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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.
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Our guest for this episode is Derek, rusher from the Kearney Area Chamber in Nebraska as president and CEO of Nebraska’s third largest chamber, Derek carries a fun and creative energy with him as he walks through the doors of the office each day. He believes in bringing about positive change and by fostering a can do attitude in those around him, and is proud to serve and promote the quality of life in their community. Derek maintains a strong commitment to leadership and public visibility, recognizing that both are essential to grow and sustain the mission of the chamber. He actively works to expand the Chamber’s reach with his hands on leadership style and innovative troubleshooting. This can be seen through how he relates to various organizations, through his interactions with the chamber, with Chamber members, individuals from the Kearney community chambers around the state to oversee their own day to day operations. Derek also serves as a chair for the State Chambers small business policy council, and an ex officio board member for the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Outside of the chamber, Derek is the founder and president of a nonprofit business impact art. Impact art is known for a variety of large murals in the Kearney community. He is subdivision threes representative on the board of directors for the Nebraska public power district. He possesses more than 15 years of experience as a teacher and many more former collegiate athlete and coach. Altogether, Derek is passionate about supporting the growth and education of others. His favorite motto is, do right. His attendant he picked up from his father. He lives with a beautiful wife, Maggie, and Derek continues to pass his teaching on to his five daughters. But Derek, 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 that are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.
Derek Rusher 3:08
Yeah, absolutely. Well, well, thank you, Brandon, it’s definitely blessed to be on your podcast. Excited to talk with you today and talk with the listeners, and I love the chamber world, I think, you know, going back to my bio, when you’re reading, you know, I was a, I was an art teacher for 15 years, and I was a former collegiate athlete, and there was not a lot of athletes that were art majors. And so that was pretty unique in itself. But I remember when I was was probably first hired back in January of 2018 and I’m sure a lot of our Chamber members and past leaders and current leaders were reading my bio. They’re like, what are we doing? We’re hiring a, you know, art teacher to lead our chamber. And so, you know, I was, yes, an art teacher, but obviously, you know, athletics had taught me a lot of leadership skills. I went through our local leadership class here in Kearney. And, you know, I started building my business at QM, actually through impact art, which was part of that, I was actually working part time for a company called Team concepts, where we where we will, do we, we did a lot of employee engagement, leadership development, some school programs, just team building in general. And so my background was actually pretty diverse, and I was always one to, you know, make sure I was, you know, stayed involved in continuing my own education. I was getting my master’s in administration, so I was building, you know, kind of my more professional development there and personal development. So yeah, in the day, if you just maybe saw art teacher, you would have been like, oh, man, what are we doing? But yeah, I got the, I think one of the things. That is a strength of mine, is my diversity that I that I brought to the chamber and also art. It’s that creative mindset, and I think that’s one thing that I brought to the chamber too, is kind of my creativity as a leader.
Brandon Burton 5:12
Yeah, I think there’s definite parallels without the creativeness that comes from art into the chamber world. And I don’t know why that needs to be a it seems to be a sticking point for people, and they’re like art like they don’t see it as a real major or anything or real career, but it is. People do, people do art, people teach art, people make a living with art, and it definitely brings that creative mindset.
Derek Rusher 5:34
No doubt I could, I could probably have a whole podcast on why the arts are great for kids and students and, you know, proven, there’s, there’s actually a lot of stats out there that prove that your test scores are better when you’re involved in the arts. So not just, you know, painting or drawing. I mean, it could be music, any kind of performance art as well. So, yeah, yeah.
Brandon Burton 5:54
So I’m curious, what type of athlete were you? What sports did you play?
Derek Rusher 5:58
I played them all growing up, anything that I could, you know, swing a bat, throw a football, shoot, shoot a basketball. I did get into golf later on in life, but, yeah, so I went to college to play football, and I was a quarterback, and then transitioned into wide receiver. I did. I dabbled in a little bit of high jump, actually, on the track team, but I went through a core workout for track, and I was like, holy cow, I’m here to play football. This isn’t too much setups and crunches and everything else. And so I went back to throwing the football during spring. Yeah, but no, it’s a great experience, and great teammates, and just the long life relationships that I have from my college teammates. You know, that’s, it’s pretty awesome. That’s
Brandon Burton 6:44
awesome, fantastic. Well, tell us a little bit about, I think I pronounced it wrong earlier, Carney area, chamber, yep. All right. All right, yeah. Tell us about the the chamber, size, staff, budget, scope of work to kind of set the table for our discussion. Yeah,
Derek Rusher 6:58
absolutely. So Carney is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the United States. So Kearney, Nebraska is right on Interstate 80. We’re positioned really well being on the interstate. I think that’s one of the advantages we actually have over our peers. But so Kearney is about 33,000 people, and our county is about 55,000 we have members from all over, but mainly, obviously in the Kearney area and then Buffalo County. Our chamber size is about 870 members. We usually hover right around that number. We’re we’re about a million dollar budget pushing that. I think one of the things that’s exciting is how we’ve grown as a staff and a team. And I think when I first started, we were about five staff. Now we’re going into six. I like big teams. If my budget could afford it, I’d have even more teammates. But for Nebraska, you’ve got the Greater Omaha chamber, the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, and then the Carney chambers, is the third largest chamber in the state of Nebraska. And so, yeah, we’re two hours west of Lincoln. If you’ve ever driven down I 80 and driven under an archway, we’ve got an archway monument that crosses over the interstate there, and so that’s that’s Carney right there. Alright,
Brandon Burton 8:28
fantastic. Well, I will be focusing our the majority of our conversation today around the topic of finding success through involvement and what that’s meant for you throughout your career, and we’ll dive deeper into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, Derek, we’re back, and as I mentioned before the break, we’ll we’re going to focus our conversation around finding success through involvement. So you’re coming with this art background, you found ways to get involved, to transition that into a chamber career, but talk to us a little bit about that, that story, that transition, but how involvement has really helped to catapult your career in the chamber world.
Derek Rusher 10:52
Yeah, I think what I found is, you know, I’m a people person, and I always wanted to be around other people and then let lend a hand, whether it was through, you know, an artistic skill or whatnot. But at the end of the day, I just felt that, you know, I was always driven towards to be on a committee or be on a board or help out, however I could, whether it’s through our church and serving, or what it might be. So when I was actually teaching at the facility that I was teaching at my my last stop in my education career was actually at a juvenile detention center, and we had an accredited high school there, but I got involved in about everything that I could at that facility, Teaching these juveniles of Nebraska, and we built a confidence course, basically an obstacle course. We did landscaping with my students there, and then I would get involved in our gang team. And so we had a lot of kids that got caught up in gangs and so. And then I eventually led our gang team. I was on employed development groups. I was part of our teachers association out there, and so I just continued to get involved. And people saw, you know me as a as a leader there, like, like I said in my intro, I started our facility administrator asked me if I wanted to go through our leadership Carney, our local leadership group. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. So I did that, and continue to just find ways to get involved. And then I started kind of learning more about the extra the Chamber of Commerce, not knowing the job was even open, and at that time it wasn’t. But I had a friend that was on the board of directors, and so it would attend some ribbon cuttings, and just started continuing to build my network. And again, it was just making sure I was, you know, being involved in different things. A funny story, my my art classroom had a a lot of murals. We were actually in a shop, and a somebody from leadership Carney had toured my classroom because they knew I was alumni, and so they’re like, Hey, can we come tour the facility and come tour your classroom? I said, Yeah, absolutely. So as that person from the city of Kearney was walking through my classroom, they’re like, Hey, we were looking for a muralist, and I was pretty naive at the time, and they’re like, Hey, would you like to paint a mural? And I said, Absolutely. So I had a good friend that I said, Hey, do you want to? Do you want to help me do this? And his sister was actually an art major at the time, and so we tackled a mural, and that was our first mural, and we were not impact art at that time. And then after that mural, the VFW asked, Hey, we want to paint a flag on the front of our building? Who did that mural? So they put us in contact. And then Coca Cola was delivering beverages to the VFW, and they need a mural restored. And so we started that. So at that point, I’m like, Okay, this is a business. I need to get a business plan. So I wrote a business plan, and went through that whole process. And again, I started building my business at you, that board member that I talked about being on the chamber, him, and I hit it off. We had some different things that we shared, and one of them was the Clifton Strengths Finder, and he was a Gallup certified coach, and I just love leadership development. And so we started working together, and he hired me to work part time as a teacher to do different, you know, workshops with him, team building, employee development, employee engagement, leadership, and I still take a lot of those things today, and definitely helped me. And so all those things kind of catapulted me into this position. And the board member said, hey, when that, when this job opened up for the chamber. He said, Hey, I think you should apply. But he’s my friend, right, right? So I was like, okay, you know, thank you. But I actually had two emails that got in my inbox, and they were from just my network. I did not know the two people that well, but basically the gist of their emails were the same, yeah. Hey, this job’s open. I think you’d be really good in this position. You should apply. And that’s what really put me over the edge. And when I do things Brandon, I go all in. And so, you know, I did what I did, and now I’m here, so six and a half years later, I love it. And when I first joined the chamber, we had accreditation due for the US Chamber. That was a big thing for our chamber. It was the first year. I remember my board members said, Well, we’ve been four star. Probably can’t get to five star because of our size and different things. And I said, challenge accepted, right? And we were fortunate enough to get to a five star accreditation. So that was the first time in our Chamber’s history to be a five star chamber. That was a great learning experience for me. You know, I did not come from the chamber world and kind of that non profit sector, and so it was a great learning experience. But, you know, that’s just what I wanted to show, kind of our our chamber and our business community, to say, hey, here’s here’s how we’re going to operate, and we’re going to operate with excellence and and like I said, it kind of the rest is a little bit history. And what I love about my involvement and how I found success through that, that’s obviously one of our Chamber’s pillars, right? Is involvement and making connections and and networking. And then how can we help as a chamber, do that with others, and so I found success that way. Now I’m able to help our Chamber members find success as well through involvement. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 16:30
and you’ve been involved with with boards as well, that the it’s the State Chamber and the public power district. And how are some of these things that impacted your career and be able to help you, whether it’s connections or leadership skills or whatever that you’ve taken out of these experiences that have helped you be successful and really a relatively short time in the chamber world.
Derek Rusher 16:56
Yeah, it’s a great question. I would say that right before I was with the chamber, I got asked to be on our Junior Achievement board. And they do financial literacy with kids. And when I went through leadership, Carney, I had a one of the speakers. I’ll never forget, he told us, don’t be on a board just because someone asks you if you need to be passionate about that board was basically his, his talk to us, and so you’re going to get asked as leaders to be on boards, right? Everybody. A lot of nonprofits need boards and things like that. A lot of organizations need board members, but they said, make sure you’re passionate about it. And so that with that tie to education and working with kids, I was like, Yep, I think that’s a good board. Well, since I got on the chamber, as you can imagine, chamber presidents get asked to be on a lot of boards, and so right away I was like, oh man. And so I actually had to kind of sift through some of them and tell some of them no. And I served on one for one year, and then I told the director. I said, Hey, I said, I actually have a I actually have a chamber employee that’s way more passionate about this, and they would be a better fit. And so we did that transition. And I think it’s just knowing that you don’t have to do everything as a chamber president, right, as a chamber executive and and make sure you’re passionate about it, make sure it’s, you know, something, that you can add value as a board member too. Now going through boards, you know, you learn a lot of things, and I think probably the biggest step I made in my career was the decision to be an elected official, and that’s through our public power. So Nebraska has public power, so I was asked to be a representative on the board of directors for Nebraska public power district. I had a campaign talk about learning a lot about campaigning and politics there and all the things that go along with it. Obviously, there was a lot of parts that I liked about campaigning. There was a lot of stuff that I did not like, and it’s just some of it’s ugly, but in the day, going through that process was a big learning experience, and something that I definitely do not regret, and I’ve been on that board since it’s about about 20 months now. And what a fascinating business, because it’s, you know, power, the the energy industry is probably the most capital intensive industry there is, and so the sticker shock was a little crazy, right at first, because we’re dealing with millions and billions, and I’m not used to that as a chamber of commerce, right? And a little impact art business as a nonprofit
Brandon Burton 19:33
guy over here, yeah, yeah, I remember
Derek Rusher 19:38
one of my first meetings, they were saying, we’re going to refurbish this piece of equipment, and it was like 900 some $1,000 and I’m like, wow. I’m like, Well, what’s a new one cost? And they’re like, 5 million. I’m like, okay, refurbish. It is. And, you know, as as as I want to be the best BOARD MEMBER I can be, you know, and that preparation, I’ve found a way to. Uh, you know, get through all of the board packets and all information and just educate myself. And it’s been wonderful. And then the board meetings itself and how they prepare, and just their organization. It’s such a robust organization. I’ve taken some things that they’ve done and tried to right fit them for our little chamber of commerce. And so it’s definitely added value there. And again, I think having a business representative on that board, having a, you know, somebody that’s tied in and has a pulse in the business community, I think it’s really added value that way, as well, on that board of directors. And so it’s been a great experience. It’s a six year term, so I would love to stay on that board for probably two terms. I think that’s probably the right amount, but it takes a long time. I mean, talk about drinking from the fire hose when I started the chamber, yeah, mppd was nothing like that. I mean, it was just, it was like three fire hoses. It’s crazy to learn all the ins and outs of that, but I would say my advice for I think the chamber executives that are listening would be be on a board, not just because you got asked, make sure you’re passionate about it, make sure that you’re able to add value and then take something away as well. We should always continue to learn. I’m a lifelong learner. I believe in that. That’s my education background. That’s why I got my administration, education Education Administration degree. I got my master’s when I was still here at the Chamber of Commerce. Because there was a multiple reasons. I started it, I wanted to finish it. There was a lot of things that overlapped. I mean, every single Master’s class I had talked about communication. And so there’s a lot of great things that I learned through my master’s classes. And I also want to show my kids, you know, I got five daughters. I want to show my kids. My kids that, hey, education is important, and it still is. Yeah, I
Brandon Burton 21:47
especially like your your thoughts about board service and to only serve on boards you’re passionate about. And for any chamber executives listening they they know the headaches of working with a board member who’s not passionate about the chamber, or, you know what they’re supposed to be there, showing up for and executing on, you know, plans of action and things like that. And if you’re not able to show up and give your best self, it’s okay to say no, it’s okay to delegate to somebody else. It’s okay to pass up an opportunity if it doesn’t align with, you know, the mission that you’re, you know, being driven by, in this case, with the chamber, or personal values even, but it’s okay, and I think that organization would appreciate no thank you versus a Okay, I’ll do it on top of my already busy plate, and I’m not really going to give it all the time and effort and Energy it deserves, right,
Derek Rusher 22:41
right? Well, I think that’s part of my reason to be on the small business policy council, because I know it adds value to our Carney businesses. And so at the state level, we have a representative, and I’m actually pregnant is only serve one more year there. I’ve talked to the State Chamber, and I’m going to serve one more year because of just timing of things. And I’m ready to, you know, hand over the reins of someone else. You know, there’s someone else that definitely has earned that spot to be the chair of that business council, but I think that’s that at the end of the day, yeah, just be passionate about the boards that you’re serving on and making sure you can add value for sure.
Brandon Burton 23:15
So in this involvement with these different organizations, different boards, nonprofits, these different ways you’ve you’ve been involved, you’ve been intentional about being involved. Can talk to us a little bit about how your network has been affected, and kind of rubbing shoulders with people in these groups, and just how that’s impacted you. Well,
Derek Rusher 23:35
my kids don’t like to go in public places with me. You know, I didn’t do it really, to, like, selfishly, honestly. I mean, I did it because I truly, I think I love serving, I love what I do, and that’s why I ran for the Nebraska public power district board. Yeah, I didn’t understand everything in the industry, but I just felt like pulled to serve, and so that’s really has been my intent. Now, what it’s done, obviously, is my connections and network has grown tremendously, and I don’t know everything. And so now I have a phone with friend, but I’ve got a lot of friends that I can call on or email and contact and say, Hey, have you guys ever dealt with this, right? And, yeah, there’s forums out there, you know, there’s Facebook groups out there that you can, you know, put a put something out there and get some responses. But when you have a closer relationship, right? And you’ve maybe served together or been on a committee together, you know, that’s a lot easier to get a response from. And so when I can pick up the phone or shoot an email over to somebody or text them, that’s what it’s really done. Because, again, I don’t know everything, and I don’t claim to know everything, and I’m I’m always one that’s always saying, Hey, you. What I like this idea, but let’s see what this chamber is doing, or let’s see what this business is doing, and how can we operationally be better? Because that’s me. I’m I’m in, I’m competitive, and I want to be the best, and so maybe that’s a little bit of my servant leadership, I suppose, and why I want to be on different boards and committees and be involved. But I’ve also, I like leading. I like, you know, being at the front and leading. And I’m a very visionary guy. I’ve got big ideas. I like to move fast. And I know my cons of my leadership too. I know what I’m, you know, moving fast is not good for all my teammates, so I have to slow down. And I don’t I remember, when I first started the chamber, I would present a bunch of ideas, and I’ve learned to present one. Hey, here’s something I think we can focus on, because I’ve got leaders that are very supportive leaders, right? And they’re, they’re the ones that are great at getting all the details and all those things. Well, if I present all these ideas, my other leaders and my on my team are going to be like all the work. They don’t see that. And I’m just, I’ve got all this, you know, this big picture stuff. And so I think it’s, I think it’s wise of me to understand the pros of my leadership and my strengths, but then the cons, right? And maybe what I’m not good at, right? We’re all Swiss cheese, right? We all holes. And I’ve got a great team right now that fills the holes of my leadership and my strengths and what I need to improve, or my weaknesses for lack of better words. And that’s where we are, and we really focus on that. We focus on our strengths as a team, and I’ll continue to do that with any committee I’m on and and knowing people that way. And it’s definitely I found success that way.
Brandon Burton 26:45
I can really appreciate you kind of bridling your your creativity, your ideas, and being able to instead of taking the list of 10 or 15 ideas to say, here’s one for your team, and really as a leader, that’s going to drive your team to be creative and to be leaders as well. Because introducing one idea at a time, they might catch the vision and say, what if we add this too? And it may be something you had on your list of ideas, but letting them drive that helps to build them up as well, which I think is super important,
Derek Rusher 27:18
and that’s the chamber world we’re in right now, right? I think we need to be creative and innovative.
Brandon Burton 27:24
Absolutely. Derek, as we start to wrap things up, I wanted to ask for 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 and trying to accomplish that goal?
Derek Rusher 27:39
This is a great question. Um, obviously very subjective, but I would hope that all Chamber members just love their current members. One thing I learned right off the bat, I had this lofty goal, right? I’m competitive. I wanted to grow our membership, and so I had a membership growth goal, and then I had a retention goal as well. And then I would say, shortly, and probably less than a month, I squashed the growth goal, and I said, You know what? If, if they don’t want to be Chamber members, whatever, I’m going to spend way less time on recruiting, basically, and I’m going to spend time on retention, and I’m going to love the members that are investing in our chamber now, and we will grow organically, because I believe everyone wants to be part of something great. And so if we can be great and we can show that we are adding value, then we’ll grow, and we have slightly right? There’s the ebbs and flows, as you know, the members come and go, and we feel that in Kearney as well. But, you know, just loving your members. And then I would say the other part of that is, I kind of reference it is being innovative. I mean, AI is you need to embrace it as a Chamber of Commerce. My marketing director, Riley Mills, is phenomenal in social media and AI and all those things, right? And I just love the things he’s doing. We’ve got some really neat, innovative things with making like tiktoks and reels, and he would explain it way better than I but he’s making custom songs for businesses using AI, and it’s awesome, so cool. It’s so cool. And so, you know, there’s a lot to it. I know you can, you know, you got your your recording meetings and all those things. And obviously, I think everybody’s using, you know, chat, GPT and things like that. But you need to embrace, I think, AI. But then also, what else is out there, right? It’s not just AI. We can’t drive our chamber with AI. And how can you continue to be authentic but innovative? And what is next? How can we kind of stay above that business community and see what they’re doing, what trends they have? And I think that’s going to be important for us. And one of the ways that we’re doing it, besides just looking at trends and trying to. Stay up to date on technology is we’ve actually decided to look at our facility, and we sold our building about a year ago, and we’re building a new building, and it’s a major investment, and we ran a capital campaign, and it’s taken a lot of work, but our new building is going to be a collaborative environment for our team. It’s going to allow our Chamber members to come in and work, maybe not quite have a straight incubator space, but there’s space for them to come and work. So we have small businesses, obviously, freelance and that work from home. We didn’t embrace that sector. How do we help the business that’s selling shoes on YouTube and making more money than all of us? Right? How do we help that chamber member now? Right? And then we’ll have a media room where you can do a podcast, you can do video, you can do photo. There’s flexible spaces where you can hold meetings or interviews and things like that. And so that’s kind of our strategic plan is looking at, how can we continue to add more value to our Chamber members through even a facility? And I think we’re super excited. We’re about 30 days away from moving in.
Brandon Burton 31:01
That’s awesome. I can feel the excitement. Well, 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?
Derek Rusher 31:14
I think it’s I think it’s relational. I think it’s really having close relationships with your Chamber members, the the adage that I’ve seen in our industry of businesses joining chambers because it’s the right thing to do, yeah, that’s starting to go away, right? And I still think though that, because still
Brandon Burton 31:36
the right thing to do, but Yeah, correct. Yeah, 100%
Derek Rusher 31:40
but now it’s like, well, what do I get, right? I’m going to invest in in the chamber. Well, what do I get? And how can we continue to add value? So we always look at, what other benefits can we give? And obviously, every industry is a little different, right? Banks need something different than insurance agents and so on and so forth. And so I would say that I see chambers going just more like on a relational and so building relationships and finding opportunities to, you know, have those opportunities where you can just continue to get to know your Chamber members, not on just a Hey, thanks for paying. And here’s your invoice and just a transactional relationship I’d call you need, I think then intimate relationship is going to be a healthy way to run a chamber. And then how can I knowing that chamber member better, you’re going to be able to help them better, because our answer is always yes. That’s our motto, right? That’s a chamber. How could can you do this? Yep, and then we figure it out. And so whether it’s marketing or education or advocacy or involvement. We’re going to tackle those things for those Chamber members. But you need to know them, right? And you need to get to know I mean, just be like your family, right? And that’s, that’s what we call it. We call it our chamber family. And if you know your family members well enough, then you can help them when things are good, when things are bad, whatever it is, and that’s what we need to do for our chamber. And so that’s that’s a tough task that is not easy, but I think that’s really where chambers can hopefully thrive in the future, is continue to build those relationships that you have. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 33:16
I think that’s key. Well, Derek, this has been great to have you on chamber chat podcast and share your your story, your experience, how being involved has helped lead to the success you’ve seen in the chamber. Or listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you or learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Carney. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you?
Derek Rusher 33:38
Yeah, I would say our website, obviously, is a stand, you know, a standard there, so kearneycoc.org, but then our Facebook, I think, is probably still our go to on social media. Yeah, we’re on, we’re on all the channels, but seems like our social media for Facebook is probably the go to there, but feel free to reach out. Even via email. You can find my email pretty easy on our website when you go to our team page. But we’ve got a lot of things going on. And you know what I love about the chamber world is you’ve got the old saying of R&D, rip off and duplicate. And so, you know, we’re looking at other chambers around the around the United States and seeing what they’re doing well, and we’re going to see if we can duplicate that and right fit it in Kearney, and that’s what we do. So yeah, I definitely welcome that for others.
Brandon Burton 34:29
That’s awesome, and we’ll get all that in our show notes for this episode as well, to make it easy to find you and easy to connect. But Derek, this has been great. I appreciate you and appreciate the experience you shared with us today. Thanks a lot. Well,
Derek Rusher 34:43
thank you. Brandon, appreciate you.
Brandon Burton 34:46
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