealover (08:00.589)
a business policy news site and I admit I work for an interest group but as I tell everyone I try to write down the middle because I want people talking about business issues and this is the way to do it.

Brandon Burton (08:12.141)
I love that. The fact that it, yes, it’s sponsored by the Chamber, it’s a Chamber site, but not necessarily with the angle or the perspective of.

this is chamber, but just being right down the middle covering both sides. So when you talk about what are some of these topics that are important for everybody, not those hot topic things that make the newsreels all the time, but what are those things that are important for everybody that you see maybe drawing a little bit more attention on the site?

Ed Sealover (08:41.74)
We focus a lot on our state legislature. State legislature runs four months out of the year and it’s extremely active and they’re doing a lot of things with business. So we’ll go in there, I’ll go in there. I should say it’s me. There’s not the staff of people at the sum and substance. And follow bills really closely. Get stories out as soon as they’re coming about or as soon as we even see bill drafts to start the conversation on it.

and explain what it means to businesses. you know, sometimes that’s going to overlap with what other media outlets are covering. We had a big issue on property taxes in 2024. And everyone wanted to talk about property taxes. The difference was I focused a lot on how that affected commercial property and business property taxes rather than some of the residential taxes that most others focused on. And in a lot of cases, I’ll write about things that others may not be writing about.

of business regulations come up. have a legislature that is often looking for good reasons to help out consumers, but is looking to do it by raising regulations that are going to be problematic for businesses. just this past session, I focused a lot on a law that would have made it easier for people to sue over Americans with Disabilities Act violations, sue businesses, and what that would mean to it. Laws about

wage laws about unionization and making it easier to unionize. And then issues like artificial intelligence regulation that directly affect one sector of our economy, but really in many ways affected everyone who uses an artificial intelligence program in state of Colorado. And so I dive pretty deep into these in ways that I don’t think others do. And I always say, you know, in my last publication,

my editors would say sometimes, hey, cut it down. People don’t want to read a thousand words on this topic. Well, now I write about business policy. And so I write pretty long articles thinking if you’re coming to the sum and substance, you want to hear about business policy in depth. So we go into that. The other thing, I’ll be quick here as I realize I’m talking a lot, that I tend to cover are regulatory hearings. The way our state legislature works, a lot of times they set up a framework for

Ed Sealover (11:04.992)
how we’re going to do things like reduce emissions and what that means. And then we have regulatory bodies that decide how to do it. So our air quality control commission, for example, is very active in putting new restrictions on businesses that have emissions coming from them. And so I’ve spent a lot of time explaining what are the rules that they’re looking at, how would this affect them.

And hopefully trying to get not just businesses to hear about this, but the policymakers to understand businesses concerns as well. So anything that comes out of the state government or that affects a wide swath of businesses in the state is what I try to dive into.

Brandon Burton (11:43.356)
Yeah, as you’re given that explanation, I’m thinking, you know, when you see a commercial on TV for a pharmaceutical drug, you know, there’s the level one, you know, effects that, you you take this pill for this outcome.

But then you get the 90 seconds at the end of the commercial where it’s talking about all the potential side effects. And I think same thing when it comes to regulations, when it comes to different regulation that affects businesses. Yes, there’s the top layer. There’s the things that you’re trying to address, but then there’s all the secondary effects, the long tail effects that happen. And I see that as what you’re really getting into. How is this really going to affect business aside from what’s getting the headlines in the news?

as far as what that legislation, that piece of legislation is supposed to address versus how is this really gonna shake out for the average business and who’s gonna win, who’s gonna lose on this? Is that kind of an accurate description?

Ed Sealover (12:41.804)
It really is. you know, for example, we just had a special legislative session and they needed to close a budget shortfall. so they went after they being legislators went after a couple of longstanding business tax breaks and decided to roll them back. And a lot of folks said, well, look, if we cut this tax break, we can save a hundred million dollars and put that back into closing the budget shortfall.

And I would try to go in and say, okay, I will get into the nitty gritty here, but one of them, for example, was a tax break for insurance companies who have a certain percentage of their national workforce in Colorado. It’s called a regional home office tax credit. And legislators looked at it like, okay, we need to get this money back. And my story is trying to point out, okay, I see why, but understand.

that this is how insurers are looking at this tax break and this is what it could mean to Colorado’s insurance workforce at a time when we’re already losing members of that workforce to neighboring states like Nebraska and Arizona because the cost of living and the regulations are so much lower there. So those are the kind of things I try to put in perspective. Like yes, you may think about this, but here’s what it would have to do.

At the same point, I’m trying to explain to businesses who may just come to this and say, this is awful. You’re stealing my tax break and say, okay, here’s why the state is doing this. They don’t see it working for the following reasons. So it’s almost like trying to facilitate a dialogue between the policymakers and businesses about why these things are important, but always being sure to bring up both sides of that and to bring up what business concerns are. I think I tend to write about some stories.

that are broader with the here’s how it affects business angle because I don’t see that being out there a lot and that’s something I like to do to let local businesses especially know, hey, you may not be paying attention to what’s going on, but this is the direct impact on your company.

Brandon Burton (14:43.922)
Yeah, I see it as showing the other side of the coin. However, a lot of these issues, there’s not just two sides of the coin. get into it and it gets a lot deeper and more complicated than that.

Ed Sealover (14:44.723)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (14:55.678)
So for the local chambers, the work that you’re doing out there in the state level, let’s tie it back to the local chambers. How can we draw attention to them to offer the support to them? How can they benefit from their state chamber doing something like what you’re doing with this approach? What’s your thoughts on that?

Ed Sealover (15:06.187)
Absolutely.

Ed Sealover (15:20.619)
There are a couple ways I think you could think about that one is and again if you go to TSS Colorado comm You will see that the stories are free and in local chambers just pick them off and put them in their newsletters I have a couple chambers that are just like what’s going on? Here’s what you need to know

So I like to think of it as a service that local chambers can pick up and say, look, local members, you want to know what’s happening, you know, especially, you know, we’ve got a wide state. If you want to know what’s happening six hours away in Denver, here is, here is something you need to know. So that’s, that’s a service to local chambers in that way. And the other way it’s, it’s a two way door. have really good relationships with a number of our local chambers, or at least I like to think I do, um, where they’ll call me up and say, Hey, you need to pay attention to this or.

I will call them and say, this sounds like they would hit your part of the state more than others. Tell me about it. So I’m, I’m understanding what they need to be watching at the Capitol and getting their voice into it too, because too often, and this is true of everything in Colorado, it tends to be a Denver centric focus. and, and, and this is a way of at least getting into a publication. Look, here’s what the folks in.

grand junction need or here’s what the folks in Durango need, things like that. it’s a way for local chambers to bring their concerns to the state level as well. And thirdly, we tend to use what goes on TSS as a blueprint, both I and our our SVP of governmental relations.

tend to do a lot of talks in local chambers about, here’s what’s happening. And this is a great way to be able to summarize it and say, and by the way, follow it here. So I guess think of it like an Associated Press newswire for local chambers as well. I may not be able to follow what’s going on with your city government, but I will be able to help your folks understand what’s going on at the state level and what they need to pay attention to.

Brandon Burton (17:13.438)
Yeah, now that’s.

That’s great. So I know on your website, it very much looks like a news site, but curated for business. I noticed you also have a newsletter, although the idea was to start with the newsletter and you guys were like, no, let’s do a website. But it looks like there’s both, right? So is that pushing out the news stories or how does that work?

Ed Sealover (17:29.451)
Yeah, basically the newsletter. Yes, yeah, I mean, because I don’t expect people who are busy running businesses to be checking in every six hours to see if I have a new story up. So the newsletter is you sign up for the newsletter and every three stories that I put out, I’ll put out a new newsletter saying, here’s what’s going on during the legislative session that could come once a

Brandon Burton (17:42.334)
Yeah, and I love that you make it available.

Ed Sealover (17:53.312)
day that you’re getting a newsletter in the off season like it is now that may be every week to two weeks thankfully but yes that’s a way to make sure that people are informed too of what’s going on.

Brandon Burton (18:09.542)
local chambers can pick off certain stories or topics that you’re covering and bring it to their local awareness. Are there other ways that a local chamber can maybe piggyback on the efforts that their state chamber does like this? I know from an advocacy point, just to be able to lean on the state, just what are your thoughts around more of how the local chambers can.

can really piggyback and lean on the expertise of the state chamber.

Ed Sealover (18:40.349)
You know, it’s a great question because I don’t think in most cases, local chambers can expect to do something like this. We have deeper resources than most local chambers just because we have a statewide base. So yeah, I mean, just kind of picking it off is very helpful. But I would say for local chambers that are hearing this saying, boy, I wish I had that service.

Brandon Burton (18:48.635)
Right, if they’ve got one staff or a couple staff, yeah, yeah. So.

Ed Sealover (19:03.315)
it may be something they could as a group go to the state chamber and say, we are not the first state chamber to do this. This was an idea that the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce put into play a number of years ago. We do ours a slight bit differently, but it’s something that local chambers could work with state chambers to say, look, we need this lifeline to know what’s going on.

Now, maybe in other states, the state government isn’t quite as active. I know there are some states where they meet once every two years. And so it’s not quite that pipeline that’s necessary. But in some states, it’s a year-round proposition. I think local chambers teaming up with the state government to say, hey, how could we support you doing this kind of reporting back to us is something they could think about as well. And even in a sense,

Knowing that if you go and you cover these things in a fair way, people will talk to you. think local chambers could even think about establishing more of a partnership, if you will, or more of a relationship with local governments in that way. If you have a local government that is very active in setting forth regulations, just sending someone to attend their council meetings and writing things up.

and saying, look, we’re watching, is a good way for local chambers to kind of raise their voice in this too. And if you cover these things fairly, I think you actually grab the attention of local policymakers more and say, hey, I saw this story on it. I appreciate that. Let’s talk about this more often. So it’s not just the chamber reacting to what’s going on, but being proactive and saying, this is coming. How do we get people involved in the conversation?

Brandon Burton (20:44.853)
Yeah, and I’ve seen local chambers take a topic and then host a

podcast or webinar or town hall or something as a platform to be able to say, let’s talk about this further. Like obviously there’s feelings on both sides, there’s perspectives on both sides. Let’s hash this out and kind of get to the bottom of things. So I like that just, you know, as a, your perspective, you’re able to draw attention to these things. And then on the local chamber level, if they want to dive deeper or if they want to go in with their local government to be able to share their perspectives

or cover something on the fair and center, you know, the centric way. I think that’s a great model to follow. Given that you do the reporting on the what I call the sane center, you know, it down the middle. It is still news that is still reporting. Do you get feedback one way or the other? I don’t know the primary audience. Is it just chambers and your business members or is it the community at large?

Ed Sealover (21:48.907)
It’s interesting, the primary audience, I think started out as our members, but as I mentioned, if it’s just an internal echo chamber, you don’t really do anything with this. And so I’ve noticed more and more state groups or state representatives, senators, their offices are signing up to get this now. And then a lot of other policy groups, both those are in the business space and those that we sometimes clash with.

Brandon Burton (21:49.504)
What do you see? Right. Good.

Ed Sealover (22:18.926)
are actually signing up to get this now too. I’m hoping that is a way to open dialogue with them. We actually have cut a couple of media partnerships as well. We have one newspaper, The Gazette, which circulates in Bethanger and Colorado Springs, that will pick my stories up because it took them about a year watching it and said, you’re doing this journalistically.

And we don’t necessarily have the staffing to cover every business nuance like you do. So we’ll literally pick the story up and put it out there. And so that’s been a good audience growth too. I think it’s also helped some folks who normally would clash with the chamber, the Colorado chamber on issues to say, he actually is doing this fairly. This is not chamber publicity. He’s trying to educate people on it. And so to go back to your question about

Who’s the primary audience now? I guess primary audience is anyone who is a businesses Because as I mentioned we always focus on what is this going to do to business and be anyone who is concerned with business policy? The idea that you may be involved in policy. Maybe it’s tax. Maybe it’s regulation Maybe it’s it’s economic development incentives anything along those lines that may impact businesses We hope people are reading it to say even if they’re just saying

hey, what’s the other side saying right now? At least they’ll be able to understand that and see and incorporate that into our discussions going forward.

Brandon Burton (23:49.842)
That’s really cool that the Gazette and these other publications are picking up the stories and recognizing that you got some real street cred. they’re taking it and running with it. So that’s awesome. Yeah, I was curious with how polarized certain news topics can be. Now, I don’t know if you’re covering housing or child care, if it gets super polarized one way or the other, but covering it from the business

business first kind of lens. Do you get voices that come at you from their polarized point of view of how can you cover it this way? I’m just trying to get my mind wrapped around what’s a reception like from those that are on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

Ed Sealover (24:41.424)
It’s, it’s a good question. I think I have the luxury in that if you’re not a thoughtful person, you’re not going to tune into a website that’s writing 1200 words about a policy. so the reception is, it’s generally pretty good. I don’t have people that are writing in like corporate blah, blah, blah, blah. They’re, you know, they’re, tuning in to see, wait, why? And are you doing this? And then there were people who say things like, I don’t buy this, you know, you you, published a

Brandon Burton (24:50.856)
There you go. It’s a great point. Yeah.

Ed Sealover (25:11.262)
hole from somebody who we think is not a legitimate source or here are some of the faults with it. You’re quoting someone who we don’t like. There’s always going to be that. the general reception is, you know, here’s what business is thinking, but here’s what we need to highlight also. I have groups that I I refer to in general media as

Brandon Burton (25:23.706)
Sure.

Ed Sealover (25:39.886)
liberal think tanks who will call me sometimes like, hey, do you want our thoughts on this? I have one particular environmental group I have a good relationship with where the executive director who is often sitting on the opposite side of bills from the Chamber of Commerce government relations team calls and say, hey, do you want my thoughts on this regulation? So I think the reception has been that some groups have looked at this and said,

I want to make sure my voice is in here. want to make sure that if this is going out and it’s already talking about what businesses want, because I’ve got great access to businesses so I can get their voices in there all the time, we get our voices in there too. And so I’m thankful for that. I think it furthers the conversation. And it took time. I will say this, in 2023 when this launched,

I would put in calls to groups like that that went unreturned. And I think that’s fair. If you say, I’m with the Colorado Chamber of Commerce publication, they’ll be like, why on earth would I want to talk to you? But I think they’ve seen my commitment to trying to bring this out over time. And so I think that also furthers the conversation. And to be truthful, to kind of work in some of the other things I do with strategic initiatives, I oversee our environmental sustainability task force here.

Brandon Burton (26:32.124)
is new.

Ed Sealover (26:52.521)
We’ve been able to, one of the goals of the task force was to get business and environmentalists at the same table rather than shouting across the room at each other and talk about what sustainability policies are realistic and how we can work together to clean up the environment. And we’ve been able to bring in some of those groups to talk with us, to talk about how we move forward on this. And I’m not going to say that’s a direct link to the sum and substance. Those are kind of two different hats I wear there.

but I don’t think it hurts when they, when they can see, like, we actually want to hear your opinions. We may disagree with you, but we care about your voice and we’re looking for that way to find a compromise.

Brandon Burton (27:27.336)
We care about your voice.

Brandon Burton (27:34.232)
Yeah, I think your point is well taken when there’s not the hot button bits, you know, that can be shared out on Twitter X or, whatever platform people are on, but it has to be more of a thoughtful read to be able to go through and see the research and the effort that’s been put into whatever the topic is. But then to have, you know, those different organizations reach out and say, would you like to know our opinion? Of course. Yeah, let’s bring all voices to the table.

Ed Sealover (27:58.674)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (28:00.724)
and let’s find the best solutions, right? So that’s awesome. I love hearing that. Well, Ed, for those listening, those chambers listening who are wanting to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them in trying to accomplish that goal? Yeah.

Ed Sealover (28:18.941)
Well, I was thinking about this. I want to step back a little bit from just talking about the sum and substance. And I want to talk about how the sum and substance works into our greater vision. We put forward a statement. was, I should say, we being the chamber before I got here called Vision 2033. And this is something I would recommend for any chamber is lay out a vision statement for the next 10 years of what the chamber stands for. Because this is a comment I’ve heard repeatedly is that

We want to be a part of where you’re going because we see what you want to do. It’s not just the chamber is reacting based on members. It’s not just we are seeing things and saying no or yes. We’re saying this is what we’re going to do and this is how we’re proactively going to achieve it. And so for any chambers listening, I would say if you haven’t thought about and this goes beyond just the mission statement. Mission statements are great because they tell in the very short form.

why people should pay attention to you. But larger statements and Vision 23 for us is, it’s about a 50 page report about here are the four areas we are going to concentrate on over the next 10 years, including areas like housing and workforce development. And that’s actually allowed me, one of my other hats as an initiative is to be very proactive in workforce development. How do we work with the state to improve a system that frankly isn’t preparing

Colorado students for the jobs that are looking to hire them right now. So this is something we didn’t just react to. We worked with the state, with a number of other organizations to put forward a five-bill workforce development package not long ago in 2024 and pass it because we said this is the positive steps we need to take. So that’s a long way of saying for other teams who listening, think about

proactively what you want to do and what you want to stand for. Lay it out in kind of, even if you’re worried it’s too detailed, but very detailed form and then other organizations will see you and want to jump on based on that because they know you’re not just yes and no, you’re about the bigger picture and how we move toward it.

Brandon Burton (30:30.554)
I love it. The proactive versus reactive chamber is going to make all the difference. So being proactive is going to catch more of that vision and having your members and community recognize the visionary leaders that you are. So I always like asking people that I have on the show as we look to the future of Chambers of Commerce, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?

Ed Sealover (30:57.265)
I think chambers need to be on the front line of what is an increasing battle over a question that bothers me, is business a good thing? I think we are seeing more and more of this trend toward business is bad and that comes from both ends of the political spectrum at this point. On one end, saying socialism is good and on another end, they’re saying we don’t trust business anymore.

and chambers need to be out front in showing what business is. Chambers need to be out front and showing business is that mom and pop restaurant you go to down the street when you want to sit with your friends and complain about business. you know, business, business is, is not a, a, you know, an amalgamation of things that, works itself into big business and business is awful. It is the individuals who

Brandon Burton (31:39.23)
You

Ed Sealover (31:56.719)
employee people. It is the individuals who work at those companies. And I think chambers have to stand up and always emphasize that. We try to do that when we are testifying for bills or going into things and saying, look, I know what you’re looking to do here, but if this costs people their jobs, that’s business. That’s business losing because people don’t have jobs anymore.

I think chambers need to be out front representing themselves, not just as a place where people can get together and talk and socialize and meet and network, but as a place where the community can see this is business, this is our community, and we need to safeguard business because they are ours.

Brandon Burton (32:40.412)
I that’s a great response. They need to have a place to sit and gather and complain about business. that’s great. Well, Ed, this has been great having you on the podcast. I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information with listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you or to follow The Summit Substance. What would be the best way to have them reach out and connect with you?

Ed Sealover (33:06.446)
Absolutely. Again, the Summon Substance is tsscolorado.com. If you’re interested in what’s going on in Colorado or just interested in how I’m doing this, sign up for the newsletter. Again, it goes out every three stories. So try to keep people involved there. And I’m happy to talk to people directly if you want to talk about business issues or if you want to talk about how to do something like this. My email is

eclover at cochamber.com. That’s E-S-E-A-L-O-V-E-R at cochamber.com. My phone number is 719-659-7907. And you can hit me on LinkedIn too, under Ed Sealover as well. But happy to talk about this project and happy to talk about business issues for anyone who may be interested.

Brandon Burton (33:59.838)
Perfect, I’ll make sure we get all that in our show notes for this episode to make it easy to find you and connect with you and for people to check out this platform that you’ve developed. This is really something pretty cool. I’d like to see more state chambers get on board with this because it is such an incredible resource for the local chambers and to really push good business advocacy. So thank you for sharing your experience and what you’ve developed and really just how it’s working for you guys there at the Colorado Chamber. I appreciate it.

Ed Sealover (34:28.048)
No, thanks for doing what you’re doing, Brandon. This is an important thing to let Chambers know how they can prosper as well. It’s an important thing that I realize. I love my relationships with local Chambers and anytime the state and local Chambers can work together, that’s when business is really succeeding.

Brandon Burton (34:48.824)
Absolutely. Well, thanks a lot Ed. This has been great.

Ed Sealover (34:52.389)
All right, thank you.

Membership Value & ROI with Joe Venhuizen

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Brandon Burton (00:17)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our guest for this episode is Joe Venhuizen. Joe is the Vice President of Membership and Resource Development for Envision Greater Fond du Lac. Envision is a combined chamber EDO.

Serving the greater Fond du Lac County in Wisconsin, Joe has spent nine years in the industry working in membership sales, program coordination, government affairs, and executive leadership. Joe earned his IOM certificate to the U.S. Chamber in 2025. He is a husband and a father to three boys and an active member of his local church.

Joe, 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.

Joe Venhuizen (01:18)
Sure. Well,

it is a pleasure to be here. So thank you for having me on and look forward to a good discussion. I never shy away from the chance to discuss the industry. It’s one of my favorite things to do and especially with people who actually understand it. You know, I imagine you can be a bit of a bore at Thanksgiving. That’s what I come off. know, people just kind of go, well, you work for the government, don’t you? Or you know, there’s not an understanding of where we are and what we

we do. And so to talk to people who live this, it really energizes me. So yes, my name is Joe. been, I’ve lived in this area of East Central Wisconsin. That’s where I grew up. Aside from education and a couple things that brought me out of the area, I have always been here. So I grew up on a, tell me if you heard this before, I’m a dairy farm kid from Wisconsin. So family farm,

Brandon Burton (02:09)
Are

there many of those? No. Just kidding.

Joe Venhuizen (02:10)
Yeah, it’s fitting the mold here. I’m a Packer fan. I’m wearing the gear here. I’m excited for Sunday to take on the Lions. But

I do bleed green and gold in Wisconsin. I love where I’m from. But I’ve been in this industry nine years. And I have no plans of going anywhere. I see nothing but exciting challenges in my future doing what we do.

You wanted something interesting. something interesting. I’ll tell you this year, earlier this year, I became an official small business owner myself. And that sounds pretty cool. The reality is it’s not that cool. But I did get an LLC. And I formalized under an LLC some things that I’ve been doing for years, which is improv comedy.

Brandon Burton (02:44)
Okay.

Joe Venhuizen (02:59)
So I now have an official business for my improv troupe and we do short form sketch comedy for corporate parties and gatherings and fundraisers and things. So something that I’ve enjoyed doing for many years.

Brandon Burton (03:13)
That’s very cool. So I I love asking that question. I never would have known that about you if I didn’t ask for the interesting fact about yourself. So that’s cool. You’ll have to put up your tour schedule here at the end. yeah. Yeah. That’s right. That’s fantastic.

Joe Venhuizen (03:22)
Here you go.

Yeah, Private bookings only, you know, pay for travel costs. I’m happy to, you know, advertise it on your podcast here.

Brandon Burton (03:37)
I know what you mean about Thanksgiving dinner being the board. When people find out I have a podcast, they’re like, ⁓ that’s so cool. What’s it about? it’s chambers of commerce. Like, what? Yeah, so yeah. Well, tell us a little bit about your chamber. Just give us an idea what Envision Greater Fond du Lac has to offer, size, staff, scope of work, budget, just to set the stage for our discussion today.

Joe Venhuizen (03:44)
Yeah.

Yeah,

we’re all in about a $2 million organization. We are a combined Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development organization. That combination happened in 2017. So I joined the industry and the organization before the merger. So I was hired as a Chamber membership and program person. Within my first year, we had the merger that brought together the Chamber and the Economic Development.

We serve a county that’s roughly a hundred thousand population. We are in the county seat and ⁓ most of our membership base is in the county seat, which is the city of Fond du Lac. But Fond du Lac County has three cities and various villages and townships. It’s pretty rural. Our big industries here are agriculture and manufacturing. The congressional district in which we sit, the Wisconsin sixth

congressional district is the leading manufacturing district in the country. So we have, we are home to the world headquarters of Mercury Marine, which is the leading producer of marine outboard motors. And there’s a ⁓ hefty supply chain with that and neighboring in the region, we have quite a few manufacturing titans in that industry. So that’s a lot of who we service. And then of course, agriculture and

and your standard ground of the mill, all the different industries that Chambers serve. So we have experienced the pains and the joys of merging those two organizations and what it takes to create a new brand and to really have the inner working between servicing existing business needs through Chamber of Commerce services and advocacy and also still working.

under the same strategic plan intent on economic development and business attraction retention and entrepreneurship and workforce development. So it’s been, it’s been very, very good. I always advocate that more organizations look at these opportunities seriously and check egos and really consider what’s best for the business community that you serve. Because a lot of times there is duplicity and there’s

know, competition for resources that it took quite a while for our organizations at that time to make this leap of faith to do this together. But now standing and looking back eight years later, it’s definitely been a success.

Brandon Burton (06:21)
Yeah, that’s great. So how many staff do you guys have between the combined organization? Okay.

Joe Venhuizen (06:26)
We’re at about 14 total. And my role oversees our chamber

operations, and that’s ⁓ a team of about four of us. And then there’s operations. We have one CEO, obviously, my boss. And then our economic development and workforce development team forms the other pillar.

Brandon Burton (06:45)
Very good. Yeah, that’s super helpful for us to just understand where you’re coming from as we enter into our discussion today. So we’ll focus the majority of our conversation on the topic of membership value and ROI, which I know it can be a hot topic for pretty much any chamber out there. So I’m excited to dive into that topic and to get your feedback and your experience on this as soon as we get back from this quick break.

All right Joe we’re back so as I mentioned before the break today we’re talking about membership value and ROI How do we express that to members potential members? I’ve shared before on the podcast my background is in chamber publishing so Oftentimes I’m interacting with chamber members as a third party and They feel like they can open up to me in that in those scenarios

and they’ll be honest, you know, I don’t feel like I get anything out of my chamber. don’t see, you know, I paid membership dues and I never heard from the chamber again, you those sort of things. So how do you approach expressing membership value and ROI as you interact with your members and potential members?

Joe Venhuizen (09:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, if any of your listeners have the right answer on this, you know, in 10 seconds, please chime in. But this is going to constantly be the measure that we use for ourselves is how well are we delivering value or communicating value. One of the things that’s been helpful for me in years of doing this, in annual renewal cycles and understanding the types of members who come and go and then those who stay and why they stay.

is really the way, the type of mindset that a member brings to the organization. The reason for joining is as important to understand at the time that you are interacting with a new member as the way you communicate ongoing. Because if you understand the type of member and the type of value they’re looking for, you can understand

whether they’re going to be long-term or whether this is going to be a, I’m in it for now for me. And then when the me part isn’t working, I’m out. We have done a decent amount of effort recently at Envision in changing some of our language and our materials to reflect more of a fundraising or investor mindset than a member mindset.

And where we are focusing a lot of effort is this getting into a mindset of a long-term relationship, not that there’s a sort of knee-jerk reaction that’s asked for on an annual basis. Did I feel like this year I did enough to get value that I can write one more check, but to really start the relationship off from the bat of this is a movement?

that you’re joining for the long term. And there will be peaks and valleys. There will be times when you need more attention from the business community and the services we offer. And there will be times when you’re off and running the business. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to be stopping and starting and breaking off relationship. This is both of us working towards success in this region together for the long term.

Brandon Burton (12:11)
Yeah, so years ago I had a friend of mine, he’s a realtor, he reached out to me, he had moved to a new community.

He’s like, Brandon, should I join my local chamber? He’s like, I know you do this podcast about chambers. Should I join my local chamber? And of course, my, my, you know, knee jerk reactions, of course, you know, but I was a little more measured. My, depends, you know, what are you trying to do? What, like, what’s the mission of the chamber there in your community? What kind of committees do they have? How can you get involved? Like, what do you want this to do for your business? It’s not just that.

that magic bullet where you pay an annual membership due and all of a sudden your business is thriving, right? Right. So very much, going back to your, you know, your thought about figuring out the why, why are they joining and what are they trying to get out of it. That’ll help guide those conversations. My thought is going towards how about those members that need to justify their membership to somebody higher.

Joe Venhuizen (12:53)
Yeah, all your problems are solved.

Brandon Burton (13:15)
you know, a regional manager or somebody at corporate or, know, something like that. How do you have those kinds of conversations and help them to, to recognize what the chamber does for them so they can continue that conversation with those that they answer to? Right.

Joe Venhuizen (13:17)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s a tough one because my answer is almost always, well, who do I need to be in the room with? Because

let’s get to the naysayer, the person who is sort of just evaluating this on paper and not really in the context of a conversation or a true understanding. So those can be really difficult, getting through those local

folks on the ground who say, I got to run it up the chain of command and go, well, let me help you. Let me be part of that conversation. It’s often a good thing. But I think that there’s always mindset shift. And in those critical kind of crucial conversations of, are we valuable enough to use

expense on, right, to invest in. I think that that’s the opportunity to communicate differently. It’s not the time to rattle off the benefits menu, you know, that, well, we do this, we do this, we have all this. It’s really, when you’re in those conversations, it’s really opportunity to pause and to say, what are your goals? You know, what is it that you want to accomplish? And

really get the playbook because people will teach you how to sell them. And when you’re able to get them to communicate, well, here’s what I’m looking for. So your realtor friend, you know, looking for connections in a new area, I just want to meet new people, right? Well, that’s easy. You know, here’s the things, you know, but what your realtor friend may not care about is

all of the work we do with the local school districts in bridging the gap between local industry and future workforce. And, you know, that might be a huge part of what we do. It doesn’t matter to me. Right. So don’t spend any time talking about that because I’m lost. I don’t care. You can fundraise that from other sources. Here’s my problem that I’m looking to solve through your organization. So you need to get the keys to how to sell and you get that from the member who’s considering that value.

Econ Dev Ops is the virtual assistant service built specifically for small Chambers of Commerce and Economic Development Organizations (EDOs)

Brandon Burton (15:16)
Right.

Yeah, I guess I’m thinking of those members that they’ve they’ve joined maybe they’ve been a member for a year or two.

Joe Venhuizen (15:38)
.

Brandon Burton (15:41)
And because so many businesses now are operating off of data, which we preach to chambers too, Collect data, make data-informed decisions. they collect the data. They’re looking at their books. And they’re like, OK, justify this to me. How does this make sense? And like you said, who do I need to talk to to help relay the value? I think that’s key. ⁓

Joe Venhuizen (15:54)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

We’ve got to tell stories

really too, Brandon. We have to be able to communicate our wins and then how they apply. you know, I think we get very head down in the chamber industry on, you know, we have this annual schedule of events and monthly schedule of events and, you know, this long list of to-dos and there’s a lot of whirlwind there. But when we get significant wins for the community,

those you just can’t move on from those to the next event. You have to be constantly reminding, sometimes ad nauseam, like, here’s what we accomplished. And I’ve talked, you know, it’s eight years post-merger for our organization, but I don’t want anybody in our community to forget how significant that was. And for people who are maybe newer in the business community here, they might not know any better or any different.

But I like to remind them of what life was like before the merger and how significant just being here and being an efficient organization is. And that goes down to resources. Your resources invested in this organization are maximized much more than what they were previously because of this big win. You could have been getting much less value because you’d been writing two checks to two organizations that were both trying to do the same thing. Now we’re doing it all here.

So it’s one example, but eight years later, I can still communicate that to certain businesses who are legacy businesses who’ve been here a while that, know, yeah, you’re right, you’re right. This could be a lot. You the other thing is any time you have advocacy wins, any time that you’ve helped with a business expansion, relocation, an entrepreneur startup, any time the Chamber’s been involved, even, you know, advocating for an infrastructure change that’s small.

I it was Pat McGoy, who’s a long time, know, titan in the chamber industry, tells kind of an anecdote about if the chamber advocates for a stop sign, use that one project, right? Just one stop sign and then try to put numbers to it. So for the business that’s right there, what does this mean for you? So if that one, you know, stop sign,

leads to, and I can’t remember how in this example, but if it leads to more impressions or more traffic that is stopped at your business with visibility, by the numbers, is that 1 % more? that 10 % more? And then what does that mean for your bottom line? So for your million dollar industry, what’s 1 % of that? And then how do you quantify the results of advocacy wins?

I haven’t done a lot of that, but that was something that made me think a lot. Anytime that you have a, you know, a business park expansion or a win on your main street. For example, we advocated for highway expansion that tied our community to the county to the east. And by expanding that road from two lanes to four lanes, naturally it’s much safer. It’s much more efficient for.

Um, you know, for daily drivers, also for the, you know, businesses and freight over the road. Um, there’s a way that you can communicate that to businesses of, different industries that this is valuable and it wouldn’t have happened without our advocacy. So, you know, trying to get them out of this mindset of like, okay, the only thing that matters is customers that walk through my door and go, no, no, no,

It’s not the only thing that matters because that’s influenced by a lot of different factors. And here’s the way that we’re pulling levers on those factors.

Brandon Burton (19:32)
Yeah, I love that. And just the whole idea of the value of being able to tell the story, whether it’s talking about the merger or the recent advocacy wins.

Joe Venhuizen (19:35)
Thank

Brandon Burton (19:42)
I mean, I think every chamber out there is going to have at least a healthy handful of examples of just individual members who have been members, you know, the whole time that their business has been around and, you know, why they stick with it, why they, you know, wins that they’ve seen as the chambers been able to be influential in their business to, again, help increase that bottom line. So being able to kind of create a storybook of sorts that you can go back to and pull from and

Joe Venhuizen (19:57)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon Burton (20:11)
Depending on what the scenario is who the person is you’re talking to to pull from these stories these experiences and say well this is how it worked for ABC business and You know, it’s similar to yours So I actually I had an experience just yesterday with a business owner who was new to this community and She had been a business owner in a previous community for a long time

like 30 years, she had a retail shop and she just moved to this new community, opened a new business. And she said, you know, in my last community, I was a chamber member. And after so many years, I stopped because, know, whatever the reason is, as you come across somebody like that, obviously they had an experience, they gave it a try. It was a different chamber, different community, different state even.

How can you help build the trust for them to give your chamber a chance to be able to help their business? Is there a way of trying to save that or to help them recognize the value? I’m sure the storytelling comes back into that, but how would you approach a situation like that?

Joe Venhuizen (21:05)
Thank you.

Well,

you have to remind people that every chamber is a unique and different organization. And when you have folks that bring past experiences.

It’s just hard to compare apples and oranges sometimes. But what I try to ⁓ remember is, and there are examples of this in my years in the industry, that a really good practice to get into is to invite your critics. Invite your critics to dinner. Some of the best volunteers or board members

that we’ve recruited have been those who have been trying to drop, right? They’re trying to leave. saying, you’re not valuable. I don’t get anything out of this relationship. And instead of writing them off and saying, you just don’t get it. You’re not worth it. You weren’t investing that much anyway. If you really take the time to swallow the pride, the ego, you go, know what? You’re probably right. Let’s talk about that. Why don’t you come in?

I had a volunteer, right, sorry, I had a ⁓ member of our young professionals organization who after one year hadn’t gotten outreach. We really did fail her. She hadn’t gotten outreach or hadn’t attended an event, didn’t feel like, you know, she belonged. At the time of renewal, she could have just not said anything, but she took the time to write me an email, a scathing email, right, a scathing critique on her way out the door.

Brandon Burton (22:40)
That says something. Yeah.

Joe Venhuizen (22:43)
You guys failed. This was horrible. And again, I could have pitched it in the trash and said, okay, or I could have done the halfway, which is, yeah, I guess we really did kind of screw up. Shoot, that’s too bad. But I went one step further and said, sounds like you’d be a great member of our membership outreach committee. You’ve identified a real need in this organization and we need leaders and it sounds like you could do it. And today,

Brandon Burton (23:04)
I love it.

Joe Venhuizen (23:10)
She’s the chairperson of the whole organization for the young professionals. And she’ll tell that story. It was on her way out the door, but somebody actually confronted her and said, yeah, you’re right. And we could use you to get better.

Brandon Burton (23:25)
I love that.

Great example. And tie in in that storytelling right there. That’s perfect. I encountered a similar situation with a guy that owns a bar and like a brewery. And he was very much against.

the chamber and you know the chamber tried for years trying to get this guy to join. He came from corporate world and he’s like don’t see where we need this and through the persistence they got him to you know come to I think it was a mixer or something to begin with just as a non-member just come you know try it out and now he’s the board chair at this chamber. He’s all in and so it’s I love hearing stories like that love it.

Joe Venhuizen (23:40)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon Burton (24:09)
Anything else come to mind as far as expressing the value and really that ROI to businesses as they either go through their experience with the chamber or contemplate joining or renewing membership with the chamber?

Joe Venhuizen (24:25)
Yeah, I think

it’s more philosophical for me. It’s real big picture stuff of you get yourself in no win scenarios when you really try to justify it on the terms that they present. Because a renewing member may, like we said earlier, may justify value only as, I’ll give you one example. We had a Main Street business who said, I’m dropping my membership because

I didn’t see enough chamber gift certificates that came in the door spending money at my bakery. Exactly. And it was, I would need to see at least, you know, a thousand dollars in chamber gift certificates for this to be worth it. Now, those are the terms that he’s defined for this discussion. That’s the value that he’s defined. You have to get out of that language, those terms and present it on a different battlefield.

Brandon Burton (24:58)
That one metric. Yeah.

Joe Venhuizen (25:17)
which isn’t always easy, but that’s really how you have to get the mindset shift to go, well, that’s one metric. You know what? We maybe weren’t honest with you, sir. We probably should have told you that you’re organization is going to help you. But here’s what we are doing. Are you aware of this? Did you know how, you know, did you know how this this proposal at City Council that almost passed would have impacted your your tax bill or your assessment? And the chamber fought that you probably didn’t even know. Good thing is you didn’t have to know because we’re on your side. We’re advocating on your behalf for things that you’re not even paying attention to. Right. So getting them out of this this way of evaluating value and then getting over here. And a lot of it is, yeah, it’s those advocacy wins. It’s the big initiatives that we’re doing and then not being ashamed to continue storytelling on those wins. And, you know, I said I’m a dairy farm kid. You got to milk them. You got to milk it for everything it’s got, right? Once you get an accomplishment, don’t let it sit on the shelf. Keep bringing it back and leverage it for ⁓ membership renewals as often as you can.

Brandon Burton (26:29)
I love that. Great analogy. Malcolm. Well, for the chambers that are listening,

Joe Venhuizen (26:30)
Yeah.

Brandon Burton (26:34)
Most of them are going to be interested in taking their chamber the next level, growing, expanding. What kind of tip or action item might you share with that chamber who’s trying to take it to the next level to try to accomplish that goal?

Joe Venhuizen (26:48)
It’s a good question. I think that if you’re listening and your chamber is not involved in advocacy and government affairs, you need to figure out how you can carve out a slice of that game because you owe it to your business community. Our organization pre-merger between chamber and economic development, our chamber was very active in

Brandon Burton (26:58)
you

Joe Venhuizen (27:12)
in advocacy and government affairs. During the merger, there was a fear that because our economic development organization had some public investments coupled with private, that we would be in a bad situation if we were trying to do local advocacy while also relying on public funds. And I won’t say that that isn’t a real factor.

But the result was we shelved advocacy. We got out of the game completely. And it only took a couple of years before we lost influence and we had a big missed opportunity for local development because we didn’t have an established enough advocacy voice to be able to influence this issue. And so it woke us up and it got us back to the table.

We reestablished a legislative agenda, reformed an advocacy committee, and have thrown a bunch of time and energy into it. And we’re yielding the results. Because again, we’ve said it, when it comes to ROI, that’s the trump card. For a business that can never show up to an event, can never be bothered to read an email, there is always, when you have a good, strong advocacy arm, there is always the argument that we did this, you benefited.

You didn’t have to show up just by existing in this community. You’re a beneficiary of this advocacy work that we did. And we think it’s worth at least a small amount of your annual continued investment. So I think that, you know, for chambers that are scared of it, there’s a way to do this in a very easy, non-controversial way, just to become the location where conversations happen.

You can do legislative forums where you’re just inviting in officials with the business community. You’re not taking stances. You’re not advocating positions. It’s an easy way to just get started. But I think that if you’re not doing anything in this advocacy sphere, you’ve got to get at the table.

Brandon Burton (29:04)
Yeah, I love that tip and it plays in very well to our discussion today too.

I talk about it being that Trump card that you can always go back to and you know, if you can get into the micro things for each individual business, but when you’re missing on those accord or you’re not, you know, really hitting it home for that business, you always can lean back on that advocacy card. I love that. I like asking everyone to have on the show as we look to the future of chambers of commerce. How do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Joe Venhuizen (29:27)
I feel like.

That’s another good question.

I think that Chambers of Commerce will continue to remember who they are and

The core of why chambers were started was to be a functional tool on behalf of a business community to accomplish more together than what businesses can on their own. I think as, you know, time goes on and chambers take different avenues and some function more in a tourist or some are in, you know, other areas, it sometimes becomes a

Well, let’s think about this organization like a business and how do we maximize our profits and keep our, people. I think that sometimes gets into a myopia and you’re really just looking down and you’re not thinking and remembering, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. We’re a tool for the success of all of our businesses. The fear I have is the same thing that the internet did to Chambers when it became prevalent, which was now you have a platform outside of your local chamber where you can do a lot of the connections and the exposure and you don’t need to stop into the chamber office for a map anymore, right? These sorts of things that made chambers valuable. I fear that AI will do the same thing to a lot of the services or benefits that we now provide. And that can crush a chamber that’s not forward thinking or it can just challenge all of us. And so what I mean by waking up and remembering what we’re here for is the value that we provide in an increasingly automated AI culture is, and also in this fragmented political culture is we’re the sane people at the center of issues. And we are the people that know how to have conversations and to bring variety of opinions to the table and come out with results. We’re positioned for that. We’re here to represent businesses, but we’re also in touch with the public sector, nonprofit education, all different industries. We know how to get people to a table in the middle. And that’s something that you can’t automate. So remember how we’re uniquely positioned. And I think that that’s going to be the future of Chambers. just going to be continuing to be the trusted resource in the middle when you’ve got a lot of artificial things that can’t be trusted along the fringes.

Brandon Burton (32:04)
Yeah, totally agree and to be able to understand that core because technology is going to change everything around us. But if we’ve got that core and why we exist and then employ different tools around that core.

Joe Venhuizen (32:14)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon Burton (32:19)
I think that’ll keep chambers relevant in the center of trying to bring some sanity to both sides in long time in the future. Well, Joe, before we 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 with you and learn more how you guys are doing things there at Envision. ⁓ Where would you point them? What would be the best way to connect?

Joe Venhuizen (32:26)
Definitely.

Yeah.

Yeah, we have an easy name, Envision with an E, Envision Greater Fond du Lac. So you’ll find us, if you Google us, we’re online, EnvisionGreaterFDL.com. I’m a phone call guy. So if you want to get a hold of me, just ring me up. My phone number is listed on the website, but it’s 920-921-9500. I’m the only Joe in the building, so you’ll get to me quick. But I would love the chance to talk with you on the phone. I welcome anybody to call me and discuss ideas or book your next improv comedy show.

Brandon Burton (33:11)
That’s right, get that plug in there.

Joe Venhuizen (33:13)
Thanks.

Brandon Burton (33:16)
We’ll get that in our show notes to make it nice and easy for people to find you. But Joe, I appreciate you spending time with us today here on Chamber Chat podcast and sharing your perspective, your experiences when it comes to membership and expressing that value. I know it’s something that we constantly need to be thinking of and building that story bank that we can go back to whenever we need to to be relatable to those businesses that we interact with. So thank you for sharing your insights with us today.

Joe Venhuizen (33:18)
Thank you.

You bet. Thank you for the work you do. This is so important to people challenged in the industry and thinking ahead and thinking futuristically and also just for giving us some of the ideas for how to storytell. What you do is the same thing that we should be doing on the topic what we’ve been discussing. We’ve got to get better at getting the word out and not just in an annual renewal letter.

Brandon Burton (34:08)
Yeah, big fan of Chambers podcasting. I’ll just put that out there. So, all right. That’s right. Thank you, Joe. I appreciate it.

Joe Venhuizen (34:13)
We’ve got a whole lot of time. Thank you.

Lean into Your Unique Background with Michaela Horn & Brianne Bonnet

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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.

Our title sponsor for this episode is Bringing Local Back. Remember when your community could turn to a local TV station or newspaper for the latest updates and affordable ads? Those days may be fading, but the need for local connection remains. That’s why we created Bringing Local Back, a game changing platform that restores the local visibility and advertising power to your community. It’s more than just tech. It’s about driving engagement and creating new revenue for your chamber. Ready to see the future visit bringinglocalback.com to schedule your demo today. This is the future of local commerce.

Today we we have two guests with us. We have Michaela and Brandon from the Belle Fourche Chamber of Commerce in South Dakota. Michaela is the Director of the Belle Fourche Chamber of Commerce, bringing a diverse background to her role with a degree in Organismal Biology from Montana State University, Michaela has worked in various roles and is also the competitive cheer coach at Belle Fourche High School. She has been with the Chamber for one year and is an active member of our community. Brianne Bonnet serves as the Assistant Director of the Belle Fourche Chamber of Commerce, a role that she’s held for two years. She holds a degree in social work from Creighton University, and has a strong commitment to community involvement. Brandon has worked at the local newspaper Head Start and volunteered the Nash the Newell school board, demonstrating her dedication to supporting and connecting the bell food community. But Michaela and Brianne, welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. We’re excited to have you both with us today. I’d like to give you both the chance to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening and to share something interesting about each other, so or about yourselves, just so we can get to know you both a little better.

Michaela Horn 2:31
Yeah. Well, thank you for having us. My name is Michaela Horn. I’ve been in Belle Fourche for about seven years, and something interesting is I have floated 560 miles of the Yellowstone River. So that’s my interesting

Brandon Burton 2:45
fact. Wow, that’s cool. The great views too, I’m sure.

Michaela Horn 2:49
Oh, fantastic. Yeah, I spent 28 days straight on the river. And yeah, that’s my,

Speaker 1 2:55
my dream. That’s awesome.

Brandon Burton 2:58
Brianne, what about you? What? What do you find interesting about yourself? Um,

Brianne Bonnet 3:03
not near as cool as Michaela has done in her life, but I just really focus around volunteering. I’ve been here in Belle Fourche for 10 years. Um, just different volunteer opportunities that I take part of and just really strive for being involved with the community, being involved. And she

Michaela Horn 3:26
is cool. I mean, she’s a former rodeo queen, and, yeah, she forgets that she’s getting involved in the roundup

Brandon Burton 3:33
rodeo this year. Maybe I should have had you interview say something interesting about each other that would have been better off so well, tell us a little bit about the bell food chamber. Just to set the stage for our discussion, I like to get a good feel for size of the chamber, staff, budget, scope of work you guys are involved with, just to kind of prepare us for our discussion today. Okay,

Michaela Horn 3:56
well, the Belle Fourche Chamber, we’ve been around since 1911 so it’s our 100 and 14th birthday. This year we’re celebrating. We have changed quite a bit, just constantly adapting to what our businesses need. Belle Fourche is population about 5800, and Butte County. We serve Butte County, and it’s 10,000 roughly, our budget is about 100,000 with 245 members and growing

Brandon Burton 4:26
alright that definitely helps us prepare for our conversation today. Are you guys involved at all with tourism or your economic development, or anything like that in your area? Or is it strictly chamber

Michaela Horn 4:38
um so we do have an economic development office that is separate from us. We have Visit Belle Fourche, which is also separate from us, and then a visitor center. So we are mostly promoting the businesses, but we do kind of help each other out and do some small form of tourism.

Brandon Burton 4:55
Yeah, very good. I would say a chamber has to be involved in all those different assets. Aspects, no matter what your formal responsibilities are, right? So for our topic today, we decided to lean into the topic or the idea of leaning into your unique background. And I find this topic interesting because I hear so many diverse ways you know, how people find chamber work, how they get here. You know, very rarely do you see somebody that went to school to become a chamber director. You know, it just, it’s not, it’s it’s not something you see at a typical career day, either. So it’ll be a, it’ll be interesting to dive into this topic with both of you and learn about your unique backgrounds and how others can lean into theirs as well. As soon as we get back from this quick break,

Joe Duemig
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Brandon Burton 12:40
All right, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’re going to cover the two program synopsis that were included in your chamber of the year application. Lindsay, it’s my understanding you had a significant, pretty significant role in the application and pulling everything together. So I’d like to hand the microphone over to you and have you highlight, I know there’s two different programs, one about an airport, one about move to Jackson. Do you want to highlight move to Jackson for us first, and what that program, what the origins were, kind of the background and and how things have evolved to what it is today.

Brandon Burton 8:32
All right, we are back, as I mentioned before the break today, we’re talking about leaning into your unique background. So with this topic, I don’t know which one of you would like to dive into this first about your uniqueness, your own background and and how that fits into chamber work, and how you see those applications being brought to life.

Michaela Horn 8:57
Well, I guess I’ll start you know, it’s nice, and that’s why I wanted to do this interview together, because we we go into the community together so much because between the two of us, we say that we can have a conversation or relate to everybody in town. We’ve worked with people of all ages. I worked with preschool aged children in Head Start. We actually had met working at a senior living facility. I mean, high school aged kids. She has a background in ranch life, and so when we are working with our local livestock businesses, I mean, she can pick up a conversation about that. I have a science background. Can pick up conversation about that. So, I mean, we really are good at marketing ourselves as the package deal to make sure everybody is included and everybody is involved in the conversation. Yeah?

Brandon Burton 9:50
Brandon, you have any anything to add to that with your your own thoughts, with your uniqueness and background and or if you’ve got things about Michaela that you want to spill the beans on? Yeah? No,

Brianne Bonnet 10:01
um, kind of it is the same we we really do. You never know who’s going to walk in the door, whether it’s a business member, um, just a community lay person. They come in all the time and chat with us too. You know to know what’s going on, and it’s just she’s involved in different groups. Um, she’s a competitive cheer coach, but she’s also, like a little bit more in tune with the arts as well, just being involved in the high school and that kind of stuff. So the community people I always bring up, an example is one comes in and he chats, and he talks about history with her. She’s a history kind of buff, too. Me, not so much. But he loves to come in and chat with her, and then she got him actually talked into volunteering, and the guy was just adamant about not, not. He’s like, No, I can’t talk publicly, and all these kinds of things. And he just and he is, and now he’s volunteering in a couple different things. So it’s just nice to have those different backgrounds. And then, like she said, I have a ranching background, a little bit more agriculture kind of type thing. She’s not into horses. I’m into horses. And so just those other people who call on the phone and they’re like, Hi, we’re traveling through where can I board my horses? And I’m like, Oh, yay. Question for me. I can answer that. So you just get, usually, between the two of us, you get your question answered. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 11:24
that’s great. So I know, before we hit record, we talked about how in the community, when there’s a question that comes up, people say, go talk to the girls. I believe is the title that has been given to you too. But some other you know, say other names, sweet and spicy. I guess the talk about that, some with, with your unique personalities, how you support each other, how it comes to supporting the community. I guess, first of all, being being called the girls like, how did that come about and and that happens, I imagine, from building a reputation throughout the community. But how did you go about building that and lean into that to own it?

Michaela Horn 12:12
Well, honestly, I think Jenny started it. She’s so our neighbor is weather hats, and it’s his wife, Jenny, who owns, uh, deals and steals and spear fish, and she would come over, she’s like, Oh, I’m gonna go check on the girls. Well, then it just kind of stuck and took off. And, you know, it, it’s a small community, and so it kind of spread like wildfire, and that’s people just started calling in. They were referencing to us. It also didn’t help that we had T shirts made that said the girls on the back. So

Brianne Bonnet 12:42
when we’re when we’re at events, or when the chamber hosts events too, we try to wear magic. It’s only us two in the office. I don’t know if that was ever mentioned, so it’s, it’s only us too. So whenever we have events and people have questions, we’re like, Ooh, you need to find us. We try to wear matching shirts to color coordinate colors.

Michaela Horn 13:02
Yes, like people can find us when we’re at an event, you know, whether it’s something sparkly or something a little out of the ordinary. So we’re easy to spot and find and get questions answered. Yeah,

Brianne Bonnet 13:14
we’ve been going out in the community and doing videos a lot too. And of course, you can’t go anywhere by yourself, so we just have to go together, yeah? Because I have to help hold the phone to record her usually. That’s why we’re just the package deal. And it became the girls too. So yeah, and

Brandon Burton 13:31
then you got to be careful about who you might hire in the future, right, to be able to keep that, that brand, going,

Speaker 2 13:37
yeah,

Michaela Horn 13:40
no. I mean, we’re, I mean, we’re open to change too, but, and we always say, you know, we’re one and a half people, so we are, I’m full time, and she is part time. So we try to accomplish and be as many places as we possibly can being one and a half,

Brandon Burton 13:52
yeah, and that’s, that’s a unique challenge of chambers is being overworked and understaffed and getting creative and figuring out how to do it. So I believe one of the other titles you had mentioned, sweet and spicy, is that right? Did I get that right? So who plays which role? What does that look like?

Michaela Horn 14:11
So I’m nice. No, she’s nice too. It’s just, you know, it depends on what kind of answer you’re gonna get. Sometimes you’re gonna get people.

Brandon Burton 14:22
Going to get people like, spicy, you know, yeah,

Michaela Horn 14:25
direct. There are some people in town that are just very direct. And, you know, they like to poke fun with her, and they have that banter going on. And, you know, it’s nice to send her all, you know, they kind of want the spicy one go have a cup of coffee, see what’s up with their business. And you know, if, if someone is very colorful and needs to calm down, well, then you, you send in the sweet one, and I go and butter them up. And, you know, get them talking about, hey, what’s going on next week? And you know, how can we help promote this? And kind of, we like to level people out. So it just depends. Depends on what what they need. So

Brandon Burton 15:02
I feel like some people get into chamber work. They feel like it needs to be buttoned up and professional, because you’re talking business, you’re you’re dealing with businesses and whether or not they succeed, or looking at the hard challenges that they’re facing. And maybe some people are a little hesitant to lean into their personality or their background, depending on whatever it was, what, what gives you that the comfort to be able to own, you know, your personality, because there’s, I feel like there’s a lot of benefit in leaning into that personality, to leaning into what makes you authentically you as you present yourself to business, you know, to the business community. I guess what? I guess the question is, what gives you the confidence to do that and and to not fear, I don’t know backlash or judgment that may come from it.

Michaela Horn 15:56
Well, for me, coming into this role, you know, I think we both work jobs where we were just, you know, expect to be very professional. You know, we worn the more Blazers had to dress a certain way. So we’ve had roles like that. It is nice to have this role where we can kind of express ourselves freely a little bit more, but also that’s just how I feel. Belle food is, you know, like we are a very ag community, and so it doesn’t look very traditional. How do I say this? Because if you go 15 minutes one direction, or a half hour, next direction, when you go to their mixers, they are where, you know, blazers and it is very bright lights and professional. I feel like it turns off or scares some of the businesses that we work with, and so we really do try to be relatable, and everybody is welcome, because we’ve been there Right. Like, you don’t have to get off of work and put on a blazer in order to come to our mixers. You don’t have to. You can come with, you know, cattle dirt and get off, you know, from the ranch, and come hang out with us. Check in with your business neighbors, make those connections, and everybody is welcome. Bell food has been great for letting us just kind of redirect and be relatable. We haven’t really got any backlash. So, I mean, we still do it in a professional manner. We’re just not as buttoned up as a lot of places, because I feel like that’s what our community was eager for and they had a positive response to it,

Brianne Bonnet 17:26
right? No, it’s just, it’s the community culture too. And they just, they, they have seen us enough around town through just our like social media and all that kind of stuff too, that we’re just real people. We we make mistakes too, and so I think that kind of

Michaela Horn 17:49
lets us in or decreases their fear of us, or anything of that matter too. We’re in it with them, yeah, you know. And a lot of people, especially with our social media, they’re afraid to get on Facebook to promote their business. Well, it has to be perfect, okay. Well, now we’re on Facebook, and we do silly stuff all the time, and it doesn’t have to be perfect, and it’s getting a response. We’re modeling that it is okay to be relatable and to be real. But also, we’ve had some members join since we’ve started. And just say, you know, I never, I always felt out of place. I never felt welcome because of the type of business that I’m in. And I’m like, Okay, well, I’ve, you know, we’ve worked in bars. We’ve worked, you know, the Sturgis rally, we’ve been, you know, growers. I’ve, I’ve had janitor gigs like it, whatever the job is. We’ve been there. We’re in it with you. And a lot of the businesses see that we are showing up with them. I mean, it’s not unheard of. I mean, Valentine’s Day, one of our flower shops in town, you know, she called us. She was struggling. We showed up with ribbon, and we started tying ribbon on flowers for her to get them out the door. We’ve had businesses. Hey, we really need help with this. We’re overloaded, so we’ve shut down the office for two hours and went and volunteered. And we’re really there for them, to help them and promote them.

Brandon Burton 19:02
Yeah, I love that response. It reminds me this last week, Simon Texas and I was at the Texas chamber conference earlier this week, and it just so happens that the city it was held in this year was it’s called Denton so Denton, Texas, and as with the welcoming, you know, message was was being presented to welcome all the attendees there. The point was made that, you know, here in Denton, you’re welcome, just however you are like so even those in attendance, some are there wearing suits and blazers. Some are wearing jeans and T shirts. Some are wearing shorts. I mean, it really just you get the whole spectrum, not only in what you wear, but just how you present yourself, too, because that community thrives on welcoming everybody, no matter where you are professionally. What your business type is, how you show up, looking at work, you know your appearance, it really is open for everyone. So I love the comment that you made, Michaela, about especially with the social media aspect, when your members feel like it needs to be perfect before you put something out there, I would argue the perfect stuff, nobody cares about whatever’s perfect that goes out on social media. Nobody wants to look at that. It you’re not getting surprised by anything. You’re not It’s not exciting any of the dopamine receptors right when everything is exactly as you expect. So being able to set that example and and help your members recognize that too and lean into that, I think, is a huge strength that you guys have in helping to model that. Are there other examples that come to mind how leaning into your personalities has helped to benefit you at the Chamber,

Brianne Bonnet 20:56
just our personalities and just our overall backgrounds, like she had mentioned, we work different jobs, but I think a real focus is that we’ve worked at all age spectrums. We worked from tiny kids to very old adults. So we’re just very community aware, and so then when people need things or have questions, that’s, that’s what gives us the knowledge, and we don’t use that knowledge in a like, we know it all kind of way, or anything of that, of like, yes, we understand. We see that we’ve been there, we know, and this is what we’ve learned to help, or that you can use, or other places other we really like to connect members other, from members to members. So like, when this a nonprofit business, was doing their annual banquet, and they’re like, Do you know where we can get baskets, you know, wicker baskets for auction items. And we’re like, yes, we have some. And then also, you know, the Senior Center, the thrift store, they just had a huge donation go over there and other places, and just connecting everybody to each other. And,

Michaela Horn 22:23
yeah, where are the resources? And, you know, they said, You made a fun point, because when we were working with kids, we used to say to families all the time, oh, you know, it takes a village to raise a family. Well, it takes a village to make the town run. There are, you know, the common saying, there’s 20% of people doing 80% of the work. And I’ll be darned if that’s not true, but connecting them with those people, like, hey, we have everything in town, and we can make this happen. You need black linens, okay, well, Belle silver lining has black linens. You need this? Well, grossenberg has this. Or, you know, we’re, we’re connecting our members and putting it all together to make really cool stuff happen in Bell food. And one of the cool things is, I just traveled through Wisconsin, and I was looking up one of the visitor guides, I think I was near Appleton, and I was going through their visitor guide, and I was like, ah, they have music on Main Street. I was like, Bill fuchsia is doing that. Oh, they have this festival. I was like, Belle food is doing that. And I looked up the population, and I think it was close to 70,000 and I was like, you know, we’re a small town, but there are some amazing things, and people who are doing really good work in Bell food, and so makes it easy for us to just shine a light on it and connect it. Be like, this guy’s already doing really cool stuff. You need to go over here. Or, you know, she’s started this organization, this nonprofit, and here’s the work she’s doing, you know, if you want to volunteer, or here’s how she can help your business. And so people are already doing the work. We’re just helping connect the dots.

Brandon Burton 23:42
Yeah. So I think we need to make a t shirt summarizing a quote you just said, that it takes a village to run a village. That’s

Brandon Burton 23:57
I’m summarizing that as a village to run a village. And you guys are the connectors that make that make all the pieces work. So I love that. I mean that should be a chamber slogan everywhere takes a village to run a village. So I love it. But I always like asking for listeners who are interested in taking their chamber to the next level. What kind of tip or action item might you suggest for those chambers listening as they try to accomplish that goal?

Michaela Horn 24:30
Well, let me see, I wrote down a response because we really thought about it. You know, I just think taking time to build relationships like I said, we’re spending time going out into the trenches with our businesses, being there for sport, um, I know a lot of people are like, you, we don’t have time, right? Everybody has the same amount of time, and it’s how you spend it, but we don’t have time. We don’t have time to go do this. We don’t have time to shut down our office. We don’t, okay, well, we’re, we’re choosing. Prioritize and shut down our office to be there for support when we’re needed, and in return, we’ve gotten more members from it because they notice what we’re doing. And one of my favorite quotes was actually told to me when I was 14 years old by Scott Lang, and he said, the more you give, the more you get, the more you get, the more you have to give. And that really, I mean, I think we use that all the time, so we are giving out into the community, and in return, the community is responding, and they want to be on board. And so our membership is growing, and we’re very appreciative, but that just means that we have to buckle up and do more. So

Brandon Burton 25:35
yeah, I like that. I love that response as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, granted chambers all different sizes, and they’re all over. But how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Michaela Horn 25:56
It’s very different. Every chamber is different. Um, do you have to be adaptable and flexible. And I’ve listened to, I’ve been listening to your podcast so and, you know, there’s been some really good responses. The gentleman you had from Traverse City, Michigan, was really good, and his response, and, you know, I think you just need to be adaptable. We do a really cool thing out here. We just started with all the northern Hills chambers, all the directors get together for lunch. And so geographically, we’re not we’re not very spread out. We’re still the northern hills. There’s six of us, whether it’s spear fish, Lee Deadwood, Sturgis, spear fish is, I don’t know, 15 miles, 20 miles, away from us. And we are totally different. What we’re focused on is different. How we serve our communities is different, and you have to be adaptable to what your community needs. You know, some spend a lot of time in legislation and lobbying, and others are very heavily involved with Economic Development and Tourism, and it’s you have to serve your community based on what your community needs. So I think, just be adaptable. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 27:02
I love that idea, though, getting together and doing the lunches with the other regional say, like a regional coalition of chambers. And even though the communities look different, there’s strength and support you’re able to get from each other. There’s ideas you’re able to get from each other. And even though your communities may look and feel different, there’s still a lot of similarities, if for nothing else, that geography of where you are like that’s that would be one commonality that would, you know, kind of overlap all the chambers in a certain region. So when issues of advocacy come up, or, you know, things that need to be talked about. You know, legislatively, you can get a consensus of your membership and take it to that regional coalition and be able to have more power in numbers. So I love that you guys are doing that. And great.

Michaela Horn 28:01
I mean, I’m very thankful that they are willing to do that, because it’s helped with cross promoting each other. I mean, we’re close enough, but far enough away that it’s very easy to cross promote, but it’s nice to have that support system. I mean, even our last meeting that we had this month of another chamber was starting a foundation. Okay, well, can we look at the bylaws of your guys’ foundations? Like, what did you have to do to get this off the ground, and just having somebody who’s been through it, you know, to help you, and that’s nice to have locally, yeah,

Brandon Burton 28:29
absolutely. And the topic of foundations is kind of a buzz right now amongst chambers. And I think there’s a lot of chambers out there that are like, Well, yeah, how do you get started, right? Like the idea? Yes, that’s great. How, where do you even start? Right? That’s not really a Google search that you’re going to find a lot of results for and and even AI might get too deep in the weeds, yeah, to learn from others is really the key. So, great example. Well, before I let you go, I wanted to give you both an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect and learn more about your approach and how you guys are doing things. Where would you point listeners and what would be the best way for them to connect with you?

Michaela Horn 29:17
Okay, well, you can follow us on BelleFourcheChamber.org, and Fourche is F, o, u, R, C, H, E. And I think the easiest, most entertaining way to follow us is through our Facebook page or YouTube channel, which is just the Belle Fourche Chamber. We are, we are uploading all day, every day. There’s a lot going on in Belle Fourche. So we try to keep up, but they can also give us a call. I mean, our number is 605-892-2676, and if they have any questions, or I don’t know, want to come up with ideas, we are consistently the gears are turning. I mean, brainstorm, brainstorm. We have so many ideas that we have written down that we just don’t have enough time to get to. And we love. Collaborating with people, but also love just, oh, have you thought about this, this and this and this, and then connecting them with the resources so they can go out and do it

Brandon Burton 30:07
right? I love that we’ll, we’ll link in our show notes to your website and Facebook and YouTube and everything, so people can can look and follow and reach out and connect. But I appreciate you both spending time with us today here on chamber chat podcast, sharing your your personalities, your experience, and leaning in to your unique backgrounds, I appreciate

Michaela Horn 30:31
it. Thank you.

Brandon Burton 30:33
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2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Greater Memphis Chamber with Ted Townsend

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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 Ted Townsend. Ted is the President and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber, a position he’s held since 2022 he has a wealth of experience and leadership roles across private, public and non profit sectors. Prior to his current role, Ted served as the Chamber’s Chief Economic Development Officer, leading the chamber to its best year for economic development in 2021 he also served as the first ever Chief Economic Development and Government Relations Officer at the University of Memphis and as Deputy Commissioner and COO for the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. Ted co founded and served as COO of our Genesis pharmaceuticals before his transition to the chamber. But Ted, I wanted to welcome you to Chamber Chat Podcast and give you a big congratulations to you and your team for being selected as a Chamber of the Year Finalist. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening, and if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can know you better.

Ted Townsend 2:17
Yeah, happy to and thank you for the invitation to be on the podcast. The Chamber community is one that’s close knit and very strong, and while there is an underlying competitive nature to the economic development aspect of chamber work, we are a community, and we all partner together and root each other on so I’m grateful to have an opportunity to provide some of what is going on in the greater Memphis area. I think for me, number one, I’m a recovering member of the the secret order of the cheering Elvi. And being in Memphis, you know, we’re home to Elvis Presley, and so I was a member of that group, and we would go to, like, the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital marathon and cheer on the runners. And yes, we were in our white polyester jumpsuits and our Elvis classes. I eventually had to retire from that because, you know, polyester is pretty hot and and so that’s something interesting, but I think it speaks to the spirit of Memphis and how we always cheer each other on. And the same spirit is brought to the chamber community, where I often have a chance to meet with peers and other members that are in chamber organizations. And we always love the collegial spirit that that is there. So, so that is something interesting. In terms of my background, I thought very carefully about that my team was telling me, you know, you may not want to talk about the cheering Elvi, but I think it’s fine.

Brandon Burton 3:53
Yeah, that’s great. I love getting those little tidbits. And yeah, and I will say that that’s, you know, a big reason why this podcast even exists is sharing that information and to really kind of be that incubator for that R and D research that’s happening, that ripping off and duplicating research. So, yeah, well, tell us a little bit about the Greater Memphis chamber to kind of give us a perspective of the size, the scope of work you guys are involved with. Obviously, there’s economic development staff budget, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion.

Ted Townsend 4:27
Yeah. So our chamber is a Regional Chamber, given the geography of Memphis, we are right in the southwest corner of the state of Tennessee, but I look across the Mississippi River, literally from this office, and I can see Arkansas, and we’re just north of the state line with Mississippi, so we serve our metropolitan statistical area, which is nine counties and three states. So we have to work regionally and and we help champion all of our chamber partners. Within that footprint our organization, we’re actually one of the oldest chambers in the United States of America, still operating. We’re 187 years old now, formed in 1838 and we were actually one of the charter members that formed the US Chamber of Commerce. So a lot of people don’t realize how old our organization is, and a constant that it has been in driving the business agenda forward for Memphis and now the region, we have a team of 55 professional Chamber members who are dedicated and spirited and driving our economy and workforce and community development. It really spans the breadth of, you know, the Chamber disciplines, both traditional and those that are innovative, from entrepreneurship and government advocacy, you name it, we do it. You know, we focus on really supporting the businesses that are here and creating those conditions that are necessary for growth. But we don’t lose sight on the fact that we serve the broader citizenry of this region. Yes, the businesses, but those businesses only exist when they employ the great people of our area. So we want to make sure that we have everyone equipped with the skills that are necessary to participate and a very great, growing and vibrant economy. Now, we have a budget of about 14 and a half million per year. We are 100% privately funded from the business community. We have multiple levels of membership, and our highest level is what we call the chairman circle, which was formed about 12 years ago now and and that now encompasses 225 of the top business businesses and business leaders in our community. So we’re proud of the fact that we’re 100% funded by the the private sector, because that gives us freedom to operate and and fidelity to make sure that we are ensuring that the business agenda is is a priority. So we interface, obviously, at the local, state, federal levels, with all of our partners and and, you know, we we entrust the responsibility of being a go to to this team, and they take that role very seriously. We have a lot of fun in the work that we do, but we also understand that that the importance of this organization, given how long it’s been around, is a driving force to really challenging any status quo and making sure that we are always oriented to a a forward leaning, uh, posture of progress and prosperity. Yeah, that

Brandon Burton 7:56
having that freedom, you know, being funded by by members. And, you know, private capital is very freeing, like you said, especially when it comes to advocacy and to not absolutely think too carefully responses or approaches. So that’s right, that’s great. Well, that definitely helps to set the stage for our discussion today, and great on these chamber of the year finalist episodes. I like to spend the majority of our time really diving into the details of the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. So as soon as we get back from a quick break, we’ll dive into those details and learn about those

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Brandon Burton 11:23
all right, Ted, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’ll dive into the two programs that were submitted on your application. I don’t know if you have a preference on which program you want to address first, if it makes any difference on the order, but I’ll let you choose which one you’d like to highlight first? Yeah, so I think

Ted Townsend 11:43
we’ll go in order of what we put in the application. And it happens also be alphabetic too, so it’s kind of nice, but America’s river crossing was the first program that we submitted for consideration to earn chamber of the year. And why we focused on that, because it really did speak to several elements of Horizon, 2035 and our strategic plan of prosper Memphis. 2030 it represented the Chamber’s efforts, really, over the last two decades, to focus on Memphis as America’s distribution center. Obviously, we are seen as a global logistics leader, home to FedEx Corporation headquarters and the largest hub in their network globally. But we also have a high concentration of all of the modalities of transportation. We call them the four Rs, with our Mississippi River, of course, our rail, we have the third highest concentration of rail in the country, and with all five class one railroads with major operations here the third R is the roadways. We have the third busiest trucking corridor in the United States of America, with interstates, 5540 69 and the future 22 really connecting coast to coast and north to south, with Memphis, pretty much in the epicenter of that. And then the last R is our runway. Obviously, I mentioned FedEx and the global hub that they have there, but the connectivity of that really brings in proximity the global market to Memphis within either, you know, 7072 hours or 96% of the world’s market can get into Memphis in just a few days time. So we’re really proud of that legacy, and our infrastructure is a critical component of that. A few years ago, when the interstate 40 bridge had a crack in it, it really shut down all commerce, both in the both along the the roadway itself, but also river barge traffic had to cease for a while, and it was down about six weeks, so the redundancy of our river crossings became of Paramount priority. However, the Chamber has a transportation committee, and we have for 20 years been advocating for additional crossings of the Mississippi River and the replacement of bridges. So we supported the state of Tennessee’s effort to pass legislation called the transportation Modernization Act, which then yielded a an allocation of state funds, $3 billion and out of all of the the needs of infrastructure across the state of Tennessee, and we’ve got 95 counties that all have amazing infrastructure needs, but the state prioritized the the Americas river crossing, as we coined it, and we were honored to to play that role as a chamber and helping the state pass this legislation and. And the enabling funding that we go into major projects along those same lines, the federal government had a bridge replacement program as part of the the infrastructure package of legislation that was passed, which was bipartisan and and with that program we applied with in partnership with the state of Tennessee and the state of Arkansas for the replacement of our interstate 55 bridge. So we did national advocacy in Washington, DC, in partnership with the state. They requested us to do that the first application, we did not play a role in in writing any of the narrative, and it did not score very well. So the state turned back to us and our long history of advocating for this, and asked us to help bolster the the application. So we built narrative. We had our Greater Memphis economic research group that’s embedded inside the Greater Memphis chamber provide some additional data and analysis, and we resubmitted that application, and we were thrilled to be awarded the largest infrastructure grant in the state of Tennessee’s history, $400 million from the Department of Transportation via the Federal Highway Administration, and that is matched with 250 million from the state of Tennessee and 250 million from the state of Arkansas. So it’s a nearly billion dollar bridge replacement, which will really be a signature bridge across the Mississippi River and redefine our skyline downtown in Memphis, so it represents every element of public policy and convening and driving and prioritizing and yet also providing the data and The support and and really humanizing the narrative of why this is important and why Memphis should be granted this, this major award, and for it to be the largest in the state’s history, is not lost on us. This is a 70 year old bridge, not seismically retrofitted. It is a challenge to get across that thing. Now, given the fact that we are the third busiest trucking corridor, so this allows for greater safety, it allows for greater capacity, and it solidifies our position as America’s distribution center, moving forward into the decades ahead of us, I

Brandon Burton 17:34
can see the huge need for it. With you guys being central hub and all the yes incomings and outgoings. It makes total sense. So you said this is a this is part of the stretch of I 55 is that correct?

Ted Townsend 17:47
Yes, it is interstate 55 which connects Chicago with New Orleans, pretty much Memphis being equidistant to each Yeah.

Brandon Burton 17:54
So as I’m thinking about the bridge, when do you know when the original bridge was built. And I guess I’m asking the question, because I’m sure there’s technology advancements. You mentioned, the seismic retrofitting and stuff like that. But what, absolutely, you know technology? Yes, are there?

Ted Townsend 18:12
Yeah, well, it was over 70 years ago, so the lanes are much more narrow than what we typically would see in a new interstate or bridge build present day. So this new bridge will have added capacity, added lanes, and present a much safer environment for for for motorists and and trucks that are crossing. But also, you know, it adds to that, that volume and capacity, as well, the state just completed an interchange on the Tennessee side of the bridge. So coupled with that, it’s, it’s going to allow for much more traffic and logistics to flow through here. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 18:57
that’s, that’s amazing. I know, you know, Dunkin Donuts, as they’re saying, of America runs on Dunkin but you guys probably say America runs through Memphis, right?

Ted Townsend 19:08
We actually can say that. Yeah, we have the highest concentration of logistics companies in the country here in Memphis because of those modalities of transportation. And yes, it doesn’t hurt that FedEx, who employs 500,000 people around the globe, is headquartered here. They have over 30,000 employees here in Memphis, and they’ve been operating for the last five decades here as their base of operations and their headquarters. So yeah, we feel that is true, and that really became very evident during the pandemic when we saw the global supply chain challenges that were well documented. Memphis was actually a solution point for the movement and the continuance of movement of goods around the. Country and FedEx certainly played a pivotal role in the distribution of the vaccines. So we, you know, we like to imagine, you know, Memphis is placing, and, you know, being responsible for the world’s recovery from, you know, an unprecedented global pandemic.

Brandon Burton 20:17
Yeah, well, as far as it comes to chambers making a big impact in their communities and their region. This is, you know, one, obviously putting you on the national stage. So, yes, great, great work with that one. And great. What’s the timeline for when the bridge, when they start working on it, or complete? Yeah, we

Ted Townsend 20:35
we anticipate the beginning of construction in 2026 and the completion of the bridge in 2030 again, that’s a fluid timeline, you know, given materials and construction, but they’re going to be building it right beside the current bridge. And when that is completely finished, they will bring down the the original and and we’re off and running. But you know, it’s, it’s a cable suspension bridge. It’s going to be absolutely beautiful. There are renderings that I’ve seen, and assuming there are no changes in that, it’s going to be a stunning piece to our skyline. So we’re excited for that, and the fact that we get to see it in our lifetime, four years from now is really not that far for a major, billion dollar bridge to be built across a mighty Mississippi River. Yeah, it’s

Brandon Burton 21:28
great to get the background story too. So as any of us listening, you know, drive across the bridge, you know, in 2030 onward, we’ll answer the story of how that bridge came to be exactly the role your chamber had in that well, let’s, let’s shift gears to the second program that was submitted on your application. If you’d like to introduce that one to us.

Ted Townsend 21:49
Yeah, happy to do so, the digital delta. And you know, I love to talk about this program, because it is one of those things where a chamber can put together all of those strategic plans and hope for the outcomes, and you hope that you’re around to see those outcomes. But in our case, the digital delta is a component of prosper Memphis 2030 and we’re already seeing the manifest yield of these strategies that we’ve been working on for the last five years. So the digital Delta, I will say this much if I were to say Silicon Valley, pretty much in any audience. You know, geographically, where I’m talking about and what I’m talking about, and so coming out of the the 2008 recession, going into even 2018 2019 Memphis really took 10 years to recover from that and and we were looking at ways to catalyze exponential economic growth. So we were actually one of three cities selected by the Brookings Institution to go through their inclusive economic indicators lab, along with Indianapolis and Orlando. That took about 18 months, but what we came out of that was with basically a database and dashboard of economic indicators that measure the strength or the lack thereof, of the Memphis economy. We took that and we compared ourselves with nine other peer cities that were similar in population and and business diversity. And so you have a cohort of 10. And as you can imagine, Memphis didn’t fare very well. We were pretty much in the bottom quartile of those cities that we were measuring ourselves against. And there was one economic indicator where we were actually number one, and that was the percentage of Information Technology positions held by African Americans. Hey, mind you, Memphis has the largest African American population in the United States of America. That had been Detroit. We have overtaken Detroit and remain with the highest population. And that is a source of pride. We see diversity as as our superpower, and seeing that indicator was not necessarily a surprise to us as measured against our peer cities, but at the same time that we were coming into this analysis and measurement, the McKinsey report came out along with a Wall Street Journal article that told basically tech companies that if you want to diversify your workforces, you need to move to where that talent is, and predominantly that talent is located in the southeast section of the United States. But the job growth was really coastal, so we. Took that, that methodology, if you will, or that clarion call of action, and started marketing the fact that we have this high concentration of black tech talent to tech companies. I went to Microsoft and toured their headquarters and and they said, you know, Ted, this is amazing. We wish we had known this two years ago, before we committed to building in Atlanta, and I was able to show them that actually, you know, Atlanta is number two to Memphis. So that was a false victory. But nonetheless, we realized we had a lot of great momentum and justification for major tech operations to invest in our region. I met with Mr. Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, who just sadly, recently passed away, and I showed him these data. And you know, he he held up the page that showed the chart with Memphis leading in black tech talent over 53 other major markets in the US, I mean, every big city. And he said, You know, there’s not much that surprises me at this point in my career. He said that this is shocking, and I know that FedEx has played a role in this, because the world is still catching up to the fact that FedEx is a technology company that happens to move packages around the planet, and that was a moment that galvanized our approach. And in fact, he and his son, Richard Smith, who is is a an executive with FedEx, coined the phrase digital delta, so we trademarked it, and we began using that as a marketing platform with the basis of data to say you could move a location here, Google, Microsoft, you name it. Fast forward to last year, and we had the opportunity of marketing Memphis to x ai, the startup AI, company of Elon Musk, and we were able to win that project and and beat out 50 other markets that they had been considering because of the fact that we could move at the the speed they wanted. We had the power that they needed, and we had the people and and so that now represents the largest investment in the state of Tennessee’s history. So you can see, we love to live in the superlatives, largest Infrastructure Grant, largest private sector investment in the state’s history. And now Memphis suddenly is thrust into the lexicon of great global tech hubs, because we are home to the world’s largest and most powerful supercomputer, which is x ai that powers grok their interface. So so now we have shifted our focus to the supply chain of AI Artificial Intelligence, both upstream and downstream. What does it take to create AI, it creates tangible things. I mean, you have to have servers, you have to have graphics processing units or chips. You have to have cooling systems and and all of these, these things that that energy that go into the creation of artificial intelligence. So and given the fact that Memphis is such a great logistics hub, it makes sense to now have Memphis focus on becoming a high tech manufacturing hub where you have proximity of these AI products that go into the end users. So we not only announced x ai last year, they’ve they’ve doubled down. They invested $12 billion dollars, and their first phase, they have committed to expanding their footprint from 200,000 GPUs or Nvidia chips, to now a million Nvidia chips. So the supercomputer is just getting more powerful right here in Memphis. So when you think about the computational power that it will take to put humans on the surface of Mars that will be originated from Memphis, Tennessee, and it still gives me goosebumps, and it’s that validation of what is the digital Delta. When you launch something like that, you you know, obviously get a lot of questions, and it’s new, and it’s a moniker that many people weren’t familiar with. They would ask questions, well, does that mean electric vehicles or robotics or AI? And the answer is yes, all of it, tech is ubiquitous now with business. And yes, we’re home to Ford Motor Company’s largest electric vehicle assembly plant and and so yes, we have the, you know, FedEx is largest hub, which has a tremendous amount of automation and robotics. And yes, we’re home to the world’s largest supercomputer. So now you have this concentration of investment that that reflects what the digital delta is. And we’ve even got the governor. Of the state of Mississippi using digital Delta in a Politico

Ted Townsend 30:05
interview that he just had. And, and, and they, they’ve had major announcements that reflect how they are growing in the AI space and in Arkansas right across the river. And I point this way because I’m looking literally out my window at Arkansas across the river, they announced Google is coming in to West Memphis, Arkansas, and that’s a $10 billion investment in a large data center campus. So suddenly, there’s validation of the PROSPER Memphis 2030, vision that was embodied in the digital Delta marketing effort. And we’re going to continue to add to the constellation of these great tech companies like Nvidia and Dell and super micro, who have all committed to coming to Memphis and having significant operations. And that x ai investment garnered us deal of the year last year from business facilities magazine, and we were the only chamber to be recognized. Mostly it was state led organizations and the great projects that they were able to announce in the platinum, gold, silver level, we won the bronze, but it was a Greater Memphis chamber that was recognized. And coming from my background at the state, when we won the state of the year and economic development. A lot of the deals of the year that that culminated with that, I wanted to bring that to my hometown, and I’m incredibly proud of this team and the effort that they put forward to not only get America’s river crossing funded and and soon to be built, but then the digital Delta really taking taking hold and and becoming our our identity. It’s a transformational moment, and it’s not something that we hope will take hold decades from now. It’s it’s already been realized, and that’s incredibly rewarding. Brandon, yeah, that is

Brandon Burton 31:59
great. What a a great accomplishment with the win of x ai, but also the continued inflows. That’s right, you know, the thought hit me that there’s, there’s enough people out there that think AI is going to take all of our jobs. But curious with x ai about how many jobs are being created in the Memphis area with this

Ted Townsend 32:21
facility, that’s a great question, because that was what we got as well. Well, this is just another data center. No, actually, it’s not data centers store data, but this is a computational learning cluster. So they have about 300 full time employees right now. 82% of those are Memphians, and they pay at Palo Alto rates, so everyone in that facility is making six figures now, and they don’t require four year degrees necessarily. So we have seen that as a tremendous opportunity where we can specialize accelerated skills training, provide people with certifications and credentials that can go to work in the world’s largest supercomputer and earn these incredible wages that are family sustaining, and that’s what that’s what chambers do. That’s the essence of of why we were created, and the work that we do. And and it’s so incredibly rewarding to be able to see that Memphians are feeling the impact of this. And, yes, this is a an attractor for in migration of talent here. And given the fact that they’re going to be exponentially growing the supercomputer, you know, we anticipate even more jobs. I mean, this is, you know, they, they’ve suddenly become our second largest taxpayer in Memphis, only behind FedEx, who has been operating again for five decades, right? So that that is really what is driving our economy. And just last year, our GDP eclipsed 100 billion for the first time in our history. And that does not even include X AI’s investment. So when we have done the projections, right when we’ve done the projections, what we see is that we’re going to have the one of the highest growing economies in the nation’s history in a two year period, really placing us only second behind Austin Texas, and we know what, What a juggernaut Austin Texas is for for economic growth. So we’re so excited about what the future represents. And the digital Delta now becomes one of those calling cards for our region and and it’s it’s justified, and we have proven the efficacy of what Mr. Smith envisioned for the Memphis region and and it’s, it’s bittersweet, but it’s a tremendous legacy. And he has so many legacies. But you know, knowing that the Chamber did got to partner with him on the rollout of digital delta is an incredible honor. And. And one that we’re going to continue to honor him and his contributions to our economy.

Brandon Burton 35:04
Yeah, I love that. Tie in with with the Smiths. And isn’t it amazing? Yeah, it’s

Ted Townsend 35:09
providence. I think, you know, I love to think of it that way. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 35:14
I love it. Well, obviously, two huge, impactful programs that you guys are driving there, the greater Memphis chamber. As we begin to wrap up, I wanted to ask for those listening who want to take their chamber up to the next level. What kind of tip or action item would you suggest in their efforts to do that?

Ted Townsend 35:35
Yeah, for me, you know, I don’t want to over simplify this, because the work that we do is highly complex and it’s multifaceted, but I think the underlying current is you have to listen to the business community. You have to understand with multiple touch points and an intentional engagement, what is paramount to them? What does the business community expect and need? And in times of both distress and in times of major accomplishments, because each represent new challenges and opportunities for growth. And so I take pride in the fact that we are open and we are asking for engagement and opportunities to learn what the business community needs. I would say, get out there. You know, get get active and be present and be an active listener. And most importantly, you have to act on it, and you have to show that the feedback that they are giving you is not ending up in a loop of noise, but is being thoughtfully and appropriately enacted and and that’s what has really spelled success for us. When you think about just America’s river crossing, we would not have been in a position to help win that if we had not been listening and advocating for 20 years. Yeah, and you have all of this variability in political cycles and administrations change, and that’s at every level, local, state, federal, but the one constant is always a chamber, because they’re the go to. And in our case, we’ve been around for a long time, but I think that’s true for every chamber in the community that they represent. It is, you know, you are equipped to act because you’ve been listening to what they need and and that’s a special thing that it sounds very simple, but I, you know, I engage with as many of our members as I can, and an annual basis, I want to sit with them. I want to hear we have mid mornings with Ted and we have breakfasts with a lot of TED Talks.

Brandon Burton 38:14
I thought a plan on that with this episode. I had to do it. I had to

Ted Townsend 38:17
put it in there. I hope that doesn’t hurt our scoring. But But Ted also listens, and we have a team that listens. And so I would just recommend that have as many interfaces as you possibly can, can schedule and don’t get caught up in the pageantry of events, because those are wonderful. And we celebrate every ribbon cutting, because it represents a business stream realized here in our community. But we have to do even more, and we have to show up and continually offer that support.

Brandon Burton 38:52
Yeah, I love that response, and in fact, it kind of leads into the next question I was going to ask about, and you guys are very future looking, future leaning, I would say, so as you look to the future, how do you see chambers of commerce and their purpose going

Ted Townsend 39:08
forward? Yeah, well, you know, again, I go back to challenging that status quo. When I came in as Chief Economic Development Officer, you know, having the success at the state level. I wanted that here. So we wanted to implement similar structures and strategies to to garner that kind of success. And it’s creating that culture of winning and and creating that culture you wake up every day expecting to win, and that is not in a boastful way. That is just an orientation that that I expected myself and and that has, you know, it’s really, I think, inspired the team here to understand that we can dream as big as we dare, and if we don’t, who will for Memphis. So, so we. Want to always apply innovative approaches. We love to be first in space. We love to live in the superlatives, being the best, the most, the first. And it’s not for our recognition. It is not necessarily to win, you know, the trophies, or, in this case, chamber of the year. We want that badly, but it’s because it’s the work, it’s the body of work, and it’s the impact on our community that ultimately provides that outcome and result that we expect. We expect prosper Memphis, 2030 to to see the goals hit where we will be because of Brookings research, we will be in the top quartile of those cities that we measure ourselves against. And when that happens, prosperity is shared. And if we leave anyone behind in this moment, we have failed. We hate poverty, and Memphis has long suffered from having pockets of just devastating poverty in our communities, and I will not rest, and this team at the Greater Memphis chamber won’t rest until we normalize and equalize economic prosperity for our citizenry so that we don’t have census tracts that have suffered generationally, but now you know, South Memphis is home to x ai, and those neighborhoods are getting investment, direct investment from the tax revenues that are coming in. The mayor is passing an ordinance to directionally put 25% of the net new revenues into the 38109, zip code, which has been a zip code, has seen this investment and and so many barriers for so many generations, that to me, Brandon is what a chamber is to do and to be about. And we’re gonna we’re gonna find new goals, and we’re gonna crush those as well, because we don’t rest in complacency, because our community deserves so much more.

Brandon Burton 42:08
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, Ted, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and and learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Memphis and do their own R and D. Where would you turn them? Absolutely the best way for them to reach out.

Ted Townsend 42:24
Well, first I will say this because I’ve been the beneficiary of many of my colleagues in in the chamber work who have offered their best practices freely. And we’re an open book. This is not a time nor place to be proprietary. So we want to share everything that we have been through to help others. So the best way, I mean, my email is ttownsend@memphischamber.com you know, I always invite my mobile numbers on my business card. So that’s how open I want to be with, with our our peers and partners and community. Our website is Memphis chamber.com and we have a marketing website called MemphisMoves.com of course, we’re on all of the the platforms with social media, but MemphisChamber.com MemphisMoves.com, and then certainly my email are the best ways for us to get connected. And if there’s any research or examples of the industry reports that we put out there, or the economic impact studies that our Economic Research Group has done, most of those are on our website. And if anyone needs any assistance in that, we’re more than happy to to partner with them.

Brandon Burton 43:45
Yeah, that’s fantastic. We will get your contact information the websites or show notes to make it easy for people to find you and reach out and connect. But Ted, this has been great having you on the show. Thank you. Guys are making huge impact. It’s been fun to learn about these programs and to put a bigger spotlight on Memphis. So I wish you and your team Best of luck as chamber of the year.

Ted Townsend 44:10
We’re crossing everything that we’ve got. Can’t wait for a few weeks from now, and it’s all announced.

Brandon Burton 44:17
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2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Grand Rapids Chamber with Rick Baker

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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.

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist Series, and our guest for this episode is Rick Baker, representing the Grand Rapids Chamber. Rick is a seasoned Chamber of Commerce professional with a career spanning over three decades, beginning in 1988 as the director of finance and membership at the Rochester Area Chamber in Minnesota. Rick went on to lead chambers in Newton, Iowa and in the Iowa, Illinois Quad Cities home to major corporations like Maytag and John Deere. Since April of 2011 Rick has served as president and CEO of the Grand Rapids chamber. His passion for supporting the business community was shaped by his upbringing in a family of business owners. Rick holds a degree from the upper Iowa University and earned his IOM certification from the University of Colorado, Boulder Rick, we’re excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. And first of all, I want to say congratulations to you and your team is being selected as a 2025 chamber of the year finalist. But I wanted to give you a chance to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Rick Baker 2:24
Oh, well, you know, thank you for having me, and I love that you said seasoned. I think that’s a nice way of seeing the old guy. It’s been a, you know, it’s been an awesome career. Otherwise I wouldn’t still be here, right? And we’re honored to be a finalist for the chamber of the year, and our colleagues from Topeka and Memphis run some amazing chambers of commerce as well. So just being a finalist and with them is quite an honor. So that’s something interesting about myself. You know? What people might not know about me is I’m also a licensed Merchant Marine Captain, and so I can drive some pretty big, pretty big yachts and boats on mostly on Lake Michigan.

Brandon Burton 3:13
Very cool. So little fun fact, I didn’t know this until just recently. You know, we’re in this world right now where tariffs are such a hot topic, and I’d seen in your bio that you were part of the Coast Guard, and I didn’t realize the Coast Guard was initially set up to collect tariffs from imports coming into the United States. So when you say Merchant Marine, that makes even more sense to me. Now I don’t know where I missed that in in my schooling, my education, but I found that interesting. Yeah, yeah. Well, tell us a little bit about the the Grand Rapids chamber, just to set the stage for our conversation today. You know, give us an idea of the size staff, scope of work, things you guys are involved with, budget, just kind of prepare us for our discussion. Yeah.

Rick Baker 4:02
So we are on a growth trajectory as a Chamber of Commerce. We’ve been very intentional about having our eyes set on a 10 year plan, and we’re 2028. Is that we will have reached that 10 year mark when we started our journey. We are currently, this current year, we’re about $6 million in annual revenue. We have 4445 staff people on our team. So we have a great group of people on our team that deliver some high quality programming and high quality interactions with our members. And one of our values is, you know, member experience

Brandon Burton 4:44
Absolutely. So as far as the organization goes, Are you guys strictly chamber? Do you have that it’s the tourism aspect or economic development, or what is the scope of work look

Rick Baker 4:56
like? Yeah, we are strictly chamber. We are. Master organizations, which, like in many cities, we were the chamber, actually started the economic development organization and the tourism bureau, but spun them out into separate organizations. The three of us work very well together. We have very specific lane of work that we do in our communities. I serve on both of those boards for both those organizations, but they are independent and separate organizations. So we are strictly Chamber of Commerce. We’re 137 years old this year, and very true to our original mission of being, you know, relentless advocates for our business community.

Brandon Burton 5:36
Awesome, very cool. Well, that that definitely helps us with the setting the stage, and as I do with these chamber of the year finalist episodes, I like to spend the majority of our discussion time on the two projects that you guys submitted on your chamber of the year application. I think there’s a lot to be learned from those projects, as you’re obviously making an impact in your community to be noticed on a national stage. So we’ll dive in much deeper on those two programs as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Brandon Burton 9:49
All right, Rick, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break today, we’re diving in on the two programs that you guys submitted on your chamber of the year application. I don’t know if. You have a preference on which one we cover first, but I’ll, I’ll let you decide with which which program you want to dive into.

Rick Baker 10:06
Sure. Let’s talk a little bit about the first one is our office space itself, which sounds maybe a little bit funny. We started a journey back in 2018 that kind of referenced in my earlier marks on a 10 year journey of reinventing ourselves as an organization, and part of that had to do with moving to a new office. Our previous office space was very traditional. It was like where the employees came to work. It wasn’t a great opportunity for our members to engage with us. And so as we thought about our reinvention and rebranding of us as an organization, it felt like a great opportunity for us to rethink how we work, and I asked our design team that we hired, can our office space actually be a benefit of chamber membership versus an overhead cost for our organization. And so what we designed and what we have now is very much of a collaborative work environment. We have a work cafe on the first floor. It’s a coffee shop on the first floor. Our members drop in and work, and they come in between meetings, and it’s pop in, you know, beer from one of our local breweries in the refrigerator for late afternoon if somebody feels like they would like to have a beer. And then on this second floor, we have an a series of meeting rooms, and we had such high utilization that, like, two years ago, then we did an expansion and 5000 square foot expansion, and added additional meeting rooms, and we’ve seen our utilization triple. A lot of businesses. We are literally now the center, the hub of business activity for our business community, which was our goal to have our the leadership teams of our major corporations and our small businesses, mid sized businesses, coming in and using our space for their strategic planning. Nothing fills my bucket more than seeing the leadership team of one of our companies, whether it’s our largest corporation or down to, you know, smaller company, their team in their white boarding like, where are they going? Where’s their future? Is it we’re better placed to do that than at your chamber of commerce?

Brandon Burton 12:28
That’s awesome. Yeah, I’ve not heard of this type of a model with the office space before. Is this something that you’d seen somewhere? Is it just, you know, one of those ideas that come to you when you’re in the shower? Or how did this come to be?

Rick Baker 12:44
I get my best ideas when I’m driving. I call it windshield time, you know, brainstorming. And I think sometimes my staff gets a little nervous when they know I’m going to be in the car for very long, because I always come back with great ideas, right, right? But, you know, I mean, co working space in is not something that’s unusual for a lot of communities, but for a chamber, I think you know, making your office be the the co working space for your community is maybe unusual or unique. And I think you know, teaming up with our architectural design team, and you know them knowing what our our vision was for our space, that it be something that our members could benefit from. You know, they really helped us through a process to identify what could that look like. Now, they also made, made us aware, very much aware. And I think this is probably very typical of a lot of chambers, as they studied us in our old space and watched how our employees worked. You know, everyone had their own office. Everyone had their cubicle that was assigned to them. And, you know, in the in the design language, they were like, this, real estate, you’re tying up real estate, but half of but you’re only there half the time, yeah. And so you’ve got all of this real estate tied up, and your employees are coming and going, and so that allowed us to rethink how we worked as well as we now, no one, including me, has an office that’s assigned to me. There are spaces that I can go and work and be in an office environment, but it’s not assigned to me. I don’t have pictures up, I don’t have things that you know that designate that this belongs to Rick. So it allows us to have more of our space focused on our members and less tied up in real estate that’s being used half the time.

Brandon Burton 14:40
So I’ve heard of chambers doing co working spaces, for sure, but not having their office space be that that canvas right for that co working space. So I think it’s a very unique idea with 45 staff. Was that a hard idea to get across the staff that you. Won’t have your designated real estate within the office as you as you termed it before,

Rick Baker 15:05
yeah, we went through a process. You know, early on, when we first moved in to our space here, with the team that was kind of converting, and our, one of our office supply or office manufacturing companies has a process to help you actually go through that. And for, you know, there’s protocols that you, you know, you create that are kind of basically the unspoken rules of how you operate. You know, when you sit at a spot and then, like, how do you leave it for the next person? So we did a lot of training with our employees. Like, this is what to expect. And no, the conversion was actually fairly easy. There’s, you know, there’s, it took a little while in the very beginning, and I actually think it positioned us very well when, when all of us had to deal with covid and work remotely, we were all used to working with our backpack and being remote anyway, basically. And so it really helped us adapt quickly when it came to covid.

Brandon Burton 16:09
So that that question was on my mind, you know, first of all, it sounds like this is a new space for you. It wasn’t an existing office space. Is that correct?

Rick Baker 16:19
Right? It’s new. We moved down, you know, a couple few blocks from where we were previously, out of our Okay.

Brandon Burton 16:27
So then my next question was, with the new office space, when did you guys make this move, and did you have to deal with covid During that time, and, and I’m sure that had some, you know, maybe complications, but also benefits, as you mentioned, with already being structured with that kind of office structure. But what did you guys see through that experience?

Rick Baker 16:47
Our original move in here was 2018 March of 2018 so we were in here for two, two full years before 2020 came around in Michigan. You know, everything was completely closed down during covid, and so we were not able to come into our space. We were not able to have members in our space at all during 2020, for almost a whole year, then when we had to actually designate because, like I said, we have our work, work campaign, which is a coffee shop. Then we have meeting room space. They’re all designated differently at the state of Michigan during that time. And so we were able to open pieces of it at different times. And so yeah, it was a quite a journey. What we found after covid was the utilization even higher when people started coming back to work, when we did open up, and that that drove our expansion in 2022 Yeah, and a number of companies, because some of those companies were actually shrinking their footprints a little bit, and so leaning on us more for meeting spaces and things like that.

Brandon Burton 18:00
Yeah. And I’m sure things had to be thought through as far as, like sanitizing a workspace before you leave. And, you know, the stuff we don’t want to think about anymore. So yeah, we won’t dwell on that part of it so much. But I like the idea of you guys being so well positioned, you know, ahead of covid to as these changes happen that, you know, other offices kind of scaled down, and people working from home, but maybe at home, they don’t really have a space to work from, so to be able to utilize their chamber membership to come to the chamber office and have space there to be able to work do you see a number of people that come consistently, like every day or multiple times a week, or what’s that? That info like

Rick Baker 18:44
we do, we do have some, what we call frequent flyers. We have folks that are here almost every day, if not every day. And we’ve seen, you know, kind of unintention, not necessarily the intent of our our thoughts originally, but have embraced it. We’ve seen kind of some incubation of some small businesses that that’s then as they finally got their own space, they moved out. We’ve seen that multiple times where, you know, companies that got started, and then they finally get to 345, employees, and they find their own they get their own office space, and move out, and they still come back and use our meeting rooms. But God, we have some companies that are here quite a bit, and we’re actually thinking next, what’s next for us? And we’ve done a we’ve met with our frequent flyers, especially to find out, like, what else could we do to make this even more valuable to you as a chamber member,

Brandon Burton 19:42
yeah. So I love hearing the stories of incubators getting started and spun off. And I know for a lot of these incubators, these brand new businesses, having that physical space and even an address is so important for them getting started. Are they? Able to utilize the address the building, or how is that factored into utilizing the space?

Rick Baker 20:06
So actually, right now, no, they do not use it as their mailing address. That is something we’re thinking about as an add on benefit to probably a cost to some of those that are more frequent flyers, but they can do pretty much everything other than, you know, have access to the space you know, during our office hours, and they don’t have it as their mailing address unless we work out a special when we that’s kind of our next phase,

Brandon Burton 20:37
yeah, so from a tactical standpoint, do people Reserve meeting rooms and spaces? You mentioned they’re classified in different areas. So is that something they go online and book a room? Or how does that work?

Rick Baker 20:53
Yeah, we have, we have a person on our team that manages all of the meeting room space, because we now have like, 15 meeting rooms. And you know, it’s so and most of them are full every day, all day, with different clients. And so it’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of people, lot of energy, lot of activity in this in our office, which I love. And so it takes, you know, we had to have a person on our team that could manage all of that, make sure that they got a good customer experience, and provide them, you know, with the room set up and there’s, like I said, there’s about 15 different meeting rooms, and they’re laid out differently, different sizes, depending on what the need is of our members,

Brandon Burton 21:37
yeah, very cool for a chamber listening who might be interested in doing something similar. Has is there big lessons you guys learned in setting up this kind of an office space that they might want to take note of before venturing into something like this?

Rick Baker 21:56
Um, you know, I think, I think a lot of it depends on the the team in place, and are they willing to give up their actual designated office. It takes, you know, some learning, and you know, willingness to do that. I guess you could have that. It would just cause you would just have to have much more square footage to be able to accommodate both, you have to be willing to have this level of activity in your office. To have there is a lot of activity, and there’s a certain level of now, our team loves it, you know. And most a lot of the people that have been hired in, they like this environment. They know what they’re coming into. So yeah, but there’s a certain level of stress when you have guests, you know, like, if you have guests in your home for a weekend, you know that there’s, like, a it’s you can’t just relax and sit around like you normally would. And so there’s a just a little extra level of activity.

Brandon Burton 23:03
Call it attention. Yeah, you’re more attention.

Rick Baker 23:07
Be willing to work with and have around you. I love the energy our team. Loves the energy the interactions that happen in our with between our members and our staff and between members that are in our space. We hear that all the time. It’s like, oh my god, it’s a great one of our members referred to us as the town square like this is where you go if you want to see people that you’re you’ve been trying

Brandon Burton 23:31
to connect with. That’s awesome. I love that. So you’d mentioned that this is a benefit of membership. Is it a membership tier? Are all members welcome to? How does that structure work?

Rick Baker 23:44
So all members are welcome into our space. And then it’s a different membership levels of access to meeting rooms. And then maybe, you know, at the highest level, not have to pay for the meeting rooms in addition to your membership. So you get x number of utilizations a year based on your membership investment

Brandon Burton 24:03
levels. Yeah, very cool. Well, let’s shift gears to the the other program that you guys submitted on your application, if you’d like to to introduce with that program, is

Rick Baker 24:13
about, yeah. So like many chambers, you know, we are, we’re always working to create a community that’s vibrant and attractive and will attract people and attract business and and we’ve been on a journey here in Grand Rapids for number of years, and we’re so we’re at our next phase. And so it’s what we presented, was a couple of transformational projects. Is how we refer to them, as they’re transformational for our community. In those two projects are 14,000 seat empathy outdoor amphitheater, a entertainment venue, and that is in our downtown, and then a professional soccer stadium, which is also in our downtown. Area again, trying to continue our journey of creating high energy, high traffic, kind of attractions that then support our entertainment businesses, the so you know, hospitality businesses that we have in our downtown area as well as, you know, find, you know, adding additional tools in our toolbox, like, if you might say, for attracting great talent to our region.

Brandon Burton 25:29
Yeah, definitely that that place making aspect of making Grand Rapids a great place to live and entertain and and all of that. So you’d mentioned you guys are working through like this 10 year vision. Was there a capital campaign associated with that to execute on these projects? Or, I imagine the soccer stadium has something to do with the soccer team. Would would help finance with that. But how’s it coming

Rick Baker 25:57
together? Yeah, so our, you know, big piece of what we had to do was part of the capital stack to make these projects a reality. Was what we’ve used previously for some of our other projects as a portion of our hotel motel tax. And we needed to do through multiple steps, and part of that was getting legislation passed at the state level that would allow us to increase the hotel, motel tax that we use. We had to get approval first at this local, city and county boards so that we could go and ask for our legislature to change our ability to increase our tax and once we got through each one of those steps, we had to run a ballot campaign with our local voters to get approval for the increase. And of course, there’s a lot of messaging and a lot of things that you need to do to make sure that they understand it’s like, this is a hotel, motel, tax. It’s an attacks on your property. It’s not, you know, there’s

Brandon Burton 27:06
people your tax and they freak out a little bit. Yeah, people

Rick Baker 27:09
see tax increase and they, you know, there’s a certain reaction that you get immediately. And so there was a lot of work that our team had to do with partners in the community to make sure that the message was very clear, and people understood what the what they were supporting, and what they were helping to invest in for the future of our community. And so we were pleased that we were able to get a yes at each one of those steps along the way. There was a lot of pressure and timing that that was important because you, you know, you design like significantly, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment and costs change quickly, you know, a few years delay and the changes, the costs can change. And so we wanted to keep things moving, and so that the estimates for costs were accurate and we didn’t have any surprises later.

Brandon Burton 28:06
Yeah, when this is part of a 10 year plan and vision like, man, a lot of the costs have changed within that 10 year span. But it’s got to be very satisfying to see this, you know, coming from a dream or vision, a plan, to to something that’s materializing. What’s the timeline look like for completion on the amphitheater in the stadium?

Rick Baker 28:27
Yeah, so the amphitheater is well under construction. It started sooner. That was the first project that we got going on from a construction standpoint, and the first concert will be in May of 2026 Okay, and so, you know, there,

Brandon Burton 28:48
do you know who’s coming with? Not yet, okay, yeah, we might be able to pre sell some tickets here.

Rick Baker 28:56
I would think that it would be quite an honor for any entertainer to be the first entertainer in a new venue. And we have a, you know, our we have a great contract partnership with the organization that runs our arena and our convention center, and they’re now contracted to run the amphitheater and using Live Nation to, you know, work all the deals with the different entertainment groups. So, yeah, I’m sure that’ll be exciting, and it’ll be a hot ticket for sure.

Brandon Burton 29:29
Absolutely sounds very exciting. Yeah,

Rick Baker 29:33
soccer stadium is a little bit they’re just starting construction now. They’re doing groundwork and site work. They just started it recently, and so that’ll be about a two year build out before that’s completed some of the other steps that are coming along with that project. And we haven’t announced the the name of the team yet, you know, or team ownership, any of that kind of stuff. And so we’ve, I think, you know, we’ve been phasing it out, just. Kind of keep the attention and excitement, but we’ll be doing that very soon, because it’s important, because there’s material that needs to be bought and you want it to align with the colors of the team and right like that. And so that stuff will be coming along in the near future.

Brandon Burton 30:16
Yeah, that’s really cool. Well, Rick, as we begin to wrap things up here. I wanted to ask on behalf of you know, chambers listening, who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you suggest for them as they try to work towards that goal

Rick Baker 30:35
while we I think for us, what really has helped us as an organization, and that be at the beginning of this whole journey of re reinventing ourselves, as I mentioned back in 2018 and we also started implementing Eos, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. And there’s other operating systems out there Eos, what I like about it is, it is not hard, you know, it’s very simple. It gives you a set of tools. But what the most important thing it does is it gets the whole team laser focused on the on the goal. You know, everyone is aligned. And, you know, here’s who we are as an organization. Our values are alive. They’re not just something on a piece of paper. They’re on our wall, but they’re not just on the wall. We live them. I hear people on our team stay them, you know, they’ll reference them, you know, regularly. So I know that they’re on the top of mind for them. We use it for hiring and hiring, promotion, recognition, to have everything to make sure that our value is alive and well. But the long game, they understand where we’re going and then, but more importantly, they understand why, and that’s important part of it. You know, we can set a goal for something, but if people don’t understand, aren’t bought into the why that’s our goal, or why are we going this direction, or why do we need our, you know, our revenue, to be this amount, then it’s harder for them to maybe buy into the mission. And I think what we’ve seen as organizations, and I’m sure the other chambers that are listening, we’re able to, we’re able to attract really high quality talent, because especially it seems like the workforce right now wants to be part of a mission that they’re excited about, and so we have an advantage a little bit. We may not always be able to compete in the marketplace for wages against some of our largest employers, but we’ve been able to attract people because they buy into the mission in the in the focus of the organization. And we have a we’re able to do this work because we have an incredible team of people. I just get out of their way, you know? They we get the right people and let them do their work and bring their expertise to the table, and it works out really well for our members and our organization and our community. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 33:10
it’s super important to be clear on that that mission and purpose, and that’s going to drive people in the right direction, for sure. Oh, Rick, I like asking everyone I have on the show about the future. How do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Rick Baker 33:29
Yeah, that’s, yeah, that’s the age old question, right? You know? And I think the ACC has done incredible work with the Horizon Report and updating that again now it’s incredible how accurate the last one was to project out where we are now 10 years later, and so that’s been a great resource. I think our business communities and in our every city around the country need us now more than ever. We should be a business imperative, and that’s our goal here in Grand Rapids, we need to be a business imperative for every business in town with a pace of change the challenges that are coming, the how quickly those challenges are coming, the disruption that we have. Our members need us tremendously to help stabilize the environment that they’re in, and a lot of the growth, the the excitement that happens in this country that we all love is happening at the local level. We’re driving it this. It’s not being top down, driven from, you know, from Washington, DC, it’s bottom up driven now, top can affect it and make our jobs harder, but we can, we can push through it, and we will help navigate. We’re a resilient, you know, people here in the United States, in our cities, and so that’s to me, I think. You know, now more than ever and into the future, we are, if we’re doing the right kind of work for our members, we’ll be a business imperative for them. Yeah. I

Brandon Burton 35:10
love that. I love how you said it’s your job to help stabilize the environment that these businesses are trying to conduct their business in. And that’s

Rick Baker 35:18
thrives. Business thrives unstable and predictable. The unstable, unpredictable is where it’s like, oh my gosh, what are we doing? And so we can bring some stability to them and help them see what’s coming and be prepared for it. Then we become very valuable to them.

Brandon Burton 35:36
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Rick, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and either learn more about the programs you talked about, or more about how you guys are conducting business there at the Grand Rapids chamber in general. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you?

Rick Baker 35:56
Yeah, the best way to reach me is I is email, quite honestly, and it’s, it’s simple emails, is rick@grandrapids.org, okay, very simple than that.

Brandon Burton 36:07
Yeah, I like that. We’ll, we’ll get it in our show notes too, to make it easy, even easier for people, yeah, to reach out to you. But Rick, this has been great having you on the show. I appreciate you taking the time to visit with us and to share. You know these, these programs you guys are involved with that are making an impact in your community, and I wish you and your team Best of luck as chamber of the year.

Rick Baker 36:28
Thank you so much. Brandon, appreciate you.

Brandon Burton 36:33
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2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Ocala Metro CEP with Tamara Fleischhaker

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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.

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE chamber of the year finalists series. And for today’s episode, we’re thrilled to welcome Tamara Fleischhaker . Tamara is a powerhouse in public policy, community development and business advocacy. She currently serves as the interim president and CEO, as well as the chief experience officer of the Ocala Metro Chamber and Economic Partnership, or the CEP. With nearly two decades of leadership at the CEP, Tamara has played a pivotal role in merging organizations, launching innovative programs like business incubators and award winning communication strategies, and steering grass root political victories that have shaped the region’s future. Tamara’s roots in business run deep, from helping out in her family’s screen printing company in high school to work in in corporate marketing at Fortune 100 company to becoming one of Florida’s most respected chamber professionals. She is a certified chamber executive, a Florida certified chamber professional, and an IOM program graduate, recognized as a 2016 professional of the Year by the Florida Association of chamber professionals. Tamara recently chaired that same board in 2022 to 2023 outside of work, Tamara is a passionate community advocate, serving on multiple nonprofit boards. She’s also a die hard hockey fan who splits her loyalty between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Toronto Maple leaves, and she loves exploring every corner of Florida but Tamara, I’m excited to have you on the podcast today. First, congratulations to you and your team for being selected as chamber of the year finalists. It’s quite an accomplishment, but thank you. Yeah. I wanted to give you a chance to say hello to all the listeners out there, but also to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Tamara Fleischhaker 3:04
All right. Well, wonderful. So thank you so much for this opportunity. We have such a tremendous team here, so I’m really grateful that that all of their work to get us to this finalist position. It’s truly an honor you. So you’ve already talked about my hockey background. You know, I love water, whether it’s the ocean or frozen ponds, if you will. And I probably, another interesting fact is I also love hot air ballooning. I had the opportunity to get involved in that when I was a teenager, and because I’ve been in a festival life, kind of a festival volunteer, for most of my life, and had the opportunity to crew for hot air balloons. And also, you know, go up in a few and that has always been a lot of fun. It’s something I don’t get much time to do now, in in the current role that I have, but it’s, it’s still a passion for me

Brandon Burton 3:51
that is really cool. I’ve never been up in a hot air balloon. I don’t know if I could, I don’t know if I could do it. I don’t know. I’ve seen videos of people that go up and they do skydiving from them, where they get no thank you. I don’t need to. I can’t do that for sure. I’m out myself. Yeah, very cool. Well, tell us a little bit about the CEP to kind of set the stage for our conversation. Let us know the size, the organization, staff, scope of work you guys are involved with budget just to kind of prepare us for the topics we cover.

Tamara Fleischhaker 4:23
Sure. So we our organization was formed about 13 years ago through a merger of both the Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Corporation in the Ocala Metro, and I’ve been with the organization through that merger. So it’s really been an exciting 12 years for us. When it was first formed, we were all coming out of a pretty tough, historic downturn of the economy, and we certainly had our issues in our community. So the organization was really formed with the goal in mind to be exactly what this community needed. I know people have. Merged and unmerged organizations, yeah, over time. And, you know, they always say, Well, what did you do? And I said, You know what the key to this is find out what your community needs. And that is what we did. And we’ve certainly seen the success with doing that. You know, Florida has seen tremendous growth. We ourselves were listed this year as the fastest, fastest growing Metro in the country, with a 4% growth rate year over year, which was a little bit of a okay, that explains why it feels like this in our community. And then, which is, of course, why we’ve also been focused on infrastructure. We’ll get to that in a little bit. But so this organization has, has really focused on, how do we grow jobs from the ground up? So entrepreneurship, we run two incubator facilities within our team. We also, of course, work on Business Retention and Expansion and business attraction in the traditional lanes of economic development. But outside of that, we are a full service, chamber functioning organization as well. And so we have on, you know, all of our full team that you would expect as a part of that we do all of the networking events and educational events, run a adult and a youth leadership program through the organization. So we have all of what you would traditionally expect within both sides of organizations. We just get to do it all with a really integrated team. We have about 30 staff members that host all of that because, additionally we we have a foundation within our structure. We have a a CDFI that we are working on within that organization. We also run a market space, which during covid, is something that really became a piece for us, that we have a facility, that it’s undercover, but yet outdoors, and we run a Saturday market out of there, and we rent it out to the community for different events, and, you know, festival pieces that they might do as well. So gives us another stream of income there, but it also adds a little bit more staff to the team. So again, we that’s our size of staff, we have about 1300 partners. We call our members partners because they are partners in the work that we do to support the business community. So that is how we look at our organization. So right around 1300 partners, I’m not sure if there’s something I missed in there, but I’m sure that if there’s another key point, you’ll let me know.

Brandon Burton 7:20
Yeah, no, I think you did a great job covering kind of that scope that you guys are involved with. I guess one of the aspects, budget wise, what do you guys look at? Budget wise? Yeah,

Tamara Fleischhaker 7:32
so for budget, we run about 4.4 million across our six entities,

Brandon Burton 7:37
okay, and I think that’s important, just for those listening to be able to try to scale, you know, the different programs and Exactly,

Tamara Fleischhaker 7:43
yeah, because they’re also wondering, how do you have 30 staff members? That’s

Brandon Burton 7:47
part of it, right? Absolutely so. And from what I remember before and having Kevin Sheilley on the podcast a couple of times, you guys are heavy in the equine industry as well. We

Tamara Fleischhaker 7:59
are. So yeah, we are blessed to be the horse capital of the world, and that is, I know a lot of people ask the question, Well, what about some other particular areas across the country? And we absolutely agree that Lexington is the thoroughbred capital. Ours is because we represent 73 different breeds, and we have one horse to every four people in our community. So we have more horses than any other place in the country, and that is part of the USDA registration of information. So yep, our our groups here have trademarked that name, and we love that. I I still believe we are the only chamber I know. We’re the only chamber in the country right now that has an equine initiative, which we absolutely love, because that is a huge part of our tourism trade here, and we absolutely enjoy having that be a part of our organization. And yes, so that is under what we call our traditional chamber side operations. But there is also economic opportunity in that as well, because we have a lot of companies that have created equine products in the community to meet the needs of what that horse community looks like.

Brandon Burton 9:04
Yeah, I think that’s a great example of going back to what you had said about creating the organization to what your community needs, right? You guys leaned heavy into that. So that’s awesome, absolutely. Well, on these chamber of the year finalist episodes, I like to spend most of our time really diving into the two program synopsis that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. So we’ll take a quick break, and when we come back, we’ll dive in deep on both of those and learn more about what you guys submitted.

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Brandon Burton 12:17
All right. Tamara, we are back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’ll dive into the two program synopsis that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. I know one of them has to do with the sales sales tax referendum, sales tax referendum. If I could speak right, why don’t you tell us what that’s about, the history of that and how it came to be. You know, at the front of mind right now for you guys to approach,

Tamara Fleischhaker 12:42
sure, absolutely so for us, this was actually our third referendum that we ran on a sales surtax for infrastructure and first responders. We started back in 2015 again, recognizing that our community was growing so rapidly that even if we looked at impact fees and our traditional methodologies of you know you’re getting your property tax, we wanted to maintain a balance in all of that, because as a growing community, to meet the needs. So we recognize that the best thing we could do is run a sales tax because then it’s not just our community that pays for it, it’s all those visitors that come to us. So we started that first process. Ran it for four years, and it was successful. We won. Then what we found out is that there continued to be some pressure from the legislature about how taxes were run. They were setting some standards about when in the year cycle you could do it and for how many years you might be able to so we did another four year and was very successful. That led us to looking at this tremendous growth that we’ve already spoken of, how fast we were growing. We want to be able to keep up with that infrastructure and make sure that the services that our community enjoys are still able to be found in the community as you’re moving here, or for someone who’s been here their whole life, the other piece of that is our schools are struggling, because often what they find is they get some unfunded mandates that come along to them, and you have that tremendous growth, they’ve got more students, and they’re outpacing the facilities that we’ve had. So we also realized that we had kind of a dual need for what was going to happen in the next 10 to 15 years. So we thought, you know, when you buy a house, you don’t plan for just four years of how much you’re going to pay for a mortgage, you’re planning 20 years, right? 20 years or more. So we said, let’s think about this in terms of how roads are being built in the community, how the transportation plans are being written. And we decided to tackle it for a 20 year penny sales tax for transportation infrastructure. And then we decided to add a half penny for 10 years dedicated to school facilities. So that might mean existing, upgrading existing facilities and or building new schools, which is all happening as a part of that plan. One of the things. That has made this so successful for us is when we first went to the community with it, we were very transparent with it. The city and county joined in on this process, and every dollar that they’re spent, they’ve created a budget for it in advance. It goes through the city’s budget process every year. It goes through the counties, and every time they spend money, they show the money. So the county has a dedicated website, and each of them has it in their budget, what they’re spending from those committed pennies that they’re getting and how they’re using it, whether it’s 10 fire trucks and, you know, new radios for something, or whether it is improvements to our jail facility and we built, you know, 17 miles of roadway or resurface, 12 miles. It literally gets put down to every penny that they spend and how they’re doing that. And then each year in the budget cycle, they can, you know, re look at events that are going on in the community, or they can look at what their use is, or a special needs. Do we, you know, are we building out a new section of our community? Maybe need a new fire station. So you know, that can be adjusted each year as a part of the budget process, but that’s how we went about, kind of taking the lead in this and recognizing that we needed to bring a community together. The greatest part of this is how we were able to mobilize so many different groups together on this. We brought together our realtor Association, road builders. We brought together all of our Of course, you know, we’ve got our public and private on both sides of that, but the business community really came together for this, and we raised over $250,000 to help run commercials and take kind of a new digital turn on that. But we also had some of these organizations going ahead and sending email blasts or doing social media campaigns. We even went to to the unions for the school board and also to our first responders, and they shared out this information because it helps them. They’re getting new equipment. They’re getting well taken care of. It doesn’t come out of general funds. So they still get to, you know, maintain the salaries, and we still get they still get to have improvements there. Because the worst thing a community can do it would be to go ahead and train people and then not be able to pay those first responders and have them go to someone else’s community. So we put all of these pieces together. We were so excited that the community really came together behind this. It really was one of those things where, you know, you get that broad collaboration as a part of what we’re doing, and with that, we’re actually ending up building two elementary schools, adding a new wing to a middle school, and building a new high school. All in those projects are already in process for the next five years, and so there are some other improvements that will happen out of that for the schools, but it really is a big piece of how do we make sure that local governments have the flexibility that they need, that they can stay sustainable and that they have long term funding sources for the growing needs of our community, where they don’t have to put that tax burden just on the property tax zone, you know, for those who would pay property tax for owners. So that was a really big piece for us. Really exciting. It was the first time we’d ever done true digital media, basically being on, you know, Amazon Prime, being on Hulu. It was a whole new venture for us to take that large of a piece. But we, you know, we also did a lot of conversations to business groups, anyone that wanted us to talk about it. We come see them. We went out to several communities, you know, we’ve got larger housing communities in the in the in our metro, and went out talk to them, gave them the whole, you know, here’s what it is. We’re just laid out the facts. And it was really incredible to see how they all really supported that and came behind it. We passed it in every single district, every voting district, which I think is, you know, the bigger piece of this, that kind of, you know, a lot of people told us it’s going to be close. You’re going to be you might get one passed, you probably won’t get both, and it’ll probably be a pretty close vote. Well, I’ll take 63% of the vote for the sales tax renewal and 59% for the schools tax so when I look at those numbers, I think that that’s that’s a pretty good thing, saying our community agreed that we need to take care of our schools, and that we need to have our students in safe classrooms and having all the technology that they need for the future, and also that we’re taking care of our first responders and that we have great roads to travel on in the Ocala Metro. So, you know, we’re pretty excited about how that all came together this last year.

Brandon Burton 19:38
Yeah, think that’s a huge help with the for example, the the transportation and first responders, sales tax, when every penny is being accounted for, and you can go back and say, Look, this is where it’s all being spent, that makes it a whole lot easier to pass the next time it absolutely does. My question, when it when it comes to the schools, is there certain things that that money is allowed to be allocated? To or is there like, for example, sometimes when a bond is passed, maybe it can’t pay teacher salaries, but it can build new infrastructure, new schools, campuses and stuff like that. Yeah. So, yeah,

Tamara Fleischhaker 20:12
yes, yeah. So the parameters for this, actually, it is all about capital outlay. So this was very specifically for new construction, for facility updates, so there is none of this being spent on salaries. But again, it helps to keep that out of the general fund. And because of the term, they were able to put Bonds out so they could build the schools now and pay those off as they collect that sales tax over the next, you know, few years. So yeah, it is very specifically because they had funding, and we’ve helped them find it for other programming. We actually passed a one mill renewal two years ago that helps them with our technical training skills and being able to have more in the arts sector of their schools. So we’ve been helping out in that lane and bringing people together for that for you know, this is more than this one election cycle, but yes, this particular sales tax is dedicated very specifically to the capital investments within the schools.

Brandon Burton 21:12
So my other question with this program is, with the capital that was raised to promote and do the digital marketing and everything that you guys did it? Did you have somebody in house that could kind of leverage that, or did you contract and go with an agency that could help put you in contact with prime and Hulu and, you know those examples you mentioned?

Tamara Fleischhaker 21:29
Yeah, this, this was the first time. So in the first couple of campaigns we we did a lot in house, social media, driven in those but this was well outside of our wheelhouse. So we absolutely did hire an agency. And I will tell you, it was an agency that was referred to us by a partner in the community. And again, you know, we had so much of our business community that said, you know, we’re absolutely behind you on this, and helped fund that investment. So yeah, we did a little bit of we supplied some B roll and some other video because we do have our own video studio in house, so we were able to work with them on that and help put together the scripting. And so that was kind of the fun part, that we were able to use some of what we’ve done in the community and our own video studio and supply that information to them. But yeah, we definitely hired this out, just to make sure you want to put the experts in a smart move. Yeah, yeah. And I think every year, we all realize as Chamber organizations, it gets harder and harder when you’re doing political things on social media and and those types of channels. There’s so many restrictions that are put in place that it’s always best to let the experts do that if you’re in a position to do it.

Brandon Burton 22:37
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s shift gears and change our focus on to the other program that you guys submitted on your application. If you’d like to introduce that program and tell us what it was all about.

Tamara Fleischhaker 22:49
Absolutely. So our other program is what we call the Ocala Metro Catalyst Fund. This is a community development finance institution which is regulated through the US Treasury Department, this was a new thing for us. We I guess I should step back and say, you know, we started an incubator program with the help of the county and city on the campus that we have here, because we are right across from City Hall, and within our campus area here, they had a building that used to be the original power plant for the city of Ocala, and so both of those entities helped us open up in that building. So it’s the power plant business incubator. So we started there with a real focus on entrepreneurship. And how do we help people to grow their own business? Right? It’s the greatest way that you can have control of your own career and your life is to be able to start your own business. And so we have been running that incubator since 2012 it has been incredibly successful, and this last year, we were able to open a second incubator location. But in the process of running these incubators, the biggest challenge I think we continue to recognize is that there’s an access to capital issue for entrepreneurs, and it can be even worse in some of our underserved communities. And we have three that we’ve really keep an eye on within our community, that those zip codes kind of tend to be the ones that really have struggled the most in our community, and have kind of been overlooked over the years. And so we have put programming from our incubators specifically into those communities. And what we recognized is traditional lenders don’t often help those in the underserved community, and they don’t have that way to do that. So what CDFIs do in a community is they help close that financial gap. They can spur economic growth and promote mobility where, you know, traditional lending falls short in that lane. So for us, you know, we did a lot of surveying, a lot of talking to people in the community. And you know, part of what happened is. It actually started in a post covid environment, right when we were looking at businesses that were receiving assistance through the Cares Act, and then we realized there continued to be this gap in critical funding in the state of Florida has made great inroads over the past couple of years, but we had already started into this process and recognize that for lower income zip codes. This is going to be an ongoing challenge with traditional lenders. So we started out a new 501, c3, and as you can imagine, in this being a federal program, there are a lot of regulations, a lot of processes to go through. So we did hire a consultant to help us start this process that got us on the on the road to this. And so, you know, we’ve now been able to offer some nano loans to businesses as a part of the process, and we’re already in the repayment process on that. And what we’re really looking forward to over the next few years is that we’re hoping to get our final certification in January. We’re fully on track with that. We’ve received a large grant from Treasury to make the next steps in this and working towards that certification. The other piece of it is our county government has also given us a grant that we’re using as a matching grant in the community. They gave us $75,000 to go out to the business community. And so we are currently raising matching grant funds through that so that we’ll be able to offer larger loans, where our next step is micro loans and those who would be anywhere from 2000 to 15,000 and then once we’re fully certified, and we can engage banks, then at that point as a part of the process, then we’re hoping to be able to go to those more traditional business loan sizes of somewhere between, you know, usually around $50,000 would be kind of the top end of those types of loans. But that gives businesses who are in their first five years of startup that working capital that they that they need. And again, we’re really targeting communities that would traditionally not be served by a traditional bank because of where they you know, those communities are, and because of their economic situation that they’re already in. So our goal is to try to make equity where we can in the community, and to try to balance that for everyone, so that there’s an equal opportunity. Because we do feel that entrepreneurship is the fastest way to to really create personal wealth and personal opportunity for you and your family.

Brandon Burton 27:27
Yeah, I love this idea. I’d love to see more chambers embrace this and be able to provide access to capital, funding to these, these businesses, you know, coming out of an incubator, these new businesses, I’m trying to get going. The biggest question that I have, so you addressed it, you know, how the funding, how this in, I think, in the the introduction, you had talked about your foundation. So this is how it’s within the foundation.

Tamara Fleischhaker 27:53
But this actually this, so this actually does run separately of our foundation. Oh, so yeah, just, yeah. Just to clarify our so our Foundation did help with initial startup funds. So you know, when we were trying to get those nano loans started, but we have, actually, this is its own separate 501, c3, organization now. So yeah, when we first started talking about it and how do we fund some of the initial pieces we were working on, we did use our foundation to help us with that, but at this point, it is a standalone organization, and so I think that’s what makes it a little more special as we’ve been able to move it forward. And I think that’s what makes it such an important program, is that it doesn’t rely on our foundation. Our foundation can still be dedicated to serving the mission of our overall organization, right where we talk about, you know that the foundation can magnify mission, and so that’s what we continue to work on. So this one is its own entity at this point,

Brandon Burton 28:48
awesome that. Thank you for that. Clarification. When it comes to the the Nano loans, the the soon to be micro loans that you you give out. How do you secure that? Like, what kind of is there collateral? Is there? How do you ensure that you get repayment and that it’s not just a gift?

Tamara Fleischhaker 29:06
Yes, no, yep. So, so we, you know, there is a whole comprehensive process, much like banks go through, right, looking at their financial situation, looking at the viability of that business, right? Because it’s partly the same process we use in an incubator is that business scalable. What, you know, what are the opportunities? And part of what the great part in doing this process is there’s a requirement for them to get this funding that they have to go through the technical training so they get the technical assistance that goes with it. So we’re working with these businesses. Our team over at our incubator is working with them every day to, you know, to check in and make sure that they’ve got all of the pieces of that ready. We actually, because we’ve had a great partnership with Kauffman Foundation through the incubator for several years. We have some of their programs, like the Fast Track Program, which is a great program that gets a business started on. Yeah, how do you even write a marketing plan? How do you write your business plan? And over the course of that, they’re writing all of those documents and really getting themselves on stable footing. Because the key to an incubator in any community is essentially, we say we help a business fail fast, right? If you’re going to make mistakes, do it in a safety net where you’ve got people around you that can help catch you and help get you back on track, because that’s the piece right. Businesses that are incubated, I am probably going to get the stats wrong, and those of your listeners will be like, that’s not the right stat, but I’m going to estimate that it’s about they’re 80% more successful in the first five years, whereas, you know, an average business without that kind of support network, you probably have about a, you know, 12% survival rate, and so we know that that’s already, you know, the piece to having a community that supports our entrepreneurs, and that’s a key piece, but having that opportunity for them to get that continued coaching that becomes a part of the process as well, because they don’t get their loan payments. If they don’t, you know, and have that technical assistance going on. And I think that’s the piece that makes this so special, and that’s a continuing piece, but that links it back into our incubator as we’re going forward now. The other thing that we did is we had an amazing event just recently, which was a matchmaker event, and this is where we bring in local banks. We had about 25 local banks, about 120 participants, and all of them come in and they sit down with those documents that they have, their business plans and their financial documents, and they talk to the banks about getting loans. And so the other piece is we’re teaching these businesses how to build up the what they need within their business that will help them in the future with regular, traditional loan programs. And that’s really the goal behind this, is to get them established, give them a credit history, because, more than anything, that’s what they’re missing. They don’t have a credit history, even if they had collateral. They’re a new business, right, right? It makes them risky. And so that’s that’s our goal, with all of this is really opening the door for them, for the future, for larger and other, you know, loan opportunities.

Brandon Burton 32:07
Yeah, that is fantastic. The whole point about helping these businesses fail fast, reminds me of Thomas Edison and a reporter asked him, you know, what do you think about all your failures? He’s like, I didn’t fail. I figured out 1000s of ways that a light bulb would not work, right? And that’s the whole idea. You fail fast so you can get to that solution.

Tamara Fleischhaker 32:25
Yeah, we actually have that quote on the wall in our incubator. We we went with a lot of those types of quotes as inspiration, because that’s it, right? And when you know so many people that you know, sometimes we talk about we have some serial entrepreneurs in our community too, and some of them are on their third or fourth company, because they just love that drive. Now that they’ve, you know, they’ve been so successful in their first business, they keep going on to the next. And I love seeing that.

Brandon Burton 32:48
Yeah, that’s awesome. But Tamara, as we begin to wrap things up, I wanted to ask for the listeners who are interested in taking their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item would you suggest for them and trying to accomplish that goal.

Tamara Fleischhaker 33:03
So I think the first thing I would say is never think that you’re too small to try starting some of these programs. I think that’s that’s the biggest part is we say, well, we could never do what the Ocala CEP does, because we don’t have that kind of budget or that kind of staff. 13 years ago, there were five staff, and I can guarantee you, we had a small budget at the time. So I think the key to any of this is, what can you take away, what part of what we’re doing can you use, you know, if it’s, you know, from a sales tax standpoint, okay, take a look at your community. And is this something that you think with transparency and other things? Because I’ll share how we did it. I shared all the time, and I think that’s the great news about chambers, right? We talk about R and D all the time. I’m going to rip off and duplicate what somebody else is doing. And most of the things that we do truly are scalable. So even if there’s just a few of you, get a committee together, get, you know, get your board behind what you’re doing, and let them help lead the brigade for you. And what we’re doing with an incubator, you do not have to be in the situation we’re in. Get your community partners together. That’s what we do as Chamber organizations, right? We’re the catalyst. We’re the conveners. We bring people together. So get people behind you on this, whether that issue is housing, whether that is, you know, improvements in your communities, whether it’s entrepreneurship, there are so many lanes that you can bring people together, and that’s really what we do best. So I would say, don’t be afraid to try it. Just go for it. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 34:33
I love that response. I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Tamara Fleischhaker 34:45
So I think, you know, we talk about this all the time. We hear the news stories, and we see this kind of greater political divide, or so it seems. But I think what we’re finding more and more is as things seem a little more crazy in the environment. And around us, people look to their chamber. Businesses definitely look to us. And they say, Okay, we we’re asking you to lead, and I think we’re going to be called upon. We’re we’re already seeing it happening. And I’m sure chambers across the country are as well, that we’re being called upon to voice an opinion or be a part of more issues that are happening in our community, and of course, my only caution would be make sure that whatever you’re engaging in meets your mission, right that, because it’s so easy for us to have mission drift and stray away from that, but our voices matter so much in the community, and we’re going to continue to be called on so we all need to be thinking about that. What are we prepared to what is our process for engaging on issues, and what’s the right thing for our community, and how do we want to address that? As chambers,

Brandon Burton 35:47
yeah, I totally agree. But Tamara, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect or learn more about your approaches. There in Ocala. Where would you point them? What would be the best way for them to connect

Tamara Fleischhaker 36:04
with you? Well, the place that I will start them is our website. It is the OcalaCEP.com so Ocala is spelled o c, a, l, A, C, E, p.com, and you can see, we’ve got a team page there. We’re all you can find any one of us on that and make an outreach, and you’ll easily find me there. And the great news is, most of us are first name at Ocala, cep.com if you want to send an email. So again, I’m Tamara. It’s T, A, M, A, R, A, and so you can feel free to give me a call, you know, off of the website there, or you can give me an email and I’m happy to connect with you, or connect you with a member of my team who might be a better resource for you.

Brandon Burton 36:43
That’s very good, and we’ll make sure to have the website and our show notes to make it easy for people to find you guys and fantastic reach out and connect. But Tamara, this has been great having you on the show. Thank you for diving into these programs and telling us how you guys are making that secret sauce there in Ocala. But I wish you and your team Best of luck as chamber of the year.

Tamara Fleischhaker 37:05
Thank you so much. Brandon. Really appreciate the opportunity to talk to your listeners.

Brandon Burton 37:11
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2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Greater Fort Wayne Inc. with John Urbahns

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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.

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE chamber of the year finalist series. And our guest for this episode is John or bonds. John is the CEO of Greater Fort Wayne Inc, and of course, he’s representing a Greater Fort Wayne Inc as a chamber of the year finalist. But he joined the organization in 2014 and at the time, was serving as executive vice president economic development, before taking on the CEO role in 2019 under his leadership, Greater Fort Wayne Inc has assisted with over 200 business expansions and relocations, resulting in more than 13,500 new jobs and $600 million in new payroll. Previously, John was the Director of Community Development for the City of Fort Wayne, managing strategic planning, redevelopment and economic development initiatives. John has led key community projects such as the landing electric works and the Bradley hotel, while also engaging with residents and leaders to shape Allen County’s future. He holds a degree in urban planning and environmental design from Ball State University, and is an AICP certified urban planner, John, I want to welcome you back to chamber chat podcast. Congratulations to you and your team for being selected as a chamber of the year finalists. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the chamber champions, and if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

John Urbahns 2:41
Hello, Brandon, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be back. Love talking about our team. Our team is excited about this opportunity. We think we’ve done a great job in transforming our community, and really all of northeast Indiana, so excited about it. You know, I’m a I’m just a proud Hoosier. I’m a proud father of three great kids here that are all making choices to stay in our community at the end of the day. That’s that’s the biggest job in the world that I have, is making sure that every kid has the opportunity to have a great opportunity in Fort Wayne, in Allen County, and just continue to thrive. So excited to be here. That’s

Brandon Burton 3:22
right. You’re you’re living the work that you do, right, keeping your kids into the community. That’s great. That’s great. Well, tell us a little bit about Greater Fort Wayne Inc, to kind of set the perspective for us as we start our discussion today. Give us an idea of the size staff, scope of work. You guys are involved with budget, that sort of things Greater

John Urbahns 3:42
Fort Wayne ink, you know, a lot of people think, Oh, you’ve been around forever. I joined the organization in 2014 January, 2014 when we formed the organization, Oh, right. We merged our chamber of commerce, which was 100 years old, our Economic Development Alliance, which was a public private partnership doing economic development, which was about 20 years old, and then our leadership Fort Wayne program, which is at the time, was about little over 30 years old, and merged those together, the business community really said, we need to pull these assets together to do economic development, to do chamber activities, to do leadership programming, so that we can take on bigger and bolder projects in the community. So we’re about 1111, and a half years old as an organization, but you know, really serving as the economic development entity and the chamber for all of Allen County. So not just Fort Wayne, but New Haven Hunter town, some of the smaller communities, 660 square miles, is our is our jurisdiction, but we work very closely with those regional counties in northeast Indiana.

Brandon Burton 4:46
All right, very good. But how many Chamber members and staff? Yeah,

John Urbahns 4:51
so we have, we have 14. We just passed the 1400 mark on membership in the community. We’ve got 20 staff members. But. Budget of about $3.4 million that that is made up of, you know, membership revenue, dues, a non dues revenue, just lot of great things going on. A lot of great support from our community. In what we’re doing as a community, we’re seeing a lot of growth, which is what you want to see as a chambers and an economic development agency, and really feel that the work we’re doing is helping drive that.

Brandon Burton 5:23
Yeah, very cool. Well, on these chamber of the year finalist episodes, I like to spend the majority of our time really diving into the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. So we’ll take a quick break, and when we get back, we’ll dive in deep on those two programs.

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Brandon Burton 8:28
All right, John, we’re back, as I mentioned before the break, we’re we’re diving in on the two programs from your your chamber of the year application. I know one of them has, you know, obviously, a focus on economic development and another one on talent attraction. Do you have a preference on which one you’d like to cover first?

John Urbahns 8:47
I’m good with either one. You know, our role, our mission, is about building nationally recognized economy, but our Why is really about people and capital. So we always talk to people about it. It’s about people setting the environment where people want to be, where people want to move to, and where capital wants to be deployed, whether that’s locally, nationally or internationally. So both these programs tie very, very much into our why on the people and capital side. So people are probably the most important. So let’s just jump in on the people side.

Brandon Burton 9:17
All right, so let’s do that so your your onboard program, tell us what that’s about. And kind of, I always like to know what the need was, it was addressed, and how you guys went about answering

John Urbahns 9:27
that need. Yeah. So one of the one of the areas that we started working was onboard Fort Wayne. We’ve seen a lot of growth in our community. We We had a lot of years of, kind of dying, the slow death, of negative domestic migration and population decrease with some of the work that we’ve done to drive investment in the community, we’ve now seen eight straight years of positive domestic migration. If you go back 1990 when they started tracking this every year was negative until eight years ago, and that’s because we chose to invest in ourselves. Started to make progress in that environment, and as we started to see that increased domestic migration, we started seeing a lot of influx from people from throughout the nation coming in to Fort Wayne and Allen County. How are we going to welcome them? How are we going to really come alongside them and help them get connected within the community? So we created the onboard program about five years ago, and have slowly built out different segments of it. And over the last couple of years, we built, we built in the intern experience and best in class, which are two of the two of the pieces that we submitted for the chamber of the year application. So the intern experience, really diving in with interns and companies. They’re going to come here to work and hopefully have a great experience at their company. How do they fall in love with the community? And that’s what we stepped in to help do. So each summer, we do between five and one year nine, nine weeks straight of just social activities for the interns, to get them connected to each other, to get them connected to the community. One of the keys is we, you know, we survey them early on. You know, what’s the chances of you seeing yourself living in Fort Wayne post graduation in both years, it’s been a little right around 60% of the kids see themselves living here. And these are kids that are coming from all over the US, right? We part of the survey. We look at where they coming from one year, 25 states. One year, 23 states, multiple countries, of kids coming in from across the US to do internships here. So these college interns? Is that college intern? Yep. So if only 60% can see themselves, living here, that’s a challenge for us. By the end of the summer, both years, it’s increased to well over 80% of the kids we when we do the post program survey, 80% over 80% say they could see themselves living in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And there’s a lot, and we ask them why we you know, it comes down to cost of living, opportunities, connectedness, not just within the in Fort Wayne, but to outline, you know, larger metros. So we feel the program has been very successful. Our companies feel great about it. It lets them focus on the day to day, you know, like, let’s make sure they have a great work environment that they like our company, but we help them fall in love with the community. And maybe there’s some connections that are made while they’re here over the summer, and they and they fall in love in general, and have those strong connections as well. So it’s it’s creating that connection to the community. We parlayed that last year into the best in class program and said, All right, we’re getting great results from these college interns, but how do we get to kids before they go off to college? How do we build that pipeline? Just like a company builds a pipeline, we need to build a pipeline. So last year, we worked with all 17 high schools in Allen County and really sat down with your principals, your guidance counselors, and said, Give us your top kids, your 10 to 15 kids, not necessarily one through 10, one through 15 in the grades, but who are the leaders? Who are the kids that are going to go off and maybe never come back? And we pulled them together and said, give them to us for a night. So we had about 250 kids come together last year, and we had this best in class event where we talked about what’s going to happen over the next four years in our community, right? How is it going to change? We had some young entrepreneurs come in and talk to them about how they’ve chosen to make their best life here in Fort Wayne and Allen County. We talked about the business environment, right? So many kids, they don’t. They know about what’s going on the community, but they don’t know about industry. So we highlighted the key industry sectors and the great job opportunities that they can have here in the community. And then at the end, we wrapped it up with a cost of living index, right? We had, we had kids at tables, and we gave every kid a different at the table, a different city, and we started to help them understand, or they, I guess they under they figured out themselves. Hey, if I move off to some of these bigger cities, am I going to be able to afford to live the way I would like to live? Can I have? Can I own a car? Can I own a home? How much am I going to be able to go out? How many times can I go to Starbucks or the local coffee shop? And they started to understand Fort Wayne, Indiana was the best place for them to grow up. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 14:34
my son is our oldest. He graduated high school last year, so his eyes are being opened right now as he’s looking at cost of living, and what a call to reality. You’ve got these 250 of the greatest leaders in your area, you know, coming out of high school. Then to be able to give them this, this real life metric of this is one of just one of the real positive. Of reasons why you’d want to choose our community to stay, you know,

John Urbahns 15:04
yes. So you always wonder, did I make an impression? What? What’s the results of this? Right? We wanted these kids to not just know themselves, but ultimately go off to college and be our sales people while they’re out at, you know, universities throughout the Midwest, throughout the US, we had calls the next day from parents and said, I don’t know exactly what you said to my kids last night, but they were leaving. They were leaving after high school. They were going off to a couple of cases, Indiana University, Purdue University, pick your new mission. They were going there, and they were never coming back, and after last night, they said they want to come back. And that, to me, says we made a difference. That’s really cool, right? We’re driving change. We’re changing the mindset of the young folks about the community, and they’re starting to see the great opportunities that they can have. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 15:59
and so going backwards a little bit with the intern program, I think that’s a missed opportunity that so many chambers and communities have where interns come in and so much of the focus is on, you know, building the the work experience, and connecting with the company and and we miss that opportunity to connect them with the community and To get them to get them to fall in love with the community, you

John Urbahns 16:23
have to engage them. You have to get them to fall in love. You know, we’ve we’ve done a lot of work in our community about reinventing, reinvesting ourselves, building up our downtown. We do a business survey. Every five years, we hire a polling firm. It’s not just a survey we do. We are a polling firm. We do a statistical analysis of it, and 95% of the businesses believe we’re on the right track with where we’re headed. The number one issue in the community that they think affecting talent, attraction, retention, and these are companies across the community, is downtown and riverfront revitalization. So we know we’re on the right track, that we’re hitting the right points. Now we need to get those kids that out and enjoy those things and see those things while they’re here. So feel really good about it.

Brandon Burton 17:13
That’s great. Well, let’s shift gears to the big economic development program, and the I’ll say economic development. Win that. You guys are going through it at the moment. Tell us about that. Yeah,

John Urbahns 17:28
the, you know, I mentioned people in capital. The other side of our business is the capital side, right? Economic development. How are we creating the environment to attract capital into our market and get locals to invest as well. But last year was was a big year for us. We had $3.66 billion in building permits in Allen County. Put that in perspective, if you go back to 2012 so about 13 years ago, we were averaging about $500 million of building permits a year. So we’ve seen dramatic growth in that we hit a billion in 2017 and we haven’t looked back from that. So capital is a big piece for us. The other thing we had looked at through our economic development strategy was land assembly, and how do we make sure that we have opportunities for companies to grow? We saw the need for land in our community. We had an opportunity with a project that came to us from our electrical provider and said, Hey, we’ve got a company that’s that’s looking at our market. We’ve done a lot of great things to improve our water supply and our access to water and on the electric side as well. So ultimately, we landed a $2 billion Google data center, right? It’s their largest AI data center in the world that’s being built here in Fort Wayne, and we had a challenge to figure out how to get 900 acres of land for that development. Ultimately, this could end up being a 10 plus billion dollar investment as the multiple phases grow out in our community. And these are, these are tech jobs in our most depressed area of the community, right? So we can come back to that, but there’s gonna be a lot of great spin off effects from this that we’re gonna be able to utilize. But we’ve talked a lot as a chamber world about chamber foundations over the last several years. Do you have a chamber if you don’t have a chamber foundation? When you’re asked that question at ACC, I feel like everybody’s like, Well, why don’t you have one yet? You need to look at one. So we have one. We’ve been, you know, using it in different ways. But one of the things we had to respond to this, this about a year and a half ago, when this project started, was we had a partner that was going to work on land assembly, and it wasn’t going well with the company, and the company came to us and said, Hey, can you help us acquire the property? And we said, Yes, we’re going to do that. We’re going to, let’s, let’s figure out how to do that. So we utilized some funding in our chamber foundation to go out and acquire a. The 900 acres of property so that we could move it forward. We acquired that 900 acres of property in under 90 days. Wow, which is amazing as a community, and we couldn’t have done it if we didn’t have the chamber foundation infrastructure in place to go and do that. I think the other thing you have to look at from you know, you think about all the horizon points. You think about catalytic leadership and pulling people together. This property was located not just in the city of Fort Wayne. It was also in the city of New Haven, and it was an unincorporated Allen County. We took the role as a developer to go acquire that property. But then also, you know, petition for the vacation of a county road, we had to get the city of New Haven to dis annex about 60 acres of the site that was in one community, so that the city of Fort Wayne could annex it and annex the rest of the property and have that in their tax base. Now, you go to a mayor and tell him, I need you to dis annex 60 acres so that your neighbor can take it. Yeah, right, that that’s a tough conversation. But he jumped right in and said, Hey, let’s figure out how to do it, because this is a win for our community. It’s a huge win. Yeah? Mindset, right? If you go back 510, years ago, this ends up in a lawsuit, and frankly, the project doesn’t happen, but we had that buy in, and it’s because we’ve got the trusted relationships with all the different partners to pull it together so that it was a win win for each of the communities, because he knows his community is going to grow because of this right he’s right next to it. He’s going to see a lot of great growth, even if the even if that project is not directly within his political jurisdiction, right? Companies don’t care about political lines. They care about getting projects done. We used our foundation, we acted in a way, to speed a business to get this win for the entire community,

Brandon Burton 22:01
yeah. I mean, Moses split the Red Sea. I mean, you guys worked on getting a city into D annex, part of the land. I mean, it’s a miracle, as far as I’m concerned, but being able to be that convener, so like you said, be that trust. You know, have that trust in the community. Be that convener to really lead a project that’s going to benefit all of the surrounding communities as well. It’s, I mean, that’s the perfect position and role that a chamber should be playing. And then you’ve got the added benefit of being able to access your your chamber Foundation to help, you know, get the ball over the line, so to speak. Great testimony on being conveners and having a chamber foundation to see a big project come together that’s super exciting.

John Urbahns 22:48
And this is going to have, you know, I mentioned that, I said I’d come back to it. You know, this isn’t, you know, part of the community that has seen the most disinvestment or the lack of investment over several decades. We now in that, in that part of the community, have our first market rate subdivision being built for the first time in 40 years. Wow, market rate subdivision being built with the with the with the project, and the TIF district and the city being able to work to reinvest dollars within that community, to look at neighborhood commercial corridor projects, and we’re looking at other industrial properties that need to be repurposed in that area. This project now gives us the opportunity to really dive in and make some really big, transformational change in that part of the community. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 23:36
that’s awesome. So just a side note or comment on the chamber foundation. For those who don’t have a foundation, may be curious, how do you how do you guys fund your foundation? How did that? How did the funds become available to be able to fund a project like this? Yeah, we,

John Urbahns 23:56
you know, our our foundation, our c3 organization, is all of our fee for service agreements with city, Fort Wayne, City, New Haven, the Airport Authority, the county commissioners, they flow through that as well. But then we’ve used that to assemble dollars. The dollars we used for this project date back 25 years when the business community raised funds to help the city finalize an industrial park, and as part of that, those business funds that went into it as land sold, came back to us, into that entity or that foundation, to reinvest and basically evergreen, so that we could continue to do similar investments about eight years ago, we use that funds, those funds to help the city acquire another 145 acres and turned around and sold that to a large, large facility here in town. Again, we got the money back, and then we used it in this case. And then. Um, when this project closed, the funds came back into that. So those, those funds are recycling and coming back to us to now. Now we’re looking at new opportunities. How are we going to invest that to again position the community for growth from an economic development perspective? So those rate, those funds were initially raised as from the private sector. There’s other funds that you know because of this project, we were able to get several people that were involved in the project to provide some additional funds to it so help grow it because of the success of that project. So we’re just trying to continue to grow it and make sure that we can leverage it multiple times, right? It didn’t, it didn’t help that project, not just that project back in 1999 it helped us with multiple projects along the way, and it’s going to help us continue to move things forward. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 25:56
it’s a great framework of how to utilize a foundation. And for those who are thinking about it, it’s a great exposure to one

John Urbahns 26:05
way we used it. I know that others use it a lot of different ways. We can all learn from each other. I think that’s the key that I like about ACC, that I like about this process. We all learn from each other. We’re all doing great things. We just might be doing different things. Absolutely, we

Brandon Burton 26:21
all have different communities. So John, for those listening who are wanting to take their chamber to the next level working towards that goal, what kind of tip or action item might you leave with them towards trying to accomplish that? I

John Urbahns 26:37
think one of the things that that I would tell all of my my peers, you know, those in this world, and I’ve learned this, you know, again, very recently, that we have to be we’re that we’re the future of the community. We’re looking out ahead. Make sure you’re having those conversations with your key businesses about the future, right? So often, we all get kind of bogged down in the day to day making sure that projects are moving forward, programs are moving forward. We could spend our entire day focused on the here and now and making sure that goes smooth. But we need to make sure that we’re having the conversations about the future, right we are. We are the future of our community. We’re going to drive that. We’re going to be the catalytic leader. We’re going to be the futurist. Make sure that you’re bringing your business, your key business leaders and government leaders along with you. In that regard, don’t lose sight of the future. Make sure that you have those conversations. Is what I would leave with everybody. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 27:39
and said, Don’t lose sight of the future. I always like asking that question, too, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

John Urbahns 27:48
Yeah, you know, I can only speak from for my chamber, but we are. I’ve seen the change in this community. Yeah, I came here almost 30 years ago, and it wasn’t a community that I moved to to spend a career. It was a community I moved to for a job out of college, and we started to make change, and chambers need to be key in that role. If you’re not, if you’re not affecting change in your community, you’re not doing it justice, and you’re not doing yourself justice. So the future, the future of chambers, is bright, but we have to make it bright.

Brandon Burton 28:26
Yeah, I like that. Need to be affecting change in your

John Urbahns 28:30
community. We, we often say, we, we need to, we need to make the change happen, and not let the change happen to us. Yeah, so many times that happens.

Brandon Burton 28:41
And you know, when it comes to change, a lot of people fear it, because so often the change does happen to us, but if you’re being forward thinking and driving the change, you’ve got a lot more you know, direction on what the future looks like when you’re driving it instead of being acted upon. So yeah, great point. Well, John, for those listening who might want to reach out and connect with you about either these programs or how you guys are doing things there. Greater, Fort Wayne Inc, where would you point them? What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect?

John Urbahns 29:12
I’d point them to our website. GreaterFortWayneInc.com, just just, you know, Google, us make that your That’s right, your browser choice, if you would please. But Greater Fort Wayne inc.com, all of our contact information is there. We are happy to have conversations about any of the programs we’re doing, any of the projects we’re here to help each other, and we definitely, we definitely subscribe to that. You know, I talked about, we talked about the Google project. We’ve coached probably now seven or eight other communities on how to handle these big projects and pull them off some of my peers that are probably listening here, we’ve had some conversations, and it’s been very valuable to them, and it’s valuable to us when we can go and talk about others. So. Go to the website. I will tell you that we are literally in the middle of a of a complete over overhaul of our website. So what you see today is what, not what you will see at the end of July or the first of August, but go to our website. Reach out to us and income back. Come see us.

Brandon Burton 30:19
Yeah, very good. And if you have trouble finding it, go to Google.

John Urbahns 30:24
Go to Google. It’s gonna be easy. I love the plug.

Brandon Burton 30:26
Well, John, this has been great having you back on Chamber Chat Podcast. I appreciate you spending time with us. I wish you and your team best of luck with chamber of the year. And you know, keep making those big swings and big movements in your community. You guys are doing awesome.

John Urbahns 30:40
Thank you. I appreciate it. Brandon.

Brandon Burton 30:43
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.

2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Sarasota Chamber with Heather Kasten

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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.

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE chamber of the year finalist series. And our guest for this episode is Heather Kasten. Heather is the president and CEO of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce in Florida, with more than 14 years of experience in the Sarasota region, Heather previously served as a President CEO of the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance. She has a diverse background, having worked for Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals and six flag theme parks in various regional management roles. Heather is deeply engaged in the community, serving on the board of career source, Suncoast United Way Suncoast and the Education Foundation of Sarasota County. She is also active in several local advisory councils, including those for the USF Muma College of Business and the 26th West Entrepreneurship Center. Heather holds an MBA from Webster University and a business administration degree from the University of Iowa. Outside of her professional duties, she enjoys reading, boating, traveling and spending time with her family, but Heather, it’s great to have you back on chamber chat podcast. Welcome and congratulations for being selected. For those who may be familiar, they were chamber the year finalists in 2024 so this is two years in a row being selected as a finalist. So huge congratulations to you and your team. But wanted to give you a chance to say hello and to share something interesting about yourself so everyone listening can get to know you a little better.

Heather Kasten 2:42
Yeah, well, Brandon, thank you so much. It’s we’re so grateful to you for hosting this podcast, which is so informative. I really enjoy listening, and we are truly excited. Our team and board of directors are over the moon about us being a finalist again for ACCE, the Metro Chamber division this year. So we’re excited to go to Philly. We’ve got a good, good sized group of us traveling out there to attend the conference and the convention, and hopefully you’re going to bring something, bring that big trophy home. We’ll see that.

Brandon Burton 3:19
Yeah, yeah, there’s some. There’s something to be said about coming in numbers to the conference. I remember a few years ago in the Conway, Arkansas chamber one, and they had, like, I want to say, like, two full tables full, just packed full of people from Conway. And it was, it was pretty cool. So I’m glad you’re bringing a great representation. That’s awesome.

Heather Kasten 3:41
Yeah. And you know, as far as something unique about me, I feel like I’m, you know, a cat with nine lives in that I really have worked in many different industries, from theme parks, which we talked about last year, some of the funny duties work as a regional sales manager for six likes theme parks, and then in the pharmaceutical realm, through Lily and women’s health and the neuroscience division, and then landing in chamber work. And have been doing this, this work, for about 16 years now. And absolutely love it. Love just being able to serve and support the businesses in our community, which, let’s face it, they’re the engine that power any local economy, or the the local businesses,

Brandon Burton 4:26
absolutely. Well, give us some perspective with the greater Sarasota chamber. You mentioned being more regional, but give us an idea of size, staff, scope of work. You guys are involved with budget. That’ll kind of set the stage as we get into the programs that we talk about today.

Heather Kasten 4:43
Sure, we are 104 year old organization here in Sarasota, Florida. We work with a little over 1500 regional businesses throughout Sarasota and Manatee counties that represent. About 60,000 employees throughout the region. Our team here, I always like to say we’re a small but mighty team of 15 individuals who are just a committed, dedicated, passionate group of people who show up here every day working to support our local businesses. We have a very active Foundation, as well as as the chamber work that we do, and I know we’re going to get into some of those programs later. Those programs are truly funded through our foundation, very

Brandon Burton 5:35
cool. So I’m hopefully, as we go through the conversation today, we can pull more on the foundation. And I know there’s a lot of chambers out there that are trying to learn more about foundations, if they don’t already have one, seeing how they can deploy a foundation, how it can really be beneficial in their community. And so hopefully your experience will will be able to tap into that as we dive in today. So with these chamber of the year finalist episodes. I love to spend the majority of the time talking about the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. So when we get back from our quick break, we’ll dive into those programs and learn more about what it is you guys submitted on your application this year.

Joe Duemig
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Joe Duemig
Schedule a demo today AppMyCommunity.com. We can’t wait to meet you.

Brandon Burton 9:02
All right, Heather, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re diving into the two programs from your chamber of the year application. I understand one of the programs is around career and workforce development. Do you like to tell us what that is and dive into what the I always like to know what the origins are and how it’s evolved to what it is today.

Heather Kasten 9:23
Yeah. So the exciting thing Career Edge is our workforce and talent initiative that has been around for coming up on 14 years. And this was really formed 14 years ago to address some, some tremendous gaps in our workforce, our local workforce. I always like to say career, just like a three legged stool. It takes funders to be able to fund the work that we do. It takes educational partners and providers to train and then it takes the participant, the individual, who is actually willing to go through the program and come out the other end. End the what we submitted this year for ACCE was just the work and the results of Career Edge. Every year we have a third party evaluator come in and really do a deep dive into, you know, the wage increases that individuals experienced. They validate all of the data that we that we provide. And so it’s not the Sarasota chamber beating our chests saying, Oh, look at the work we’ve done. This is, again, an independent evaluator looking at this work. Last year, we deployed over $330,000 in workforce grants and training and upskilling grants, and we train just shy of 500 local individuals. So, you know the So, what of that is you, if you think of someone working a job that really doesn’t have a career pathway, a minimum wage job, it could be at a fast food restaurant, and they, we put them through one of our trainings, which is in five industry segments. So the trades, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, transportation and logistics, automotive, healthcare, manufacturing, those are all the the industry segments that we serve. So think about someone working a fast food job. We fully fund putting them through the CNA training. They get their certification, and then we place them with a health care member of our chamber. So it’s a win for these employers too, because as a member of the Sarasota chamber, they’re getting first dibs at this talent. As far as the individual, you think about just the change in the trajectory of their income earning potential over the course of their lifetime, and the the economic impact, both to to their own family and to the community as a whole. It really does put them on a pathway, whether it be it healthcare or think of an electrician that has many different certifications and levels. Same thing with plumbing and HVAC, it really does provide a career pathway for these folks to make some really good money and and, you know, be able to live a wonderful life here in Sarasota.

Brandon Burton 12:16
Yeah, so I like how you talked about the three parts that go into a program like this, between the funding, the educational partners, or who’s going to teach what we’re trying to preach here, and then the participants. So could you speak to a little bit about how you pulled like, how did you gather the participants? How did you reach out to them? How did you recruit those who would be the educational partners and talk about the funding for it as

Heather Kasten 12:41
well, sure. And you know, the exciting part, and the Chamber’s role is really kind of the unifier and the convener of those three pieces, but for the chamber, you know that that convening would not be happening, and so we, we play such a key role in that. But let’s start with the funding, we go out every year and sing for our supper. We work with many local foundations, some national foundations, some bank foundations to apply for these grants, and that’s the money that we have to work with each year we’ve been really fortunate. We have two local foundations that absolutely believe in the impact. They’ve seen it directly in this community, and they are substantial funders to the program. The participants through our chamber, you know, we work with, we probably have 200 nonprofits that are members of our chamber, where, when we’re putting up one of these. We call them a fast track program, where in like eight to 12 weeks, someone can get trained. When we are about ready to launch a fast track for instance, we have one coming up in automotive, electrical, and we put that out to our nonprofit partners. We have used the press to, you know, put out press releases and and social media posts. We partner with our faith based organizations. We we get the word out pretty well, and then these participants log on to our website, they fill out an application, and then they’re vetted. And then, you know, we take a class, usually of about 15 individuals to put them through this training and the chamber we play a pivotal role in that we really do Shepherd these folks through the program. These are individuals that have, they have more things on their plate than than others. And, you know, car breaks down, childcare issues, things like that, and we, we really are instrumental in in helping them to get to class and to have child care so that they can participate in the program.

Brandon Burton 14:53
That’s awesome. So for the those that are participating, sounds like there’s an application for. Process you selected in this example, 15 for the the automotive certification. Is there any fee or anything for those participants, or is it fully funded through the foundation and the grants? Or how does that structured?

Heather Kasten 15:13
It is fully funded so they, you know, they’re they do have some skin in the game in that there are some fees. For instance, in healthcare, there’s some vaccinations and things that they have to get on their own. But for the most part, you know, 98% of this training is fully funded, and so we do it. That is a big job, is to really bet the people who are serious this can’t be, you know, Grandma Jones wanting her grandson to go through this program, you know, we we have to make sure that, you know, that these participants are committed. We have to be a good steward of this money that we’ve been granted.

Brandon Burton 15:53
Yeah, so you mentioned that having that third party evaluation and seeing the the wage increases. Can you share maybe just a couple success stories you’ve seen out of that third party evaluation.

Heather Kasten 16:05
Absolutely, you know, on average, last last year, we saw the average wage increase of folks coming through the program was over $9 an hour. And you start doing the math on that, you know, times eight hours a day. You know, just to make it round numbers, that’s $100 more a day that they’re making. You think of, you know, 2020, working days in a month. That’s 2000 more dollars. You just start doing the math, and it is absolutely exponential, the money that someone is earning because of these programs. And again, this is, you know, for a lot of people, this is their first generation of being trained. And when we host these graduations, Brandon, it’s, it’s just heartwarming. Their whole family comes. They might as well be graduating, you know, from an Ivy League school. It’s that meaningful for their family. That

Brandon Burton 17:03
is really cool. I love hearing that. I love hearing the life changing impact that programs like this can make. So programs like this, like Career Edge, obviously help employers in the community find that talent where they’re able to continue performing their you know, their mission as a business, whatever it may be, but that’s only one aspect of it. I know in certain communities, housing can be an issue too, where you may have people that want to work there, but they live too far away, that it doesn’t justify, you know, the commute coming in, but housing is makes it difficult to attract that talent as well. So let’s shift gears into your second program that you guys submitted on your application around affordable housing and how that plays into this big picture.

Heather Kasten 17:52
Yeah, you know, like many communities, Brandon throughout the United States, our community is no different. Starting back, you know, when COVID we had 1000 people a day moving to the state of Florida. It has softened a little bit to, you know, around 700 people a day. But when you have that big of an influx of people, it just the the laws of supply and demand. It made it really hard. People were moving to the state, you know, cashing out in California, you know, one bedroom house for a million dollars, coming to Florida, paying cash and really pricing out all of our young professionals. And you know what I call our community heroes, the teachers, the firefighters, the policemen not being able to to find affordable housing here in our community. And so in 2022 our chairman of the board, you know, we really, he really had made it, you know, laid down the gauntlet that we are going to take a very proactive approach to affordable housing. And what we did was we hosted our first affordable housing Summit, and that would have been back in 2023 we partnered with our largest employer, Sarasota Memorial Hospital. We had over 200 business leaders attend. And really that summit was really focused on drilling down on the needs. This is not we’re not talking about folks who are on federal aid. These are working individuals, and so that was from that summit we took, okay, here we know we have a problem. It’s now the business community’s problem. So now what are we going to do about it? The Chamber went about we really wanted to drill down to investigate, like, who are having these struggles, we surveyed our young professionals. We had over 300 responses to a survey, and the results were just really disheartening. We had numerous over 30% of our young professionals saying they were contemplating leaving the area because they weren’t able to find affordable housing. We had over. 40% driving 40 miles a day to come to work, and as you know, that clogs up our roads and causes transportation issues when people can’t live by where they work. So we went about putting together a second summit, again, hosted back at Sarasota Memorial, where we brought in some experts. We brought in someone from the Florida Housing Coalition to assess what are some best practices. We brought down someone from Pinellas County, Florida, who is probably about five to 10 years ahead of us in the proactive nature of of tackling affordable housing. We hosted a second summit, and then we also took a very intentional approach with our city government and fought very hard hundreds of hours into attending City Commission meetings to back some zoning text, amendments, change, changes that would allow for greater density those after Many, many, many, many hours of meetings. The City Commission did vote to allow for greater density. And what that means is that a developer on one acre of ground, instead of being limited to building five units, of which he needs to charge $5 million a unit, when you increase the density, you could have 100 units at 200,000 and so we’ve already seen over 202,000 units, just because we fought for those zoning text amendments of affordable units that’ll be coming online here in the next two to three years. They’re going through, you know, that permitting process, they’re starting to come out of the ground. So again, if not for the Sarasota chamber, would these zoning text amendments have have gotten over the goal line. We also

Brandon Burton 21:48
go ahead. Go ahead.

Heather Kasten 21:50
I didn’t wrap up with we also partnered with four local foundations who commissioned a study to look at what is our current need, like, how many units do we really need? You know, you can’t, if you’re not keeping score, you’re really not playing the game. And so we had this study commission to look at how many units do we currently need, and how many will we need in 10 years, so that we can start planning, you know, for that. And then also took a look at the type of units needed? Do we need studio apartments? Do we need one bedroom, two bedroom? Or these families that are struggling? And so we just got those findings back, we have a program coming up in two weeks where they’re going to really go through the findings very descriptively, so that policy makers and developers so that we know what we need here in the future.

Brandon Burton 22:44
Yeah. So I guess that was going to be my question as to the type of housing. I would assume, something like condos or, like you said, the studios or the, you know, one or two bedrooms would depending on what those needs are. But also those young professionals today that are having those needs, you know, in 10 years. I’m glad that that’s that vision is being extended out to, what is that going to what’s that need? How’s that going to shift? You know, in the next several years? I know one of the other obstacles cities is communities look at solutions like this is the NIMBYs in the in the community, right? Those that don’t want it in their backyard. Has there been land identified for the more high density housing, and has that been approved, and has there been pushback from the community? How do you guys address that and overcome that?

Heather Kasten 23:34
Yeah, well, it’s fascinating. Nobody that you talk to is against affordable housing, just not in their backyard. Yeah, just not in my backyard, right? And so the uniqueness of the zoning text changes that that we worked on is that they’re along our major corridors. So these are very well traveled, you know, you’re not going to build a million dollar house on, you know, next to a four lane highway. And so the city was able to identify ground along these major corridors, along major, you know, retail, mixed use projects and and the exciting thing too is now, as developers are going before our planning board and our City Commission to get their projects approved, many of them are coming with an affordable housing component, and so they might be building, you know, they still might be building, you know, $2 million units, but they’re coming and saying, Okay, well, 15 of these, we’re going to go, going to make affordable, and with that, then they can build more units, so that, that’s Where that density thing comes into play the density bonus. And so we we have seen that is working. We are seeing projects that are coming online with an affordable component. So they’re going to be mixed in with the $2 million units. They might not be as big as the $2 million units, but they’re going to be in the same building and no. Is really going to know, you know, are you the $2 million homeowner? Are you the, you know, $250,000

Brandon Burton 25:07
homeowner? Yeah, I like that. I like when it can be blended in there and and you can’t tell, right? There’s so many interesting dynamics when it comes to housing, when there it comes to, you could maybe argue income inequality in certain communities, and when you get the higher density next to others, it just creates a lot of dynamics, but that chamber is perfectly positioned to be able to help navigate through those dynamics. So sounds like you guys are making a great impact there, and a lot of good headway. Is there anything else on the affordable housing front that you want to touch on before we move on?

Heather Kasten 25:48
Just you know that, you know, we’re still fighting that fight. Of course, there are some market factors. The influx of people moving to Florida has slowed, and certainly the market has cooled a little bit, which that is good for supply and demand and brings us down. It brings the market to more of a steady state. You know, for two and three years, it was on a left to right upward curve of pricing and lack of availability that, you know, lack of things on the market. And so that has cooled a little bit too. So I think it’s all of those things working together that are going to, you know, really help position our community to be, you know, more affordable for especially those key workers, like we talked about,

Brandon Burton 26:34
yeah, I’m in Texas, so we’ve seen a lot of that same, you know, type of growth. A lot of people leaving places like California and coming to places where they can buy a home for cash, and it prices a lot of people out, and then you get the congestion with the, you know, the traffic. And so it’s a continual problem, but we don’t have as many of the nice beaches that Florida has. So I mean, that just really compounds your guys’s problem there. So, but Heather, I wanted to ask, on behalf of those listening who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them towards accomplishing that goal?

Heather Kasten 27:13
I would say one thing that we have done that has really made a difference is really being intentional about taking care of your team. And we have put together the last two years a we call IT staff engagement committee that meets once a month to plan various things for us to do. It can be things like visiting, getting a behind the scenes tour at the airport. It could be touring, you know, an attraction here locally, it could be just going out for a happy hour, being very intentional. And we’ve also made a pretty significant investment into what I call like a team coach, someone who is working with us as a team, helping us to work together. You know, chamber life. It’s, it’s awesome, it is super fun, but it’s also exhausting. It’s always one thing, you know, one event to the next. It is, you know, you’re constantly out there hustling for for members, and it’s a lot on an individual and a lot on a team. And so one of the best things that I feel like I’ve been able to bring to the table as CEO is for us, for me, to really support and and not just put my, you know, it’s more than just, you know, ordering pizza once a month kind of thing, just being very intentional with what we do with our team and our staff. And just for instance, we had a monster event, probably our biggest event of the year last week. It was our Sarasota business awards of 600 person lunch with 10,000 moving parts. And you know, going into this week, I just was like, You know what we’re I’m going to call close the office on Thursday too. So this week, the team is going to have a four day weekend. And I think you can never invest in your staff. You the payback on that is tenfold.

Brandon Burton 29:12
Yeah, I love that. The whole idea of having a staff engagement committee, I think, is very intentional to make sure that their needs are being met, and making sure that burnout doesn’t kick in sooner than it should.

Heather Kasten 29:27
And also just the flexibility, you know, I will say that our chamber, I have someone who likes to get here at 5am every morning. Now he’s out earlier in the afternoon, and then I have people that come in at 830 and go till five. And so just the offering people like true flexibility in how they do their job, and that has also been, I think, really rewarding and really helped to keep people here and engaged. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 29:55
that’s great. I love that, that piece of advice, I like asking. Everyone we have on the show about the future of chambers, and how you see the future and purpose of chambers going forward.

Heather Kasten 30:08
Well, I absolutely believe in the work that we do. I do feel like the model has to constantly be evaluated and tweaked. And so, you know, the days of kind of just doing the rinse and repeat and the networking events. I just don’t know how relevant some of those things are. And I’m constantly challenging our team to look at how we’re doing things and what we’re doing, why we’re doing them. I think you know really going back to, how do you best serve a business? What does that look like? Because it looks different than it looked five years ago, that and looks different than 20 years ago, for sure. And so I think just really being up on the wheel as to what your business community needs, and then being able to provide that, and also looking at some of the things that maybe in the past have just been done, like, oh, that’s just part of your membership. You know, are there ways to monetize some of the work that, that that you’re doing? And in being able to put $1 value to that, and that’s good that, that’s what keeps me up at 3am is, you know, what does that look like? How do we continue to grow and and all of those things?

Brandon Burton 31:24
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. Well, Heather, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information, so that way listeners who may want to reach out and learn more about these programs or how you’re doing things at the Greater Sarasota chamber, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you

Heather Kasten 31:41
sure. Uh, my email. Super easy. Just hkasten@sarasotachamber.com, that’s going to be the best way to get a hold of me. I’d encourage anyone to check out our website, which is just SarasotaChamber.com It lists all of the programs, all of the initiatives that we’re currently working on, but I’d love to hear from you, and would love to learn from you as well. That’s a great thing about chamber business, is that we can all share ideas and best practices and and, you know, all really encourage and help each other to grow and be better.

Brandon Burton 32:18
Yeah, we’ll get that in our show notes, so it’ll make it easy for people to find it and reach out to you. But it’s been great having you back on the podcast again. Big congratulations to you and your team for making those big impacts in your community. I wish you guys the best of luck in Philly, and we’ll see what happens.

Heather Kasten 32:38
All right, thanks so much. Brandon, I really, am truly honored to be on the podcast. Thanks for all you do.

Brandon Burton 32:45
If you are a chamber professional, please subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast in Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. When you subscribe to Chamber Chat Podcast new episodes will show up in your podcast app each week as they are released. If you’re finding value in this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. But most importantly, please share Chamber Chat Podcast with your colleagues that are in the industry.