COY Finalist Series 2019-Salt Lake Chamber with Derek Miller

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

Episode 32 — Salt Lake Chamber 2019 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Derek Miller
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Derek Miller
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.226 Brandon Burton
This is a special edition of Chamber Chat Podcast as I begin a series of interviewing the finalist for Chamber of the Year for 2019. I hope you enjoyed this series, but first, the intro. 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.
00:29.742 Brandon Burton
Thank you for tuning in today for our ninth interview in our special series of the 2019 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalists. This is episode 32 of Chamber Chat Podcast, and I'm your host, Brandon Burton. It is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your chamber members and your community. If you're new to Chamber Chat Podcast, please visit Chamberchat Podcast.com slash start. Where you can learn more about what you can expect from the show and you can also receive some valuable tips for some non-dues revenue ideas that you can use at your chamber. Again, that's ChamberChat Podcast.com/slash start. And before we jump into the show today, let's quick take just a quick moment to learn about our sponsor for this episode. Chambers are not considered for chamber of the year without having great programs and steady streams of non-dues revenue. I want to introduce you to a great affinity program. From Swipe It. In partnership with Chamber Chat Podcast, Swipe It is one of the best credit card processors in the business. With the Swipe It Affinity program, you can save up to 40% on your credit card processing fees at the Chamber and help your member partners to do the same. Chambers who take advantage of the Swipe It Affinity program can add thousands of dollars to their non-dues revenue annually. Please visit Chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C for more information and to request your complimentary cost savings analysis from the experts at Swipe It. The first 20 chambers to respond will qualify for free equipment to get set up. Again, visit Chamberchatpodcast.com slash CC to start swiping with Swipe It. Alright, and we are back. Our guest today is Derek Miller. Who's the president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce in Utah? In this role, Derek leads the business community in advocating and leading Utah's continued economic prosperity. Derek also serves as chairman of the Inland Port Authority, which is leading development of a global trade hub to serve the Western United States. Previously, Derek served as the president and CEO of the World Trade Center, Utah.
02:54.082 Brandon Burton
Helping to promote prosperity across the state by attracting investment and increasing exports. He also served as chief of staff to Governor Herbert and as a managing director in the Governor's Office of Economic Development for Governor Huntsman. Recognizing his leadership, Governor Herbert lauded Derrick as an architect of economic opportunity and innovation, and instrumental in transforming Utah into one of the most competitive and fastest growing economies in the country. Derek began his career in Washington, D.C. as a management consultant with Arthur Anderson and as legal counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives. He's a graduate from the J. Rubin Clark School and holds a Master of Public Administration from the Romney Institute of Public Management at Brigham Young University. Derek and his wife Laura live in Salt Lake City with their three children. They enjoy spending time together exploring Utah's countless natural wonders. Derek, welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. Please say hello to the audience and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
04:05.496 Derek Miller
Brandon, thank you for the invitation to be on the podcast. I'm excited to join you. you're you're going right off the bat with the hardest question of all. I thought you were gonna say tell us something about you, not something interesting. Qualifying word that's really thrown me here. I I thank you for reading that introduction. It it made me tired just thinking about all the things that I've been doing. But something unique about me would be I've never once
04:18.114 Brandon Burton
Interesting.
04:34.936 Derek Miller
put a USB chord in the right direction the first time. I keep thinking I it's a fifty fifty chance that somehow I'm batting zero in you know how you you know what I'm talking about, right? Like a USB chord. It has to fit in right w one way and I I I've never been able to do it the right way the first
04:54.102 Brandon Burton
It's a law of physics. Yeah, that you're guaranteed to go the wrong way with the USB cords, so
04:58.646 Derek Miller
I guess. Well I hope it's I hope it's a law of physics instead of just a personal defect.
05:04.812 Brandon Burton
That's good though. Can you share with us a little bit about the size of the Salt Lake Chamber so we can all relate a little bit better to the chamber and and what all you guys have going on there?
05:16.41 Derek Miller
probably the first thing I oughta share is that the Salt Lake Chamber is capital city in name, but statewide in our reach, our scope, and most importantly our mission. we d we act as the statewide chamber for the state of Utah. our founding goes back it actually predates Utah as a state. there are only three organizations in the state of Utah. currently existing that can claim that and the chamber is one of them. So we've been around for a long time as far as size goes, we we count our members in the thousands, not the hundreds. we've got members from all twenty nine of our counties across the entire state of Utah and it's a wonderful job to have. We're we're just north of about eight million dollars as a budget.
06:13.184 Brandon Burton
Wow. That is amazing to think of the Salt Lake Chamber predates the state of Utah as a state. That
06:20.194 Derek Miller
We just celebrated our hundred and thirtieth year anniversary. Wow of just last year. And so it's something we're not just proud of, but it's something that we actually take as a as a responsibility, standing upon the shoulders of great men and women, business leaders and community leaders that preceded us.
06:41.108 Brandon Burton
Right. Was there any kind of celebration for that or is there
06:44.042 Derek Miller
absolutely. Yeah, we we had a a great grand celebration. In fact we did something really fun. We went over to the original Commerce Building, which is just across the street from our offices today. so one of those original business historic business buildings in downtown Salt Lake City and there was put i in the corner of that building a time capsule and so one of the fun things we did was open that time capsule.
07:10.126 Brandon Burton
That is cool. What okay. So what did you find in the time capsule? I'm sure there was
07:15.576 Derek Miller
Really hoping there were either gonna be some bear bonds or maybe some gold coins in there. you know, we're thinking probably thinking too much about Indiana Jones, but you know, some of it we found a Bible in there that was pretty cool. We we found the original directory or roster of members, the founding members of what then was called the Commerce Club. And you know, it's just it's really interesting to think about the history, not just the history of the Salt Lake Chamber, but the history of the founding of Utah and and the West.
07:51.158 Brandon Burton
That is pretty neat. Lots of good history there. Awesome. So huh. You just shared some pretty cool things that make the Salt Lake Chamber stand out. But specifically in regards to being considered as a finalist for Chamber of the Year, what kind of things do you currently have going on, in your opinion, that are are making you stand out?
08:13.132 Derek Miller
Well, first of all, I should just say how honored we are to to be one of those finalists to be considered as a chamber of the year. It it is a testament to the men and women who work at the Salt Lake Chamber and their dedication to building Utah into a a great place for business as well as a high quality of life. And The team has done that. your listeners may or may not be aware that w the state of Utah is now going into its third year as the fastest growing economy in the United States of America. So l you know, little old Utah, located somewhere in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, that probably a lot of people that live on the coast couldn't find on a map, we're the square state with a bite out of the top of it, in case you're wondering.
09:07.363 Brandon Burton
That's right.
09:09.478 Derek Miller
but you know, for for for Utah to be the fastest growing economy in in the nation, as well as one of the fastest growings in in states in population, and and with a tremendous quality of life. That's not to say we're without our challenges, which I'm sure we'll talk about during this podcast, but it's something that we're not only proud of, but that we keep as our focus every single day here at the chamber. So I can dive in just to a couple of things specifically. You asked the question, what sets the Salt Lake Chamber apart? Yeah. And you know, that's a tough question because I'm not sure that anything I could say would make us unique. There's so many wonderful things about chambers around the country. but I I can tell you what we probably all have in common and that is on a constant basis thinking about how we add value to our members. And then because every state and every community is different, the answer to that question will be different. And what I think the answer to the question for us here in Utah and the Salt Lake Chamber comes down to a couple of things. The first one is something that we created in the last few months, and that is a foundation here at the Salt Lake Chamber. that's a fi acts as a five one C three charitable foundation. The reason that we created the foundation which we call Utah Community Builders is that we have found with our members a a strong and increasing desire to impact social welfare, to have an influence for good on community issues that you wouldn't traditionally think as business issues. let me be specific. you you will always have what I call foundational business issues of transportation, education, taxation, regulation. those will not change, at least not in my lifetime. But we find our members and the business community at large interested and engaged in a number of other community issues that have a business connection. That could include air quality, immigration,
11:31.946 Derek Miller
upward mobility, social mobility, intergenerational poverty, behavioral and mental health. And we created a foundation and created a board to lead that foundation at the Salt Lake Chamber specifically to focus on those issues.
11:50.046 Brandon Burton
Okay. So that's I assume there was some kind of feedback from the community that showed a desire or a need to establish a a foundation for that. What what was the root to say, you know, let's let's form this foundation and with this purpose?
12:07.842 Derek Miller
Probably a couple of things, Brandon. the first one being I think a rise in social awareness and consciousness by corporations, by businesses, large and small. they're obviously focused on being successful in the marketplace. They're focused on being able to provide predictable employment, jobs to their employees, to be able to grow, provide great products. but they're interested in in more than just that. They're interested in being participants in their communities, good citizens of their state. And I think it's more important than ever, and our members certainly agree that business should be looked at as a source and a partner for solutions. Often a business l is looked at for you know either personal or political reasons as a source of problems. Sometimes it's even held up as a scapegoat. for social problems and and nothing could be further from the truth. Our businesses, businesses around the country, they want to be part of the solution. And that was the one reason for the creation of our foundation. And the second reason was that we find more and more especially within the technology, the IT community, and with a rising generation of business leaders that they're so busy in in what they do, they have limited time for you know what you would call traditional networking. In addition to that, traditional networking for many of them is no longer a necessity because they have many other ways to connect professionally. And so we found that if with a lot in this group when we ask them if they want to become a member of the chamber Sometimes they have a false notion about what that means. They think, well, that's a lunch bunch group. And this was a way for us to refocus the conversation about chamber membership away from those misperceptions and have it be more initiative based. So where we were actually talking about instead of saying, Do you want to become a member of the chamber? We were saying
14:28.878 Derek Miller
Do you want to be involved in addressing air quality? Would you help us in addressing social mobility? Would you help us in addressing diversity and inclusion? And when we put it in those very real, proactive, engaged terms, we got a lot better response.
14:50.126 Brandon Burton
That makes perfect sense to me. It's about getting the right branding across to the these new generations that are coming through and trying to get on the same page as them and and resonate with them. It is. That's great. So I have to ask, with Utah being the fastest growing economy in the nation, what's driving it?
15:12.098 Derek Miller
Well, I think it's a sound business environment. businesses crave two things. they crave stability and they crave predictability. And that's what Utah has to offer and I hasten to add that that doesn't happen by accident. It doesn't happen by coincidence or happenstance. We've got a partnership with the Salt Lake Chamber and our local governments, our state government. very strong relationships with our federal congressional delegation and we work hand in hand to make sure that Utah is a fertile field for business and job creation. it's so th that's the direct result of that i to think that that you are going to grow jobs or grow your economy without that kind of intentional planning. and hard work is would be like thinking that a garden is gonna spring up in your backyard overnight by accident. I mean it just it's it's absurd to think that would happen. It's equally absurd to think that having a strong business environment would happen by accident. I I have to say that even success brings its own set of challenges though. And primarily in Utah our set of challenges are related to our growth. our Our fast growing economy, our fast growing population is bringing with it challenges in transportation, it's bringing with it challenges in water. we are a high mountain desert in Utah and water is our most limiting factor. And it's bringing challenges as it relates to quality of li maintaining our quality of life specifically around housing issues. Housing affordability is a huge issue. and something that the chamber has been actively in involved in.
17:10.144 Brandon Burton
Yeah. I know I actually have a brother that lives in Utah who's in the market looking for a new house and it's
17:18.657 Derek Miller
Well I don't envy him. It's it's tough. There's not there's not a lot of available I mean, they're building like crazy, but our the chambers involvement in this started with a study that we commissioned with one of our partners at the University of Utah, an or an institution called the Kem Gardner Policy Institute. And they they do all kinds of demographic studies, and so we went to them and asked them to take a close look at the housing market in Utah and they they found a disturbing trend and that is that our housing prices are increasing at a rate that if we cannot get ahead of it in the next ten to fifteen years we will find ourselves in a market similar to San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Seattle, all wonderful places, but all struggling with housing affordability issues. And then the the data also showed us that although we're we're building a lot, it still is not keeping up with the demand to the extent that for the first time in our state's history, we have more households to the tune of forty thousand four zero thousand households more than we have housing units.
18:32.833 Brandon Burton
Wow. So so what do you do? How do you well solve that? Forty thousand house. I mean, that's a ton.
18:43.54 Derek Miller
As we followed the root of the problem where where this data led us was to practices at a local government level that were making it difficult for building of homes at a rate that was necessary. And that can either be through zoning, permitting size of lots that were being required. there was a time Your your brother, based on his experience here in Utah, there was a time in our population center where a community could say, Hey, if you want to have multifamily housing, that's great, but just not in our city, move down the road. that time has passed. and and one of the the main things that we've been involved in as a chamber is to visit every single city within our three most populous counties to visit every single city, mayor and city council, to share the data with them, to talk with them about practices that they could put into place in order to have a a good quality of life, not just for their current citizens, but for their next generation of citizens.
20:02.638 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Well, I would think some of these cities would want to jump on that if they could be and they have attracts.
20:09.132 Derek Miller
Yeah. Yeah. We see some cool things already. Sorry, go ahead, Brent.
20:11.854 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I was going No, go ahead. I'm sorry.
20:17.366 Derek Miller
I was just gonna say I we see some cool things already happening. one of the smart things that our city planners did years ago was to put in light rail and commuter rail along the area that we call the Wasatch Front. The Wasatch Front r refers to the Wasatch Mountain Range and the front of of it is the literally the front of those Wasatch Mountains where Salt Lake City is located. That range extends along an eighty mile corridor with Salt Lake City being right in the middle of it, forty miles to the south and forty miles to the north, and then not very wide, only about ten miles wide because we've got a big salt lake. Hence the name of the city, as well as a a big lake in Utah Valley to the south of Salt Lake. And so this is a corridor that is extremely populous, a large metropolitan area. 85% of the the population in the state of Utah lives i along this 80 mile corridor. And thankfully for us, because of visionary leaders, we have commuter rail that extends along the Was Edge front. And the reason I mention it related to housing is because that gives us now the opportunity to start looking at transit-oriented developments, and you're seeing it happen already. with multifamily housing, multi use developments, including residential, commercial and retail being built around the stops of this commuter rail. So that's a positive thing for sure in our community.
21:51.064 Brandon Burton
Wow. Yeah, you know, initially I was gonna ask the question with being one of the fastest grow or being the fastest growing economy in the nation, it it sounds like things are great there. So what kind of challenges could you possibly have? But it's all that that infrastructure that you need to support the growth that how are you guys addressing the water issue with the limited resource?
22:13.076 Derek Miller
Well, it's all about conservation. And we implemented in the chamber working very closely with the governor and our state legislature what we call a slow the flow campaign several years ago. it's had a tremendous impact. We we're only going to get what Mother Nature gives us every year and and and then we're only able to keep what we can in the reservoirs that have been built. They're not gonna be building any more reservoirs anytime soon. So that we know what what our what we're gonna get and we just have to be better stewards of it, better users of that water. And so far we're starting to bend the curve, which is a good thing.
22:55.31 Brandon Burton
That's great. But I know we need to start wrapping up here. So I I had a couple of questions here that I wanted to to ask you. Based on what we've talked about today and what you have going on there in the the Salt Lake Chamber, can you kind of summarize maybe one action item that listeners can do at their chamber to to lift their chamber up to the next level?
23:18.988 Derek Miller
Well, I guess I'm Brandon, I'm gonna go back to what I was talking about with the foundation and that is to if you're not already doing it, my recommendation on an action item would be to get a group together of really civic minded business leaders and talk about creating an outlet through the chamber for this social awareness and desire for social impact. And it it has so many benefits, not the least of which course is actually helping to improve those social challenges by bringing business solutions into play. But then it also just I think sets a business in the appropriate light as being a partner for solutions to problems and countering the false narrative that that they're a cause of of problems.
24:10.331 Brandon Burton
So I appreciate that. As you were answering that question, I was thinking with you guys being more of a statewide chamber, as you have this foundation, are are the members meeting face to face or virtually, or do they all come together to as they get these action plans together for the foundation?
24:28.586 Derek Miller
Yeah, great question. As I mentioned, we've got this eighty mile corridor, so luckily for us, they can we can get together pretty easily. But we do have many partners and members and constituencies that are out in the rural parts of Utah. And so I'm on the road a lot. I go out and I visit our local chambers of commerce. we have quarterly gatherings of an association of chambers at the Salt Lake Chamber. administers an organization that we administer and staff and so through those meetings as well as just being out on the road, but please understand I'm not complaining, Utah is a beautiful state. So as much as I can get out on the road and visit different parts of our state, i I feel blessed to do so.
25:15.386 Brandon Burton
Beat's looking at a computer screen, that's for sure. Yep. So th the last question I had for you is I asked this to everybody I have on the show is as we look to the future, how do you view chambers of commerce and their purpose?
25:29.686 Derek Miller
Well, I look to first to our past and and as I mentioned we celebrated our hundred and thirty year anniversary. the same desire for a group to come together a hundred and thirty years ago is the same need and desire today and into the future, and I would use the phrase common ground. What a chamber of commerce does is to provide common ground. We are unique and different from a traditional business association. We're not just looking out for the needs of one industry, certainly not the needs over of one industry over another, for businesses, for elected officials, for educational professionals, at all levels to be able to come together at a chamber of commerce where problems can be discussed. where plans can be devised, where problems can can be solved through common ground and collaboration. That is the value of a chamber of commerce. What a great mission to be involved in.
26:36.2 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. Yeah. Perfectly said. Derek, I wanna to thank you for spending some time with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast and thank everybody who's out there listening and tuning in and being a part of the show. The show notes for this episode can be found at Chamberchatpodcast dot com slash episode thirty two. And Derek, I wanted to ask where can listeners connect with you if they have any questions about what was discussed today or how you're doing things at the Salt Lake Chamber?
27:04.622 Derek Miller
Please feel free to my email address is D Miller at sl chamber dot com and my phone number is eight one three eight five zero seven three. I'd love to hear from any of your listeners.
27:20.77 Brandon Burton
That's perfect. We will put that in the show notes so they can get in contact with you. But I will let you go and wish you the best of luck with the chamber of the year.
27:31.928 Derek Miller
Thanks, Brandon.
27:36.8 Brandon Burton
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