Turn a Job You Like into a Career with Mark Eagan

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Mark Eagan. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

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Introduction

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.

Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now, your host he believes that a level of stress is necessary to provide the traction for life. He’s my dad, Brandon Burton.

Brandon Burton 0:22
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

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Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is Mark Egan. Mark serves as president and CEO of the Capital Region Chamber and the center of economic growth based in Albany, New York. The Chamber and the Center for Economic Growth affiliate drive economic prosperity, with one voice one mission as one region. Mark began his Chamber career in 1987 and held executive posts with chambers in Mansfield, and Brockton, Massachusetts, and South Bend, Indiana. Prior to being recruited to New York’s Capital Region in 2008. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Stonehill College and a certificate and executive management from the University of Notre Dame. He’s an IOM at the University of Delaware and the Center for Creative Leadership is also earned his CCE designation. As Mark served as chairman of ACC and chaired his foundation and certified chamber executive commission. He serves on the US Chamber committees of 100. And as a past chair of the New York, Indiana and Massachusetts Association for Chamber of Commerce executives. And past chair of the Institute for organization Management Board of Regents has been recognized as chamber Executive of the Year both by the New England and the Indiana chamber executive associations. Mark, I’m excited to have you with me today here on chamber chat podcast. I appreciate you carving out some time to be with us today. And I’d love for you to take a moment to say hello to everyone out there listening and share something interesting about yourself. So you can get to know Mark Egan a little bit better.

Something Interesting About Mark

Mark Eagan 2:58
Well, terrific. Thanks for having me. And thanks for doing this program. It’s a great way to inform and inspire and connect us all over the country and different size communities, and how we can do our work with greatest impacts. So again, you thank you for you know, creating this, this forum. So you’ve probably heard through the you know, that that intro, I’ve been doing this for a long time, I can’t believe that, you know, that job out of college has now turned into 34 years later. But I guess the piece about myself as a relates to personal but also to sort of what we do for a living is, you know, I learned about business by the kitchen table, my dad ran a small business. So I learned about the struggles, but also really the rewards of of hard work. And I saw the relationships he had with other businesses in our community and what they’re able to do together. And I think, quite frankly, that’s sort of what spurred my original interest to get involved in chamber work.

Brandon Burton 4:03
Gave you a taste at a young age of what the power of a chamber could do. That’s awesome. Well take a moment to tell us a little bit more about the capital region’s chamber, kind of the size, scope, budget staff, that sort of thing and kind of set the table for our discussion for today.

About the Capital Region Chamber

Mark Eagan 4:21
Sure, well, I guess what I would say because of my career, I’ve been in chambers in all different sizes. So you know, some of you might be in a smaller community and you might hear what I when I say the size of our organization or budget, you might say well, this his comments are going to relate to me. And I really want I want to say is that you know, my my first chamber when I started I was the only employee and we had a budget of 100 $110,000. Our organization today that I work for has 32 employees. We have a budget of $7.3 million. We serve a Metro area a little over a million people. So, so I’ve, you know, gone through sort of the, all those phases of being the only employee or being in a couple community chamber to county chamber to a Regional Chamber and now more of a Metro Chamber. So hopefully some of my experiences can relate to everybody, no matter where they’re at.

Brandon Burton 5:26
Absolutely, you’ve definitely have seen the whole spectrum of chamber work. So for those listening, listening to what Mark has to say, because he’s he does come from experience from all different backgrounds and, and I think what he’s will share with us today is going to bring a lot of relevancy. Our the topic that we’re going to focus on today is specifically around the idea of taking a job that you love and turning it into a career or even a job that you just like and make it into a career. And I’m looking forward to getting into this discussion as Mark as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Topic-Turn a Job You Like into a Career

Alright, Mark, we are back as I kind of set the table before the break is we’re going to be talking about turning a job you like into a career, which is something that you’ve done successfully going from, you know that that chamber that you started with, with 110 members and, you know, to where you are now with the more of a Metro Chamber. I know I like having this kind of discussion with with chamber professionals, because very rarely does somebody get into the chamber world intentionally. Usually, it’s something you kind of fall into. You’d mentioned a little bit about seeing your dad as a small business owner, but why don’t we just start with with your your origins and chamber work and what made you fall in love with it.

Mark Eagan 8:09
So you know if remnants of my accent still give me away, I’m originally from Massachusetts, I live there now and 24 years or something like that, but some of that accent will never disappear. And I went to to those of you haven’t heard of Stonehill college, it’s it’s in Massachusetts. It’s a liberal arts college, they have these amount of business majors about 2500 students. And I, when I went there, I graduated in 1987. The economy was really strong. There recruiters on campus, I had multiple job offers before I graduated, and I walked across the stage to get my diploma with without a job. And I remember when I’d have an interview and have an offer my my dad would say, Well, why don’t you take it? And I’d say, well, didn’t really excite me. And you know, my dad grew up in a generation where, you know, I sort of joke the jobs were to provide not to excite. But it was literally it was two days before my graduation, I read this article in my hometown newspaper, about this new chamber of commerce that they had been, you know, it was had been grassroots developing, you know, members, and they had enough members to open an office and to begin to hire a staff. I thought, Boy, that sounds really interesting. And, you know, in my, in my clinical modality, they reached out to somebody who knew who was had been involved in helped create the chamber and they’re like, Oh, well, it’s a group but you know, we don’t really know where we’re going, what our focus is going to be we really don’t have any, you know, money to pay much and I thought this this sounds like such a cool opportunity. I had led a membership association. I know some sushi a club on campus and And so anyway, I throw my hat in the ring. I remember they used a local, like HR company and help sort of, you know, go through applicants and interview and they, you know, basically said to me, we’re gonna think we’re going to put you in the mix that’s going to see the board. But you know, basically you’re a longshot, because you know, you’re, you’re young, and you’re green. And, and, but we like to have a variety of candidates. And ultimately I get offered the job. But in quite frankly, I think part of it was, again, they didn’t have a lot of money, and I could be hired cheap right out of school, my starting salary was $15,000, in 1987. The, but they also, I think, they can see my passion. And they also knew I was from the local community, it was the chamber covered three different towns, I think they thought because I knew the community because again, my dad knew people that may be able to help them get members. So again, it just started as a job. But as a 22 year old, I literally had to, you know, go and pick out the you know, get get Office Furniture have the phones turned on, but it literally was a startup organization. They hadn’t. And I remember going to the first board meeting. And I said, you know, so what’s your first goal, and I said, my first goal is to get members went back the next month, Bobby, I said, I changed my first goal. We need to do something, we need to know why we exist. And why would someone want to be a member? And, and, and I remember, you know, you know, way back then, you know, used to having all these breaks through going through school. And then in college, I thought, how do you take this new job and get two weeks off. And you know, that kind of feel like I’m in jail. And and I remember my first year, I literally other than a few days and get away one time during the winter, I didn’t take any time off. Because I was just so excited by the work we were doing and what we were trying to what we’re trying to build. And again, to your point, it was, you know, still a job, but was a job that I felt like I really was I was enjoying and I could see sort of the rewards not just for me, but more importantly, for the businesses that we were we’re working with. So you know, a lot of times, chambers will work together. And sort of in that part of Massachusetts, we had this informal group, where we would we’d get together, I think it was quarterly with the execs and then certain number of times a year, we’d actually bring in a volunteer leader.

And the, again, I was three years into the job, there was a chamber that was nearby, that again, we were three years old, at that time that the Chamber I think was 77 years old. You know, by the time I left the chamber, we had a little over 300 members, this organization about 750 members that their exact was leaving. And one of those volunteers who had seen me at those meetings, reached out to me and said, we have an opening, do you think you want to be a candidate? And I thought, Well, again, this is going to be a stretch because I’m still this young guy that I have this experience here. But they saw something in me and and and I was hired. And that’s where I grew my skill sets in a whole different way. And I went from just you know, three suburban towns to an old urban city industrial city that had a lot of challenges, as well as the neighboring communities. So the lawn but I’ll I’ll take a

Brandon Burton 13:46
take a little pause there and kind of backtrack a little bit. It sounds like you’re a quick learner, you have to change your first goal. On the SIR early on to getting members to really saying Hold on, we need to figure out what our mission and vision is to get people to get excited about what we’re doing. But I’m curious in those first three years, how did you learn to run a chamber? How did you well, who did you rely on? Did you have mentors that sounded like you’re part of a regional group of other chambers. But what were some of those outlets and resources that you relied on?

Mark Eagan 14:22
A great question. And I remember just describing myself as a sponge, literally. That’s what I felt I was just soaking in from everybody. I could learn from a lot of my neighboring chambers, right nearby or other chambers in the state. So I started my job and July. And so again, I reached out to some chambers nearby to start with. I remember in January was the first state association meeting I went to, which was a big deal for me to sort of get real sort of professional development. And I remember then the that, that someone said to me, are you going to go to institute. And of course, my response was what’s Institute, I had never even heard of it. And particularly at that time, it was sort of a standard that most chamber folks did. Today, depending on the size of the chamber, it’s I don’t know, it’s as prevalent today as it was, you know, in the 80s. But as soon as I knew about it, my goal was to go and to find out, find a way to, you know, to find enough money for to pay the, you know, the, the tuition and all that to go. And because I was in the northeast, back, then it was in Delaware. And, and I remember, you know, back then you used to get materials that you had to read, and you have to use it to do a written test. And, and I remember, some of those materials I read a couple of times before I even went to institute because it was again, I was like, oh my god here, this is like someone to tell me how to do this. And back then I thought that there were things we were, when an idea would come forward by volunteers, sometimes I would call on, you know, sort of one of the deans in the area, to say, you know, can we do that, because I thought there was things that we could do and couldn’t do, and I realized, you can do anything. It’s really what’s the needs of your community, and you have the capacity to deliver. So it was really those, those those folks that took me under their wing, had a huge impact, and helping shape me. And then, you know, my connections that when I went to institute, I got to meet people that weren’t just from my state are really from the Northeast region, the country, and then it just continued to grow over the years.

Brandon Burton 16:50
So you went from the, this the original chamber, the smaller, you know, where you’re the, you know, the the chief cook, and bottle washer and doing everything, you’re doing the membership sales, managing the office manager, retention, the whole shebang, right. And then you get this new opportunity at a new chamber that expands your I guess, available skill set. So you had to learn some new skills, you had to learn how to manage people, you had to learn, you know, the probably a larger scope maybe of what that chamber covered. So what was that transition, like with the with this next step?

Mark Eagan 17:33
It was, it was a big one. Because, you know, I again, the the, the tri John chamber was my first chamber, again, because the three towns so as a creative name. And so as myself and I had a part time, like, administrative assistant, and we had like a contract kind of membership person, by the time I left, then the chamber I went to, I can’t remember the exact number of employees when I got there, I want to say five or six. But I think what happened for me at that next chamber was the first chamber, we were very much focused, I would say, as a, as a member of benefits organization, you know, our sort of whole programme of work was programs, you know, what are you registered to go to? It was, you know, pretty sort of transactional. And then go into my, to the second immunity. And as I mentioned, it was a, you know, you had a city of about 100 and 1000 people in the surrounding communities, and the city was on a decline. So part of it was how do you use the strength of the business community to help turn the community around? So that was probably when I started to realize that the chamber was more than an organization to serve its members, or an organization to help strengthen the community. And I guess the thing I would just say that sort of in addition to it, I always look to say, how do I keep one at that point, I realized, Okay, well, this is great, but who knows, someday I might want to be somewhere else and do something else. And so I remember it was I think it was my first ACC first ACC meeting I went to, and there were these. There weren’t even like breakouts because the conference was different back then. But it was like this optional sessions, you could go to sort of in your free time. Free time, and I went to this session about tourism. And one of my friends said, What the hell you go into that one on tourism from your community, you’re in, you know, does nothing in tourism. And I said, but I don’t know if the next community I might want to go to might have tourism. So I need to learn those skills today. And then, you know, long story short, when I did move to South Bend, Indiana A component of the chamber there was the Convention Visitors Bureau, we had six or seven staff people who just worked on tourism. So that was the example how’s it goes full circle?

Brandon Burton 20:12
Yeah. And if you’re already at the conference and the the informations being shared, why not be there be that sponge because you never know what that next opportunity is going to be. And, and for those listening, it may be something you decided to try to implement at your own organization that you’re that you’re currently at, and talk to your board about and say, Does this make sense for our community? But it sounds like I was going to ask you at what point did you realize, gee, this isn’t just a job, like, this is a career I’m going to be in this for the long haul. Sounds like it might have been then when you started kind of broaden the scope and think, you know, further down the road, is that accurate?

Mark Eagan 20:50
Yeah, I yeah, I think it is, you know, I was I, when I was at the, what’s called the mountain, it’s called the Metro South chamber, which is in Brockton, Massachusetts, about 27 miles south of Boston. And I realized that I felt like, I felt like I was getting into a routine there. And I was there for, and I was there for a little over seven years. And I said, I, I’m not comfortable with the routine. And so I said, Okay, I need to decide, am I going to look for another chamber job? Or am I gonna look for a different job. And I, you know, born and raised in Massachusetts, was always very close to, to, to my, you know, immediate family, my folks, my siblings. And but I realized, if I was really going to have a be my career, I couldn’t just say, Well, what other chamber might open up within, you know, a 30 mile radius. And so I, again, things are a little bit different today than they were back then. That was before, you know, larger chambers and higher search firms. There was a guy who used to work for the US Chamber, well being and said, Have you ever thought of living in the Midwest? And my response was what? And he said, You know, there’s he goes, there’s an opening in South Bend, Indiana. And he goes, when they described who they are, and the kind of leader they thought they might need, because I thought of you. And, and my first thought was my own literally, my only experience in the Midwest was changing planes at O’Hare, I literally had not been to any of the offices people refer to as the flyover communities. I thought, you know, what, I should probably explore this. And I did. Again, that was a huge step. Not just personally from the whole geography side, and sort of moving away from home. But the organization was significantly larger than where I was at. You know, the staff that I had at the Metro South chamber, I think we were seven people. There were 22 people on the staff itself, and it was going with nothing was familiar. You know, I didn’t know the community knew any of those things. So it’s really a test to say, Have I developed these skills, when I can go somewhere where I literally know nobody, but can, you know, develop sort of do community assessment, build skills, build relationships, and help maybe bring the chamber and the organization in the community to, to a different level, and it’s funny, I remember on my I was a newlywed going through that process. And I went out for my final interview, and my wife, they wanted her to come. And so we did a tour, we did do a dinner with volunteers, and she had a column and the next day, I was going to have interviews for the half of the day. And I remember when I left the hotel in the morning, that she said, Well, what do you think’s going to happen? I said, Well, this is the piece and I said, you know, I guess, you know, the next day, probably get a call saying, you know, they’ll debrief whatever. Well, I could walk from where the chamber office was to where the hotel were saying, I get back to the hotel room. And I said to her, then go away, I thought and she has what didn’t go well. It didn’t know they offered me the job right then. And, and, and I remember all these emotions going through me. And, and I thought through it, I said to her, Can you see any reason for me not accepting this job, other than it’s not Massachusetts? And she said, I can’t. And I said, I can’t either. I said, so if I don’t take this job. It means I’m going to look I’m going to leave chamber work, because I really can’t I can’t continue to grow in chamber work if I’m not willing to really make a big move. Obviously, the know you already know the rest of the story I, I took the leap. And, you know, my two children were both born there. And I, you know, had the pleasure of working in South Bend four and a half years.

Brandon Burton 25:19
Wow. So as you tell the story, it sounds like there’s a couple decision points. And and I think it’s probably similar to a lot of people’s career path where, you know, one decision point was making that choice to take on more learning, whatever level it is, but taking in stuff that you maybe don’t currently need. But then the big one is to open up the opportunity, or the idea of moving outside the area to be able to continue your career. How does that, uh, I know, everyone’s different in their, you know, their, their home life status, you had mentioned you were a newlywed at the time? How do you go about that conversation with I mean, it’s a big move. Some, some people have children at this point in their career. So you’re dealing with schools and everything, but what kind of advice would you have with the, with those kinds of discussions?

Mark Eagan 26:21
Well, you know, I think everyone’s different. And you and you have to say, you know, okay, you know, again, I totally push myself out of my comfort zone. One, just because the chamber and the size and the scope and all of that, but then again, the geographic piece. So you have to do what you know, you have to think it, read your own tea leaves. And I And again, I think the timing of children is important. You know, I think for most of us, you don’t want to make a move when your kids are probably a high school, if you can help it. You know, when when, when we made the move, when we move to, to Auburn, in New York, my kids were then in first and third grade. So again, it was ages that were easy, easier to adjust. And again, that was the move was, you know, for the sort of getting the opportunity that was there. But also the nice benefit was, you know, where the majority of our family is, we were 14 hours away for them. And now when we moved to New York, we’re two and a half hours away for them. So that was a nice added bonus to it. The thing I would also say if, you know, I have been so impressed of, you know, my colleagues that I’ve known for a long, long time, who maybe have chosen, not not because they were stuck, but they were chosen to stay in the same community for you know, 2030 years. And, and I give them a lot of credit, because, you know, in most cases, the reason they’ve been able to do so is they keep reinventing themselves. They don’t just sort of retire there and not tell people so go to work every day, you know, they challenge themselves that they meet the needs. And, you know, and you know, in for me, you know, while I’ve moved, I haven’t moved very much, you know, I’m only in my fourth chamber in 34 years. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 28:11
I think that’s a good point to make with. Some people choose to move Chambers as they develop their career in chamber world and others will stay in the same community they started with and stay at the same chamber for 30 or 40 years. But the you hit the key there is they keep reinventing themselves keep reinventing what the offerings are that the Chamber has to offer. And, and I’m sure they can see a similar path to when they first started at their chamber 30 or 40 years prior, and then, you know, towards the end of their career, to see how their chamber has grown because of the things they’ve learned and implemented and they didn’t just stay stagnant. So I think that’s cool

Mark Eagan 28:54
that we as Atari just personally, but I think even for our organizations, to fulfill its mission, we have to be willing to sort of challenge the status quo. And, and I guess what I’d say to folks that are watching and listening, again, who we’re all different sort of sized communities is the thing that I remember years ago, again, when I would, you know, read an article through ACC, or I would go to a conference or a state association meeting. You know, again, going back does really oftentimes, I was one of the smallest communities there. But I used to try to listen to what some of the larger communities were doing and saying, Hey, how does this relate to what we’re doing? And can I just scale it all back to a level? I think that was part of what some of the successes were able to have and part of the reason that I have grown, so I wouldn’t, you know, encourage all my colleagues to do that. Don’t look at something and say well, because we’re suburban, and their, you know, their city or because, you know, we have three staff and they have seven staff or whatever. I think that we can learn from each other we can we can grow together. And it’s really how can we have, you know, impact to strengthen businesses? And then how can those businesses, because they’re helping create jobs, create better opportunity for the people who live in our communities?

Brandon Burton 30:17
Absolutely. I love the idea of just being open minded as you don’t shut down ideas because the chamber that you’re hearing them from as much larger as a bigger budget or more staff, think, How can I take something an idea that I like, How can I implement it, maybe it includes a strategic partnership with an another organization in your community, maybe it involves outsourcing. So I mean, the opportunities are limitless, if you can be creative and stay open minded to Western. So I like that we’re having this discussion. Right now, as we’ve kind of worked through this COVID pandemic, we’ve seen a pretty large exit, I would say, of people in the chamber industry, either retiring or maybe going into private sector work. And that means there’s opportunities, there’s openings for new people to kind of fill these voids that are new to chamber world. So I’d like to ask you what would be maybe one piece of advice that you would have for somebody who’s just now getting into chamber work to maybe explore the idea of actually making it a career, not just a holdover job until something else better comes but to really fall in love with it and make it a career? What would you what would you have to say?

Mark Eagan 31:38
If you’re if you’re new, I guess I would go on from my experiences, going back to that analogy of the sponge, you know, try to soak in as much as you can. You, you know, in through the years, it’s not just learning from other callings, but, you know, learning from the volunteer leaders that we work with. And I have, you know, you also learn from the people that you don’t like what they do, and you learn what you don’t want to do. You know, I remember, you know, years ago, when back when I was still in my 20s, and, you know, one of my colleagues who sometimes, you know, would, you know, get so full of himself, and I would, you know, say to somebody, you know, forever like that shoot me. And because, you know, I think we have to realize that, you know, you know, the work that we do is important, but you know, we’re not the chamber, you know, we have the privilege of working there. But, you know, I, I hope that each of those chambers, I worked out that I had an impact while I was there, but none of them went out of business when I left. And, but I think that is we work together as a team and our community can make a big difference. And, you know, there’s opportunities I’ve had, you know, what, I’ve had folks in the private sector try to get me to leave and go to work for them. And really, what I’ve tried to ask myself is, you know, can I think of another career where I think I would find it satisfying? And that I could impact so many different people? You know, and I, the answer is I haven’t been able to, and that’s why I’m, you know, I’m still doing this every day. Yeah, during the pandemic, there were times where, you know, to say, Geez, how many more years before I can retire? But the reality is, you know, you know, recently somebody was talking about it, and I said, Well, you know, I, I started to work quite a few more years. But I said, even if I didn’t have to, I’m not ready to retire yet. You know, it still really energizes and motivates and inspires me every day.

Brandon Burton 33:45
So I love that answer. I wanted to ask you, since you have been at a variety of different chambers, you’ve seen the scope of the spectrum. Maybe, you know, a tip or an action item that you can offer to somebody listening that who may be trying to take their own their chamber up to the next level, what would be a piece of marking and advice?

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Mark Eagan 34:12
I guess I’d say is, you know, by looking look through my development over the years, a lot of it ties to my colleagues. Some of my closest personal friends are folks who I met, you know, over the last 30 years, and they’re in lots of different states. And in even in a we haven’t seen each other as much because of the pandemic, but we’ll still have the zoom call that we’re, you know, together. Because as we know, there’s nobody else in our community that does exactly what we do. So I wouldn’t, you know, encourage you to develop that network. It could be again, the Chamber next door, but it could be a chamber across the country. Somebody that you click with, you know, personally and professionally, if you haven’t yet plugged into whether it’s, you know, whatever your budget is, and leave him in school and your state association, or if you can go to institute, if it’s the right program for you, ACC, you know, even if you, you know, don’t have the budget to ever go to a program to go to their convention, you know, for a pretty minor investment, just to have access to all the tools and resources that are on their website. There’s so many best practices, you can’t just take it and duplicate it at your organization. But as I said earlier, you can take it and adapt it to the needs of your community and your membership.

Brandon Burton 35:39
Absolutely. So I like asking this question to everyone that I have on the show is, as we all look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Mark Eagan 35:55
You know, I guess what I’d say is, is, if we can all think back to why did chambers originally get formed? I think over the years science where we’ve evolved to isn’t why we got created. So you know, to my earlier comment about, you know, being a member of benefits organization, or is the purpose broader than that. And yes, without members, we couldn’t do our work, you know that we’re a membership based organization. But I think our mission can be more than serving our members. Because if it’s just coming to us, because of an educational programming or networking program, a for profit company can do that. But But if we look at it, and say, it’s really about strengthening the economic and social well being of our communities, we’re at a unique intersection to be able to do that. And there’s probably no one that can do it, as well as our chamber, whether we’re a community of 10,000 people, or a metro of millions of people. So I think if we focus on that bigger mission, you know, chambers are going to be here for a long time. But if we just that transactional organization, I think that that folks can question. You know, really what I direct value is,

Brandon Burton 37:17
I love that answer. I think, as the world changes around us that that core reason as to why a chamber exists is still to strengthen and develop their community. And I think that purpose becomes even stronger. As the world becomes more digital and money flows different ways. It’s even more of a reason to have a strong core within the community to build it and bring people together. So thank you for that. So Mark, as we wrap things up here, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for anyone who might want to reach out and connect with you about, you know, your career or anything you had to share with us today. What would be the best way for for someone to reach out Connect?

Connect with Mark Eagan

Mark Eagan 38:00
Yes, feel free. And I can I can put my email in here if I’m doing it with my glasses on. So hopefully, I don’t have a typo. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 38:12
And I’ll put them in the show notes as well.

Mark Eagan 38:15
So it’s meagan@capitalregionchamber.com. Feel free to send me an email if there’s a question or the resource that I can point you to if you want to set up a time and do a conversation, I’d be happy to do it. And my direct line, it’s 518-431-1424.

Brandon Burton 38:37
That’s perfect. And again, like I said, I will get this in our show notes for this episode, which will be at chamber tat podcast.com/episode 155. Mark, thank you so much for spending time with me today here on chamber chat podcast. I think what you provided is a lot of value to those listening, especially those who may just be getting into the chamber world. Mark is a great resource and, you know, a wealth of experience and knowledge. So hopefully everyone was being a sponge and soaking this up. But thank you, Mark, for being with us today.

Mark Eagan 39:09
Well, thanks for the invitation and thanks for all that you do.

Brandon Burton 30:28
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