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Published September 14, 2021

Episode 138 · September 14, 2021

Chamber Chat Podcast Episode 138 artwork

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John Urbahns discusses Greater Fort Wayne Inc.’s pandemic response, five-year Bridge entrepreneur sponsorship, and choosing when to lead or support.

About This Episode

John Urbahns, then president and CEO of Greater Fort Wayne Inc., discusses its pandemic response and Bridge program. The organization contacted members, connected business concerns with government, created a resource hub, and delivered industry-specific reopening webinars. Its Bridge program paired corporations with entrepreneurs for five-year support that combined membership, mentoring, and leadership coaching. Urbahns describes 14 initial sponsors and 10 more in the next cohort, with 19 of the 24 participating businesses from underrepresented groups. These are the interview’s figures; the original episode page differs in its first-cohort count. He also explains community vision, United Front inclusion programming, and knowing when to lead or support. Roles, fees, and reported results reflect the 2021 interview.

What You'll Learn

  • Gather business needs before designing a response.
  • Provide reliable information across the community.
  • Identify gaps in the entrepreneurial ecosystem rather than duplicating existing services.
  • Make mentoring relationships long enough to support durable growth.
  • Combine sponsorship with coaching and participant commitment.
  • Choose the right partner to lead each initiative.
  • Measure results alongside inclusion and collaboration.

About John Urbahns

John Urbahns is CEO of Greater Fort Wayne Inc. in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He joined the organization in 2014 after serving as executive vice president of economic development, and previously worked for the City of Fort Wayne in community development.

Episode Chapters

00:00 — Intro and episode setup

03:55 — Greater Fort Wayne Inc. overview

09:12 — COVID response and reopening support

17:16 — Bridge program origin and design

22:27 — Entrepreneur sponsorship and outcomes

25:29 — What makes GFW Inc. work

28:51 — Finding your lane as a chamber

30:47 — The future role of chambers

Supported by Our Catalyst Sponsors

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App My Community helps chambers strengthen connections with members and their communities through a branded mobile app. The platform gives chambers a convenient way to keep local businesses, events, news, resources, and community information accessible in one place while creating additional opportunities for engagement and visibility.

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Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions

Title sponsor mentioned in episode intro.

Link not yet available.

ACCE

Referenced as the chamber awards context for the finalist series.

Explore Resource →

Greater Fort Wayne Inc.

Guest organization and chamber/economic development agency.

Explore Resource →

GFW Bridge program

Long-term entrepreneur-corporate sponsorship program described in detail.

Link not yet available.

United Front

Year-long DEI curriculum for businesses and individuals.

Link not yet available.

An Idea Worth Borrowing

Bridge entrepreneurs and corporate leaders with a long-term sponsorship model

Identify a gap between two strong parts of your local ecosystem, then build a structured program that connects them with clear commitments, coaching, and shared accountability.

• What gap exists between groups in our community that should be connected more intentionally?
• Who could sponsor, coach, or champion participants for the long term?
• How can we add light buy-in while keeping the program accessible?

Read the Full Transcript

Read the Full Transcript

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 138 — Greater Fort Wayne Inc. 2021 Chamber of the Year Finalist with John Urbahns
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: John Urbahns
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.842 Brandon Burton
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.
00:14.326 Intro Voice / Brandon Burton
And now your host, he recently started a small mastermind. He's my dad, Brandon Burton. Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. Thank you for joining us today for another episode of our 2021 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist series. Chamber Chat's title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Is your chamber struggling to drive the revenue it needs to support your initiatives? It's a common problem.
00:44.202 Brandon Burton
And one that our new title sponsor, Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions, knows a lot about. Doug and Bill Holman aren't just sales consultants, they're real live chamber guys with twenty plus years of chamber leadership experience. They know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else. And they're ready to put that knowledge to work for you in your chamber. Call the Holman Brothers today at six one nine eight five two one three nine one. Or check them out at holmanbros.com. That's h-o-l-m-a-n-b-r-o-s dot com. Our guest for this episode as we continue this Chamber of the Year finalist series is John Urbahns from the Greater Fort Wayne Inc. in Indiana, or GFW, as we'll refer to it as I go through his bio. But John joined GFW Inc. in 2014, and prior to his appointment as CEO in 2019, he served as executive vice president of economic development. In that role, he led an economic development team that assisted with 132 business expansions and relocations in Allen County, resulting in more than 7,800 new jobs and $335 million in new annual payroll. Prior to joining GFW Inc., John served as the director of community development for the city of Fort Wayne. Where he managed the city's strategic planning, land use, redevelopment, housing, economic development, and neighborhood service operations, and an 80-plus member team dedicated to excellence and public service. He led and assisted with high-profile projects at the direction of the mayor. John has facilitated comprehensive downtown and neighborhood planning processes. He spent much of his career engaging with local residents, neighborhood groups, elected officials, and business leaders to cast a visionary future for Allen County's communities. Over the course of his career, John has served on numerous community boards. He was a founding board member of the Fort Wayne Downtown Development Trust, the Fort Wayne New Markets Revitalization Fund, and Fort4Fitness. John graduated from Ball State University with degrees in urban planning and environmental design.
03:01.736 Brandon Burton
And is an AICP certified urban planner. He's a proud dad of three great kids and a lifelong Hoosier. John, I'm grateful to have you back on Chamber Chat Podcast. I know we had you on last year as a Chamber of the Year finalist. And if anybody wants to go back and and check out that episode, it was episode 79, which we'll link in the show notes as well. But John, take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions and and share something interesting so we can get to know you even better.
03:31.682 John Urbahns
Well, Brandon, thanks for having me. love what we're doing here in Fort Wayne, love what the chamber here is doing, Chambers Cross Country. So it's been a pleasure to to serve our community and I think we're doing a lot of great things in Fort Wayne and we'll talk a little bit about that. But the direction is good here, the growth is the growth is great and really appreciate you having me on here.
03:55.72 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about the Greater Fort Wayne Inc., give us an idea of your your organization, the size, staff, budget, that sort of thing.
04:07.694 John Urbahns
So Greater Fort Wayne Inc., you know, we serve as both the Chamber of Commerce for Allen County and Fort Wayne, but also as the economic development agency. So we've got a staff of eighteen people that that I tell everybody wakes up and sells our community every day. You know, we are the ones that are out talking about the the great things happening, doing programming, trying to attract investment here. Our our mission, I tell everybody, is about building a nationally recognized economy here in Fort Wayne and Allen County. And that's that's easy to say, but it's a lot harder to go out and do every day. You know, we're focused on on growing jobs, growing wages, and and growing the economy right here in our community. And the last the last several years have been a great run in that. the amount of investment that's going on in our community, both internal growth and external attractions. has has been great. you know, last year in twenty twenty, challenging year, but you look at the investment that's taken place. We still had 20, 20 economic development projects that we closed on. The interesting thing in those 20 is 12 of them were attraction projects. So they were new companies to our market. You know, typically 85-90% of our job growth is going to come from existing employers growing. and to see that that many attraction projects in one year tells us that we're really starting to starting to get where we talk about you know our mission being nationally recognized. People are starting to look to come here. And we're seeing the growth. We've seen one of the things we've watched very closely is our population growth and and within that domestic migration is a big piece of that. You know, from 1991 when they started tracking domestic migration to 2016, we were negative. In our community. And we've turned that around in a big way. In the last four years, we've had significantly positive domestic migration. So when you look at where people are moving across the country, you look at a map from Maine to North Dakota, north of the Mason-Dixon line, there's one state that has positive domestic migration, and that's Indiana. And within Indiana, Fort Wayne's been a driving force behind that, behind that growth.
06:29.782 Brandon Burton
Wow. That is that says a lot for the impact that you guys are having and and attracting people to the the Great Fort Greater Fort Wayne area.
06:39.15 John Urbahns
Yeah, we've we've you know another area we watch is building permit activity in our community. We had we had never hit a billion dollars of building permit activity until four years ago. And hit that in twenty seventeen. We've hit it each year since then, each year a little bit earlier than the than the next. high mark was one point six billion back in twenty nineteen. and we're on pace right now to exceed that in twenty twenty one.
07:08.374 Brandon Burton
That is awesome. Great job. Thanks.
07:12.087 John Urbahns
I feel really good about about where things are at.
07:15.906 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Well, I'm excited to to get into our discussion today, specifically talking about your guys' chamber of the year application, the the programs that were submitted in your synopsis. and as as everybody did, we'll we'll talk about your your COVID response in your community, as well as another program, your your bridge program you guys have there at your organization. And we'll get into that discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break. Are you looking for a year-round affordable and timely shop local campaign for your chamber or CVB? Look no further. Build a custom Eat Shop Play mobile app with App My Community by visiting AppMyCommunity.com/chamberchat. App My Community mobile apps are not just simple membership directory listings, they provide many more capabilities to engage with your community. Provide your residents with a robust events calendar. Partner with a local fair, festival, or farmers market to provide a schedule, map, and other resources to promote the event. Run a small business Saturday campaign any time of the year using built-in scavenger hunts. Allow your membership to communicate directly to their customers via push notifications. Your App My Community mobile app will be a unique member benefit, allow you to generate non-dues revenue with sponsorship opportunities, and best of all, Provide a valuable resource to your community. Please visit Appmycommunity dot com slash chamberchat now to receive ten percent off your first year of an App My Community mobile app. All right, John, we are back. let's dive in and and learn more about how you guys responded to the impact of COVID nineteen to your your community, your business community. What what sort of plan did you guys implement to to help guide your businesses through that?
09:12.492 John Urbahns
Yeah, I you know, COVID obviously hit all of us in a big way and in different ways. I I remember vividly being in my office last March 13th, you know, Friday the 13th, when governor president declared a pandemic and we were supposed to have a staff function in the afternoon and I pulled everybody together and said, Look, we need to let's sit down and talk about this, let's talk about How are we going to be here to help our business community and our and our community in general through the pandemic? And let's we sat down and talked about what are we gonna do, how are we gonna do it, knowing that on Monday the 16th, we probably weren't gonna come back in the office because the state was probably gonna shut down, which which did occur. You know, the first thing we did, The the great thing about the role that we're playing in our community is we're really that trusted advisor and we're in that position where the business community trusts us, but government also trusts us. And we're able to play that liaison role. So the the first thing we did that first week was said, look, we're gonna call all 1400 plus members and and talk to folks and see what they're worried about, what impacts they're already having, what are their challenges, so that we could provide We could provide information back to our government officials that were asking us questions. Hey, what's how is business being affected? What's going on? What are they hearing? What do they need to know about? so we were able to have those conversations with our investors and our members and and relay information to to the to the city, to the county, to the Department of Health, to our state elected officials, and to our federal. Delegation as well, about here's the impacts that that are going on here. And then vice versa, being able to to help our businesses understand what was going on at the government level. You know, as things started to come out, like the CARES Act and and essential essential lines of work, you know, there's a lot of questions. Are we essential? How do we make sure that we're declared essential? What do what do our employees need if they're
11:22.136 John Urbahns
They're gonna be driving to work. Are they gonna get stopped? Or do they need do they need paperwork? What's in the CARES Act? And that's where we could step in and say, you know, you don't need to run read the thousand pages. Let us, let's, let us digest it, let let us help you understand what's in it. making sure that we connected folks through the PPP process or the paycheck protection program and the EIDL loan process. We created that clearing house so that people could get the right information. we created a resource hub on our website that had all that information. We we were working with providers on on PPE, you know, making sure that businesses understood where they could where they could get PPE, or if they were shifting manufacturing and producing PPE, how could they make sure that people knew that was available? you know, working with our local Homeland Security Office in Collecting PP from businesses for our first responders. Because that was a big people forget how big of an issue that was right at the beginning. Making sure that they had that. those were some of the initial ways that we really provided value both to business, but also to our government partners as well. Yeah. And then really, and then we really shifted quickly into a reopening phase. And You know, I I know every state reopened in a different fashion, but Indiana was very Indiana was kind of very quick to to to start to move towards reopening. And I think Governor Governor Holcomb and the the team here in Indiana, I think very effectively handled the pandemic as best they could and really kept businesses going as much as they could. But we worked with our Department of Health. and our local hospital system on a roadmap to a healthy reopening. And that was one of the things we talked about in our ACC application was you know the the general response, but also this specific webinar series where we ended up working with let's say the Department of Health and the one of the hospital systems on on a webinar where we had 17 industry specific webinars focused on making sure that businesses had the right information.
13:42.2 John Urbahns
From the health department and from health professionals that they needed to keep their employees and their and their their customers safe in reopening. we ended up with over 12,000 views on on these different webinars that were you know hosted live but then placed out on our website for people to view later after the fact. But talking to thing, talking to folks about social distancing and and masking and the pluses and minuses and and things that they needed to be doing and thinking about within their own workplace to keep people safe so that they could reopen. and we heard from a lot of a lot of members that that was vital information to get help get them back back to work, get kids back in the classroom, get get employees back into the into the work sites.
14:35.99 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Yeah. And as you're relaying how things, you know, the the shutdown process and the reopening, I know it it opens some some wounds for some people as they hear that and kind of that nightmare of of what that experience was like. But I think just being able to to hear how other communities, how other chambers handled it is it's valuable. hopefully we never see anything like that again, but it's that That preparation, right? To be able to to have an understanding just in case something happens, how can you react quickly? 'Cause if you aren't quick about it, it really doesn't matter.
15:13.698 John Urbahns
Yeah, I think that is the the timeliness of getting information out and the right information was very key in this. And it was, you know, it was something that none of us had ever gone through. We had never had to had to deal with this and and the shift in in just normal activity within the office. You know, we all of a sudden were a hundred percent virtual like everybody else. And thankfully we had a team that was ready to, you know, shift programming to to Zoom and other platforms and I I know a lot of people say they didn't miss a beat and we all missed a beat, but we recovered and and moved it, shifted, shifted it very quickly to keep things keep things moving forward. actually grew membership throughout throughout COVID, which I know a lot of people that didn't happen everywhere, and a lot of people were very concerned about that. But we grew membership and and part of it was the webinars and everything else we did, we opened that up. It wasn't about or fourteen hundred members only. It was about the entire community. Making sure that they had access to the webinars, they had access to the data. It wasn't a you're a member, you're not a member. It was we're gonna do this for the community.
16:28.078 Brandon Burton
And I wonder going forward, you know, either at your chamber or even at other other chambers, what sort of programs will continue forward that are inclusive of all businesses in the community, regardless of member versus non-member. And obviously there's gotta be a benefit to being a member, but I think that opens the eyes as to showing the value that the chamber can offer to the business community.
16:51.384 John Urbahns
Yeah, there's gotta be a value to the membership and there's gotta be you know, it is a mem we are a membership organization, but at the same time, we feel our role is to advance the economy of our community. And that's that's everybody.
17:04.397 Brandon Burton
Yeah, absolutely. Well let's let's take a shift here and and talk a bit about your other program that you guys submitted on your application, your your bridge program. Tell us about that.
17:16.91 John Urbahns
The Bridge program is program we started just a couple years ago. And it really started with an analysis we did. we brought Chris Heivly from Techstars, he was the founder of MapQuest into our community to do a review of our entrepreneurial ecosystem and some of the challenges we were having in that and and looking at some of the gaps that we had. And one of the gaps that that that we identified through that and that we felt we had a role in playing. We didn't we didn't want to we have several entrepreneurial support organizations and we didn't want to do something that somebody else was doing but we found this gap that we believed existed in the connection between our great entrepreneurial community and our great corporate community and we have these two great communities but they didn't really intermix and connect and we said how can we How can we help improve that? How can we help connect the corporate leaders and the entrepreneurs? And we ended up creating the GFW Bridge program where we were trying to bridge that gap. And the idea was that two years ago in year one, we we lined up 14 corporate sponsors that said, we're gonna come in and help an entrepreneur, not just not just come in and help with a little business planning or a little coaching for you know a few months or a year. We're gonna create this five year marriage between a corporation and an entrepreneur. And first question was how how many entrepreneurs are we gonna get to do this? you know, entrepreneurs, you know, one of some of the critics told us, well, they're not gonna want to be involved in the chamber. You're you're kind of old school. And and you know, we had to get across to them. You know, we we pride ourselves on saying we're not your grandfather's chamber, you know, we are different. and we ended up with over forty entrepreneurs applying for the program. we identified about twenty-five of them and then took those to the corporate sponsors and said, here's all the here's all the entrepreneurs we have, you know, kind of explain their company, no names, no faces. And the the corporation will sponsor that company for five years in, you know, membership in our organization, but also then helping with programming and and kind of being that that
19:39.416 John Urbahns
confidant that they can they can lean on and and work with. You know, those 14 companies selected an entrepreneur that they wanted, all but all but one got their first choice. So there's a there's a lot of a lot of great a lot of great companies. We we started a second cohort of that last year with 10 more companies and 10 more entrepreneurs really focusing the new ones on all underrepresented populations. So look really looking at how we can help minority, female owned, veteran owned businesses. And the thing I love is we focused all those last year on that, but 19 of the 24 that are now in the program fall under that category. So we now have you know president of the local bank working with a local individual who got a food truck that has now grown that into a bricks and mortar restaurant down on one of our down in one of our redevelopment projects in our downtown. You know, we have the the owner of a local Chevrolet dealership working with two young ladies on on on a housing decoration housing decor company, you know, really helping them grow that. It's it's been a great program where You know, these CEOs and these business leaders who have gotten involved are really now giving back. And like I said, it w it's not for that one year, this is a five-year commitment they're that they're making. you know, we have one individual that got involved, and he's the president of a a large medical group here in town. And he's now getting close to retirement, gonna retire later this year. And he said, Look, my wife and I are gonna continue to sponsor them for the next three years. And you know, the business can take on another one. But we're gonna keep we're gonna keep the group that we're working with and we're gonna keep working with David and help him grow this grow this business because we believe in it so much. you know, he's been leading that group for 30 plus years, and now he's really bought into helping somebody build their business and build their dream. I think the thing that we have seen is that it's really been able to accelerate the growth of these businesses.
22:04.616 John Urbahns
Yeah. We've we've got a long a long entrepreneurial history in our community, you know, from the washing machine and the T V to you know, a lot of other magnet wire, a lot of great stories here. What's the ne what's the next big story? And these these corporate leaders have been able to come in and they're helping the entrepreneurs grow their companies.
22:27.936 Brandon Burton
Yeah. I love hearing those stories and hearing the that sponsorship, like the this this gentleman retiring but wanted to continue that sponsorship and reminds me of a a quote that I had seen. And I wish I could attribute who said it. I'm horrible at at the attributions, but it it said something to the effect of there's not a person out there that you could meet that once you learn their story, that you would appreciate them, you would you'd have a love for that person. And the fact that you've If I heard you right, 19 of the 24 entrepreneurs involved in this program are some sort of a like a minority type owned business. And oftentimes these corporate, you know, people that are being matched up are probably going to be from different backgrounds largely. and it gives them an opportunity to to get to know somebody they might not normally know and to develop and maybe in in a business sense, it's not the right terminology, but develop a love. For these people in the community and and want to see them succeed.
23:30.274 John Urbahns
Yeah, they are they are developing that. You know, they're developing friendships, they're developing connections that just spawn into other connections. And it's really helping bring bring those two groups together, which is exactly what we want to do. We wanted to bridge that gap. we've got two cohorts going through. We're gonna look to continue to grow that each year and add an additional cohort. and I think it's I think it's a great program. We'd love to talk to anybody about it. I think it's a model that that could be replicated in any community. You know, you all have entrepreneurs, you all have corporate leaders, and my guess is you probably have a gap that you can you can help bridge.
24:11.342 Brandon Burton
So and maybe I missed it, but with the entrepreneurs, is there anything beyond applying that they need to do to to get involved with the program? I mean, they apply and get selected, but there's no cost to them because they're being sponsored by the corporate, right?
24:25.24 John Urbahns
So there is a s we have a small cost to them. there is, you know, it's like fifty dollars that that they're paying. The the company's paying a thousand dollars a year to sponsor them. Okay. So we wanted a little bit of buy-in. That's we did not want it to be any sort of barrier. and then we work with we work with the entrepreneurs as well. We we do a lot of leadership programming through our organization. And our the person that runs our leadership program. then provide some specific leadership coaching to both the the entire cohort of entrepreneurs, but also on an individual basis. So you get some specialized coaching along the way as well.
25:05.024 Brandon Burton
I love this. This is a this is one of those models that I can see another organization taking and running with, you know, some of the the chambers listening. This is something that's very adoptable for that inclusion.
25:18.262 John Urbahns
It is very adaptable, it's very scalable. It is it's a program that I would encourage any chamber to give us a call and talk about. We'd love to love to talk with anybody.
25:29.066 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. So I wanted to ask you, I mean, this is second year in the row as being selected as a chamber of the year finalist. You guys are doing something right there at Fort Wayne. from your perspective, what's that secret sauce? You know, what is it you guys are doing that that others can learn from that you think is, you know, makes greater Fort Wayne Inc. something special?
25:54.466 John Urbahns
You know, I think the there's a lot of things, and thanks for your words, but you know, one of the things that we have worked hard to do is create that vision for the community. You know, where do we want to get to and challenge our community to invest in themselves, come together, collaborate. You know, we are we are not just a business organization. We are, you know, our board is a very diverse board. We have 54 members. Allen County is a very large county geographically with a strong urban core in Fort Wayne. We've also got a number of smaller rural communities, Amish community, large farming portion of our of our county. And we've brought a board together that really represents the broad aspect of the of the community and takes on tough issues. You know, our our board is is championed tax increases, you know, the local income tax. Side to to complete some significant projects that we felt were important to the business community from a talent attraction perspective. So we championed an increase to to fund riverfront development in our community. That's not something chamber boards typically do. our our board has gotten very involved in diversity, equity, inclusion conversations in our community and really bringing the bringing that to the business level. You know, we we we started a program last year called United Front where we're having a year-long we built a year-long curriculum to talk about significant DEI issues within our community. And we've got over 200 businesses and about 8,400 individuals going through this year this year-long curriculum with with monthly keynote addresses on different topics and role-specific conversations. to to make sure we're bringing that to the business community and to the broader community for conversation. So you know, our core values of our organization are inclusion, collaboration, and results, you know, and and it's about including everybody, collaborating to make sure that we we work together, both public and private sector. But then at the end of the day, we're very results driven. Because if we're not if we're not achieving results, then our our inclusion and our collaboration isn't being effective.
28:21.346 John Urbahns
Yeah. So we we really focus on that. We we talk about that. we got a wonderful staff. The staff is is great. Board has supported us and helped us just continue to build.
28:34.764 Brandon Burton
Well, whatever you guys are doing, it it's working. So keep it up. so what would be maybe one tip or action item that you can offer out there to to people listening that they can do to help take their chamber up to the next level?
28:51.586 John Urbahns
I think that the key for us is making sure that we understand w understand what our lane is in the community, making sure we understand the things that we need to do. Sometimes it's leadership and sometimes it's support. And don't be afraid to s to say this is an area where we need to provide support and not necessarily be the lead agency. Sometimes folks get in the habit of, well, we need to lead everything. And and our philosophy is let's find the right leader, and sometimes that's us. And sometimes it's not. when it needs to be us, let's step up and do it. And it may not be a comfortable role to take. I I I think probably the a big challenge for chambers is get out of your comfort zone. You know, don't be afraid to to be that catalytic leader to step up and say, This is what we need to do. and then work with the right partners to get it done. That's the that's the We don't you know, from an economic development side, I talked about, you know, the number of wins and the great investment we're seeing. those are the community wins. They're not greater Fort Wayne Inc. wins. Those are the community. Those are how do we work together with our cities and our counties and our private sector partners to get things done? How do we build the right, the right environment for for th for things to happen and then help make them happen?
30:15.094 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I think that's great. I love that idea of just understanding understanding your lane. And are you going to take the the leadership role or support role? What what's the best fit? Who is the best leader for this? so I know I asked you this question last time I had you on the podcast, but now there's been a year and a year's worth of different perspective, especially as we've gone through this COVID experience, this pandemic. as we look to the future, how do you see the future of chambers and their their purpose moving forward.
30:47.032 John Urbahns
Yeah, I there is a role for there is a definitely a role for chambers moving forward. And we have to be adaptable, we have to be nimble, we have to to continue to fig figure out our role. the big role for us is being that convener, being the being the the group that can can sit down and say, let's let's let's come together. There's a there's a greater good than one side or the other. You know, when we talked When when you know looking at the Horizon initiative and one of the things that I I think is a key is that political and social fragmentation. And how can Chambers be that adult in the room that brings everybody together and says, you know, the the polar divide is not gonna move us forward, both politically and socially. How do we come together in advancing our communities, advancing our economies? And that is the that is the role of the Chamber of Commerce in a community. And that is something that that we're playing here in Fort Wayne and Allen County. And that's one I would challenge other chambers to do in their own communities.
31:59.18 Brandon Burton
I think that's so important, especially right now. And and I know as the the Horizon Initiative came out originally, I mean, we don't we didn't see the political and social divide that we do today. So it definitely was very forward thinking of how chambers fit in. Yeah.
32:14.648 John Urbahns
Yeah, very forward thinking and and it's it's we have to continue to to think forward.
32:21.012 Brandon Burton
Exactly. Well, John, this has been a pleasure having you having you with me today again on the podcast. I'd like to give you an opportunity to to put your contact information out there. If anyone would like to reach out and connect with you about anything you covered in our discussion today, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?
32:39.614 John Urbahns
The best way to reach us is on our website. You can go to www.greaterfortwayneinc.com. you can also reach out to me directly on my on my email. It's jurbahns@gfwinc.com.
33:02.284 Brandon Burton
All right. I will get that in our show notes for this episode, which will be found at ChamberChatPodcast.com/episode138. But John, this has been great. I hope you guys keep making the the the great impact in your community in in Indiana altogether. you guys are doing great things. So I appreciate you sharing some of those things that you guys are doing with us here on the podcast. I hope others got a lot of value out of that. And I wish you guys the best of luck with Chamber of the Year.
33:31.65 John Urbahns
Thank you very much, appreciate it.
33:34.998 Brandon Burton
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34:10.254 Brandon Burton
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