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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 Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer. Johnna is the President and CEO of the Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC. She has a distinguished background in leadership roles, including serving as president and CEO of the Regional Economic Development Institute Cincinnati, and holding leadership positions at Duke Energy Citigroup, United Way of Greater Cincinnati in Ohio and Kentucky, the O’Bannon County Chamber of Commerce and the Jackson Downtown Development Corporation in Tennessee. John is a proud graduate of the University of Memphis for her Bachelor’s in communications. Thomas Moore University for MBA, and she attended the University of Oklahoma Economic Development Institute where she earned a certificate in economic development from the International Economic Development Council as the inaugural President and CEO of the Regional Economic Development Institute in Cincinnati. Johnna led a 15 County, three state regional economic development organization. Under her leadership, the R, E, D I, Cincinnati achieved 175 project wins, created 25,000 jobs and secured $1.4 billion in capital investment within four years in 2022 she became the president and CEO of the Colorado Springs chamber and EDC, Southern Colorado’s largest Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Organization. Since then, she’s led major initiatives in aerospace and defense, develop, Defense Development, legislative advocacy, and has successfully overseen the securing of 29 economic development projects, creating over 5000 jobs and attracting over 1.1 point $8 billion in capital investment. Johnna, I’m excited to have you with us today, here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself, so we can all get to know you a little better.
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 3:02
Oh, well, thank you so much. I’m honored to be with you. And want to say hello to all my colleagues out there. And really want to say, just, just keep doing what you’re doing. Some days I feel like these are thankless jobs, and we’re carrying the weight of our communities and trying to make big things happen. But just know you’re never alone. I’ve been doing this a long time, and you are making a difference
Brandon Burton 3:26
Absolutely.
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 3:29
So if I, if I think about something interesting, let’s see I’m I was born and raised in Tennessee and lived in Ohio for over 20 years, and after the the pandemic, I said, I’m going to do like a millennial and and I’m not a millennial, if you’re, if you’re looking at me right now, and said, you know, where do I want to live versus where do I have to live? Our children were grown, and I had had a lot of success at ready Cincinnati, and said, Do I Do I really need or have to stay in the Midwest? And my husband and I said, Let’s go to a beautiful place that’s fast growing, and let’s see if we can make a difference there. And so I came to Colorado Springs, and have not looked back. It’s been fantastic, but very unusual for someone that’s almost in their 50s to do that, versus someone that maybe were in their 20s. So very unique path that that I’ve taken,
Brandon Burton 4:27
yeah, you could have fooled me. I thought you were a millennial. So flat
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 4:31
flattery works on me. You think
Brandon Burton 4:34
my friend? So you guys did what a lot of people did and took off to Colorado. It’s beautiful country there and and lots of good reasons to be there, but tell us a little bit more about the Colorado Springs chamber and EDC to kind of set the stage for our discussion. Help us get an idea of the size staff, scope of work. You guys are involved with budget to kind of set the stage,
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 4:56
sure. So we’re the second largest chamber. The state of Colorado, behind the Metro Denver chamber, we’re the second largest city in the state of Colorado. It’s about three quarters of a million people in our metropolitan statistical area. It’s a community that’s made up of five military installations, which is really unusual. It’s a huge part of our economy, which has really led to that large aerospace and defense sector here, our chamber and EDC has over 1000 members. I have a six and a half million dollar budget. We host not only typical chamber functions such as government affairs and Small Business Services and membership services, but we also have the economic development arm of our organization. Our community is the size that it works well for it to be joined together as one organization. We also host a group called the Pikes Peak Housing Network, where you’re in a faster growing state like we’re in in a fast growing region, affordable and attainable housing are a real issue, and so this organization works constantly to try to try to help solve, how do we have more housing in our in our region? And then we also host the Small Business Development Center in our region to a very important piece to to work for small business and entrepreneurs, just as we work for primary employers, primary sector, and trying to recruit and retain them. So some traditional goals and some non traditional roles, that’s
Brandon Burton 6:28
great. It’s enough to keep you busy, for sure, and it’s a neat dynamic, having the military, you know, involved there as well, and having that focus. Yeah, it
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 6:37
is. This is my first community to have such a military presence. But when you have, when you have one army installation and four aerospace I’m sorry, when you have four bases that are around the space and the Air Force, it’s, it’s a huge part of your economy, and it really adds to the fabric of our community,
Brandon Burton 7:01
absolutely so for our discussion today, we’re going to, we’ve titled this episode long term vision. I like being able to talk vision with chambers so other chambers can hear and maybe get some ideas and maybe broaden their minds as to, you know, what’s happening in Colorado Springs. Maybe it can be scaled to, you know, wherever they’re at in the country, so we’ll dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, Johnna, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re going to focus our discussion around long term vision for Colorado Springs. But first, we’ve alluded to it a couple times already. The tremendous growth there in Colorado Springs, what’s drawing so many businesses to want to choose to invest into to grow in Colorado Springs in that region.
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 11:04
Well, I think it’s a variety of things. I think number one, Colorado has so much natural beauty and such an outdoor lifestyle, I can literally walk out my office door Brandon and be on three trails. So we have about 600 hiking biking trails in our region. You can be in the mountains and minutes. It’s a really, it’s a lifestyle state. And what I mean is we all talk about that we want balance in our life and harmony in our life. Well, people have moved to this state because they’re living it. So where talent comes then follows business. We know the importance of, after you have a good site for an economic development prospect, you have to show can you get the talent. So Colorado has was a was a net benefactor during during COVID, and continues to grow as a state. Colorado Springs has really taking off because you have big city amenities, but you have a small town atmosphere. We are not a ski town, but you can be to in, you can be skiing in an hour and a half away from us. But then you had, we’re not a mountain town. So we, we have lots of we have lots of amenities because of the aerospace and defense culture here, even in in in down times, in an economy, quite often for national security reasons, our economy bounces back quickly and and and goes down less severe than what some other communities might face that are so dependent on other sectors. I think it’s it’s also that during the pandemic, a lot of young people realized that they didn’t have to live in the super high priced cities, and could move to more mid tier cities, mid size, and have a lot of the same amenities. We have the arts, we have sports here, we have universities, and so they could have all those amenities, but maybe not the big city prices or, unfortunately, some of the the other things that that go along with, with, with the large cities, the the taxes and homelessness and crime and and things such as that. So this city’s really done well because of that. And then I will give my team some credit. I think it’s important when you’re the chamber and the EDC that you’re on the forefront of selling your community, telling your story, or it’s told for you, and you may not, but what is told, if you’re not getting in front of that, and this is a community that, I would say is the best kept secret in Colorado, in a lot of respects, it’s fast changing, and so we’re out there working on those national news stories, I would think Any Chamber of Commerce would want to be going out and telling their story. We work very closely with our Convention and Visitors Bureau to try to recruit tourism to this area, so that while we have tourist is one part of our economy, we also have primary sector employers, and we’re doing that in aerospace and defense, cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing are our three areas of focus, and the chamber in EDC where we lead that charge, I like to say we’re the quarterback of the team, and then we have a whole lot of great folks on our offensive line, our city, our county, our utilities, our state organization and such. So I think that’s contributed to our success.
Brandon Burton 14:21
That’s great. I’m glad you got to the point of bragging on your team and telling the story of the work you guys are doing and what Colorado Springs has to offer to create that narrative so it’s not being created for you. I’m a big believer in being an agent of action like that. So how do you guys there at the Chamber in EDC? How do you go about advocating for for sound and a sound environment for business to be conducted?
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 14:47
Well, I’m a I’m a big proponent of the Entrepreneurial Operating System that Gina Wickman has has coined, and it’s in the book traction. I’ve used this in several organizations that I’ve. And we adopted that when I first moved here, little over three years ago now. And so just what you said, we do not measure activity here at the Chamber in EDC. We measure outcomes. And that could be really hard for chambers of commerce, because you have a lot of competing priorities. You have a lot of legacy programs that people have done for years and years and and it can be chambers are famous for adding things on. We’re not very good for taking things away. So this chamber, we really have evaluated all of our programming, all of our events, all of all of our initiatives that we’re focusing on, from government affairs to economic development and in between, and if we don’t have measurable outcomes, it’s hard for us to sell to our constituents, to our membership, why we’re doing it. So we do this crazy thing, we stop, we stop doing it if it is not working. And so I would just encourage your listeners that as they’re leading their chamber organizations and trying to decide and help shape the future of their community. Measurable outcomes can make all the difference, and I believe in the smart principle of specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time based. So put those together so you agree with your board on what success actually is, and then you can all celebrate together. But if, if you as staff, have a different mindset of what that is than your board, you’re not going to see success for your community, and frankly, you might be out of a job. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 16:35
I love how you said that you there at the chamber. You guys don’t measure activity. You measure you measure outcomes, and that’s really where the rubber meets the road, and you can really see the needle move in your community. Is by by measuring those outcomes. And that is, I think, the definition of success that you’re talking about is seeing those outcomes that are measurable. So it
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 16:55
is, and that doesn’t mean, you know, did we? Did we have 250 events this year. Oh, my goodness gracious. That exhausts me to even hear that, right? And you know, real outcomes. This is hard work. We’re working on things like housing affordability and attainability, child care in our community, retaining our military installations, ensuring that we’re having good policy at our state and local level, for for business and low regulation. We’re working on Union bills right now. We’re we’re working on a K through 12 program to ensure that we can have homegrown talent, not just imported talent to the state of Colorado. These are not easy topics, and they don’t happen overnight. But if it’s not the chamber doing it, who is
Brandon Burton 17:42
That’s right? So that’s a good transition. I wanted to ask you about workforce, and if workforce is a struggle throughout the country, but what initiatives you kind of touched on them a little bit there. But what initiatives are you guys doing there in Colorado Springs to address it the workforce challenges that so many communities are seeing? Yeah,
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 18:00
you know, we’re fortunate because we’re the second most educated state in the Union, but when you peel back that onion, it’s because of so many people that move into the pop move into the state of Colorado. It is not necessarily that it’s our homegrown talent. So when you really look at our test scores and graduation rates and such. And this is, this is the same all over the country, but we’re actually going deep and looking at this on how do we solve it? Because I don’t believe in the long term the United States, you know, we’re short on population for jobs of the future, so not all communities are going to succeed. And we want to be sure that we’re seen as a mega region, with both our partners, all the way to Denver to all the way down to Pueblo Colorado, as a mega region of Front Range talent, the Front Range, or the front range of mountains here in Colorado. So we’re going deep with our 17 school districts in our metropolitan area to evaluate those test scores, to evaluate the why. And we’ve created an initiative called innovate Pikes Peak, and we’re partnering with education experts, a group called Peak education, because I’m not an education expert, we’re business people and but we’re trying to solve an issue that will produce talent for us in the future. Again, homegrown talent. Because I’ll remind everyone Brandon that while business and chambers sometimes shy away from getting involved in education, we should remember that while maybe your children have choices in life, not all children do, and if they’re not graduating with a great start and maybe certification, certificates, some some college, two plus two programs, they’re going to live in your community. They’re not going anywhere. So they can either live in your community or they can live on your community. So we believe that the chamber and. See has a role to play in ensuring that those young people graduate with a great start. So this innovate pipes peak is all about evaluating career pathing and whether that be a college track or that be a technical track. We think that the two blend together. So we’re working with our higher education and our K through 12 right now in the business community is really leading on defining those paths and where we need to be involved for the future, because the duplication of resources and the teacher pay and all of this does not add to success for our children long term. So we’re stepping in, we’re leaning in on that. We’ve got those measurable outcomes, and this is a big, hairy, audacious goal that we’re working on, but by the end of the year, we’ll have a pathway, a roadmap for our business community to follow
Brandon Burton 20:51
Absolutely and you know, I haven’t seen any formal surveys on this, or anything. Maybe you have, but it seems like youth, as they graduate high school, they feel like their future, either they stay in their community and don’t go anywhere, or they have to leave the community to go to school and get a job and and in very select communities, you see the sense of pride where a student graduates. And like I live in Colorado Springs, I want to raise my family here. I want to have build a career here. So there’s something to that, building that sense of pride within the community, where they don’t have to feel like the grass is greener, you know, five states away, to go to school and get a start their career somewhere else. But have that be the desire even. And maybe they do go somewhere for school, but they come back because they see the opportunities and that pride within the community.
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 21:43
I think I’ve heard the quote before that the grass is not always greener on the other side, it’s greener where you water it. So I think it’s the chamber and EDCs role to water that grass. How are we ensuring that there are opportunities for young people? How are we ensuring that they can afford to live in our community, to buy a home. You know, the most likely to move are an 18 to 34 year old. And so if we can make sure that the Colorado Springs metropolitan area is on their radar, even if they go away to school, we want them to think, wow, it was pretty cool where I lived, and I want to go back. So we like that boomerang effect too, because then they’re bringing back fresh ideas and perspectives too when they have lived somewhere else. But we’re working hard to build on that population, and I think any chamber needs to be focused on that. If you’re lucky enough that people just show up in your community, good for you, but I don’t think that’s the case for most communities anymore.
Brandon Burton 22:44
Yeah, I think it helps for like you’re saying that boomerang effect, to be able to see a contrast of another community and say, You know what the grass is really green back where I grew up. So let me go back there. Yeah,
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 22:54
that’s things like nightlife and outdoor activities and things that young people want and desire are are different than where I am in at this point in my life and career, but I think that’s why we have to ask the right questions and young professional organizations being active in your area. We started a we started a program called Find your calls, and we use cos and everything, because it’s Colorado Springs, but find your calls the play on words. And it’s a, it’s a suite of talent initiatives to recruit, engage and connect young professionals, young people. One of those programs is called Hello cos so, and it’s about, it’s a, it’s a summer intern program. So when interns come to our region to to work in the summer, housing was a big issue for three months to find somewhere to live. I mean, are you going to find it on Craigslist in somebody’s basement? That’s just scary. So, you know, we we worked with Colorado College, and we have a safe environment for those young people to live in the summer, and then the chamber and EDC does all the fun wrap around programming. So while they’re out of work, we we hike up Pikes Peak with them. We go to a switchback soccer game. We introduce them to speed dating with military generals in the region, where they can have interaction with people that are in charge of our national security, in our in our country, we think that chambers in EDC should be doing things to help our business community recruit that talent and then help that, help that young person fall in love with the region. Maybe they fall in love with the job too, but if they have a great experience in your community, they’re going to want to come back.
Brandon Burton 24:43
Yeah, well, and inevitably, other jobs will come, and people that are already employed are going to go to the new job, and so you got to backfill all the time. And you know, what I’m hearing is it’s not so much intent, you know, just to focus on the K through 12 and helping create, create a career. Path, but it’s really place making within the community. So they have a desire to be there. They want to be there. They love being there. So I think that’s just as important. Yeah, so I think you’ve touched on it in different aspects. But the next question I wanted to ask is, how do you see what is, what is your long term vision for Colorado, for the Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC.
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 25:24
Well, for us, I would say that for you know, so goes the community. So goes the Chamber in EDC. And we are, we are a community that has growing pains. And I’ll and I’ll say this so things that, the things that we’re having to work on are a how do you maintain a low tax, low tax environment, but at the same time you have big needs, such as road improvements and high quality schools, maintaining our military bases. We talked about housing, we talked about child care for young families. This is a really big deal, and something that the pandemic just exacerbated the problem, particularly for women and people of color needing to get back to work full time, working on all these issues. I call them growing pains, because we’re fortunate that we have these growing pains. If we weren’t a fast growing community, this wouldn’t be the issue. But with that the Chamber and EDC, we’ve tried to set those goals, set those measurements, and then where we focus, where we measure, is where we will succeed. And that’s what we’ve tried to do. You announced, you talked about some of our economic development announcements when, when you in the introduction, we weren’t, we weren’t seeing that until three years ago, and now we’re one of the top locations in the state for new announcements. It’s where we focused. We said we’ve got to get more of a diversity of primary employers in our region, and that’s where we focused. We’re now trying to solve those big issues Brandon that will make it where it’s the right environment for business to be able to thrive in place, expand or locate to our region. So I’ve given you several of those examples, and that’s where we’re spending our day. And I would just tell my colleagues out there that it’s not about party planning, it’s not about business after hours, it’s it’s, it’s not about having the best gala in the community. Those things are a means to the ends. Those are a networking opportunity. I think the future of chambers and economic development Corps are solving big issues for the community, coming alongside government where government cannot, cannot solve the issue because, either because they’re a public entity, or they just don’t have the dollars. And how are we being the conduit between business and private, the private sector of business, community officials and government officials? I think that’s the role for a chamber to play,
Brandon Burton 27:58
Absolutely and I love that, that vision that you have, where you focus is what’s going to grow, right? You got to keep watering those areas, make that grass green? Yes. So I like asking, as I have guests on the show, as for chambers that are out there listening, what kind of tip or action item might you share with the Chamber who’s trying to take their organization up to the next level. I feel like you’ve shared some good tips. But is there anything else that you want to expose and share with those listening?
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 28:29
Well, I think that I would just say, I know that many of our chambers, you know, I have 2528 people on on our team. So we’re, we’re a large organization for a nonprofit, especially for our size, but we’re doing a lot of things. I think number one, what I’ve learned through my career, and it sounds a little cliche, but it’s so true, is you can get a lot more done when you surround yourself with the right people, and when you don’t care who gets the credit. So we work really hard on our internal culture. We have a we have a culture of excellence and accountability. It is. These are lifestyle jobs. We don’t work. We don’t work eight to five here. We work when the clients need us. We do a lot of evening events and weekend things going on. But, but I would say that putting the right people around you as a leader in the chamber world or the economic development world will allow you to do more, and it will free you up as a leader to be more visionary and forward thinking and making sure that you’re helping drive results for the future, but you need people on your team that are also integrators of the mission, that are going deep and working hard to to close projects and to find wins in the community and work on big, big goals. So surround yourself with the right people, and then our philosophy here is, as long as we get the win, we don’t care who gets the credit. So quite. Often we may be carrying a heavy load on a project or an initiative, but we make sure that all of our partners are equally thanked and appreciated. Then there are other times, our partners are taking the lead and and we’re serving as a resource to them, and I just think you can get a lot more done when that’s your philosophy and that’s the way that you’re pushing forward? Yeah,
Brandon Burton 30:21
working as a team, right? So we’ve talked about the long term vision for Colorado Springs. The next question I have for you is, as we look to the future of the chamber industry, Chambers of Commerce in general, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 30:40
Well, I think it’s an interesting time for our industry and profession. I’ve been in and around this work for almost 30 years now, and seen it in four different states. I would say that all chambers, if you’re not constantly thinking about how you’re reinventing yourself and how you’re adding value for your membership, you’re going to lose membership. You’re going to be left behind. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, because our economy is changing so fast, and because the access to resources and artificial intelligence now and being able to reach people across the web, I don’t think businesses feel the need to be a member of a chamber of commerce, as they did maybe 50 years ago, 30 years ago, even longer. I liken it to years ago, our parents, our fathers. Usually it was typical, were members of the Rotary Club, and Rotary Club was the place to go so you could meet other businessmen or and at that time, it was man, but business people now and and do business and find ways to network. People have so many choices now as as businesses on how they connect with their customers and how they connect with other business people, that unless you’re constantly thinking about your value add as a chamber I think it’s going to be hard to make the case of Why be a member of the Chamber of Commerce when businesses are having to make choices about payroll and and health insurance and other things, or do they pay their chamber membership? We may get put at the bottom of the barrel. So I would recommend finding non dues, revenue sources. What are programs you can offer that are at a fee that add value, not add what are data sources you have that not everyone in your community has? Are there? Are there? Is there information or programming or something that you can do that’s a value add that I constantly say we need non dues revenue. Non dues revenue because just depending on a membership model for the future, I’m not so sold on that’s going to work long term, maybe, maybe in my career length. But those of you that are starting in chamber world in your 20s and 30s, now, I think we’re going to live in a very different society in 10 to 20 years, and you if, if you’re not at the table, you might find yourself on the menu. So get to that table and make sure you’re adding value that others others don’t have, and you’re differentiating yourself as an association. Yeah, and
Brandon Burton 33:17
I think it’s important to not just look at your chamber as a membership association, but as a business, operate it as a business and find those income generating. You know, you’re calling them non dues revenue, but in the end, it’s income generating, and that’s the only way to thrive and stay healthy as a business. So yeah, constantly
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 33:36
people will will say to me, Well, Well, John, you know, the chamber is here to just do good community work. And I said, and that’s a business unto itself. If I can’t make payroll, I can’t have our organization doing this work you’re asking us to do. I’m a business too. I have a profit and loss statement like every other business, and I think you hit that on the head. It’s important for us to be seen and think of our business in that way as chamber leaders.
Brandon Burton 34:05
Yeah, well, Johnna, this has been great having you on the show and sharing your insights and some of the exciting things that are happening in Colorado Springs, the impact your organization is having in the community. I’d love to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect and maybe learn some of the strategies you guys are are working on, maybe without giving away all the secrets. But how would you have them reach out and connect with you?
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 34:30
Well, number one, I do believe that there are no new ideas. You just need to borrow ideas from our partners. So go out there and meet with other chambers and find those find those leads. You know, we have a national organization association that we can all tap into, but if they’d like to speak with me, I’d be flattered and more than happy to help in any way. You can find me on LinkedIn under Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer, you can find me on our website is ColoradoSpringsChamberEDC.com, and my phone number 719-500-9485, or my email is jreederkleymeyer@cscedc.com. I’d be happy to speak with anyone and be be flattered to get a call perfect.
Brandon Burton 35:26
We’ll make sure all that is in our show notes for this episode make it easy to find and connect with you. And I just want to thank you again for setting aside some time to be with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast, sharing some of your experiences and tips that you’ve learned from and being willing to share them with the Chamber community, we appreciate it.
Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer 35:44
It’s my pleasure. Good luck to everyone out there. Keep making big things happen in your community.
Brandon Burton 35:49
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