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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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You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE chamber of the year finalist series. And our guests for this episode are Kyle Spurgeon and Lindsay Dawkins moon, representing the greater Jackson chamber. Kyle is the president and CEO of the greater Jackson chamber. Under his leadership, the chamber was named 2024 Tennessee chamber of the year, and is one of only 174 accredited chambers in the US with prior experience at Jackson Energy Authority and at the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, Kyle has been instrumental in facilitating over $8 billion in capital investment. He serves on several statewide boards and was appointed to the Tennessee Board of Regents in 2023 Kyle lives with his wife, Melissa, their five children and two grandchildren and a spoiled dog. Lindsay is the Chief of Staff at the Greater Jackson chamber, where she leads the efforts in the forward Jackson investment, campaign, marketing and board relations, joining the chamber in 2022 Lindsay is a 2013 graduate of leadership Jackson. And outside of her professional life, she enjoys working out, traveling and supporting the Atlanta Braves, but Lindsay and Kyle, I’m excited to have you guys with us today on Chamber Chat Podcast, and I guess Kyle to have you back on the show, this is a good reason to be back as a Chamber of the Year Finalists. But congratulations. Want to give you guys a chance to say hello to all the listeners out there, and if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you a little
Kyle Spurgeon 2:47
better. Well, Brandon, thank you for the invitation to be back. And I hate to start something and correct something you said, but I need to make it perfectly clear that my wife and I do not live with five kids and two grandkids and a dog. We are empty nesters. Okay, they’re the two grandkids. We love them, but we can send them back.
Brandon Burton 3:09
I had all sorts of questions about that, so thank you.
Kyle Spurgeon 3:14
So that dog is uberly spoiled. So absolutely, yeah, we excited to be back on here and excited to be named a chamber of the year finalist. That’s such great recognition for our chamber, but for our team here and all of our investors, that’s where the credit goes, because they allow us to do something that I know I love to do every day, and the judging from the smile that Lindsay has on her face about 95% of the time, I think, I think she likes it too.
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 3:49
That’s great. I agree it for nine We’ll even say 98% of the time. You know, there’s always a few, few days, but it’s great and excited that we are a finalist. And I think it just speaks to like Kyle said, what our staff does, what our board does, what our community really is a part of. And so that’s always fun. I’ll give my fun little fun fact, I was actually talking to a friend about this. I always like to say, I’ve been to the Amazon before, and got to spend a few days roughing it in the Amazon. So not too many people that I’ve known have been able to do that, but that’s an interesting little trip a couple of years ago.
Brandon Burton 4:33
I bet that sounds like quite the experience. That’s awesome. Well, Kyle, would you tell us a little bit more about the greater Jackson chamber, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion. Give us an idea of the size of the chamber staff, the scope of work you guys are involved with budget and that sort of things, just to prepare us. Yeah, and
Kyle Spurgeon 4:55
I think you said something when you started this podcast about chamber champions. Uh, that’s something I think you can describe our team, that we’re champions for West Tennessee, specifically Jackson, Madison County. Our chamber, we have 1065 plus or minus members. Budget just over $2 million we serve. And I use this a lot. We’re kind of the capital of rural West Tennessee, where the largest city between Memphis and Nashville, right on Interstate 40. And there’s a lot of growth occurring here. You may be aware that blue oval city, which is Ford’s $5.6 billion project announced three years ago, they’ll be operational in 2027 so we’re seeing tremendous growth in this part of the country. And one of the things I brag about, and I wish I had come up with this, but it was a previous chairman 10 to 12 years ago, and it still holds true, is this chamber has a seat at the table at every major conversation that’s going on in this community, and that is either through a staff member, a board member, an executive committee member, whatever that is. So we are ingrained in this community and throughout West Tennessee, we’ve got great brand identity, and that’s something we protect very hard in what we’re doing through our program of work, how we’re influencing growth in this area. One of the things about Jackson, Jackson is we are extremely selective in that if you look at our economic development program, not every company that wants to locate in this area may be a fit for Jackson. So we’re we’re attracting companies high capex projects, lower employment count, two to three to 400 and then higher wage. That’s the type of stuff that we’re after. And then this chamber, we also do leadership programs, interact with our small businesses. We lead in many different ways. Just started a new effort this year that Lindsay led the State Games of Tennessee. The inaugural event was held over the past three weekends, and that was a huge success. And so we the recognition to be named a finalist for chamber of the year. I think really validates a lot of the work that we’re doing in Jackson and West Tennessee.
Brandon Burton 7:17
Absolutely, I would say. So that’s it’s a testament to the big strides you guys are making in the community and, and I love how you talked about being having a seat at all of the tables, all the discussions that are going on in the community, and, and I like how you pointed out that it’s not necessarily you that has to be at all the things, right? You’ve got board members, ambassadors, you know, people sitting on different committees and so forth that are out there with the seat at the table, and I think that’s a huge lesson for chambers listening to leverage those volunteers and committee members and board members to really get out there in the community and make that impact. Thank you for
Kyle Spurgeon 7:58
that. Yeah, I think in my role as the president, CEO, and I’ve been in this spot for 15 years. I don’t have to know everything. I don’t have to know the answer to everything. My main job is being able to connect and facilitate so people can get those answers and we can push things forward. And with that, yes, we’ve, I’ve been very fortunate through my career here in the team has changed over time, but we’ve always had good people here, and we attract good people and their hearts in the right place. And, you know, in the chamber world, there’s no room for narcissist, right? And they spread that love around. It’s not about, you know, we all get credit at different times for different things, but your success is built around the team,
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 8:40
absolutely. And I think Brandon, to add to that of you know, he talked about, we have a seat at the table. Sometimes that the lead seat, but sometimes that is just a seat at the table and helping and being in a supportive role. And so I think of being part of that team, but knowing our place on the team and knowing what is best for the community. Because, yeah, sometimes we do have to champion things and be in some of the projects that we’ll talk about that some of them, we have more supportive role, and some we are leading it. But I think that that’s a big thing of talking about our team, that we it’s not that we need credit for it. We really do want the best for Jackson, Madison County in the region. Yeah. So
Brandon Burton 9:25
important to understand your role, to have the seat, but understand the role, and to not take on more than the chamber can handle either, but be involved with it all. So thank you for that distinction. So in these chamber of the year finalist episodes, I like to spend the majority of our time highlighting the two programs of work that were submitted in your chamber of the year application. So we’re going to dive into those as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Brandon Burton 12:40
All right, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’re going to cover the two program synopsis that were included in your chamber of the year application. Lindsay, it’s my understanding you had a significant, pretty significant role in the application and pulling everything together. So I’d like to hand the microphone over to you and have you highlight, I know there’s two different programs, one about an airport, one about move to Jackson. Do you want to highlight move to Jackson for us first, and what that program, what the origins were, kind of the background and and how things have evolved to what it is today.
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 13:20
Yeah. So you know, when we think about the region, and what has taken place over the past several years is industries are moving here. Kyle mentioned Blue Oval city, and the development that has happened a little west from us, that people are moving here, but they have a choice, and so it’s, where are they going to live? Where are they going to raise their family? Where are they going to spend their dollars? And so Jackson is a great place to live and work and play and raise a family. And we know that we’re we’re champions of it. We believe it, but we need to tell others and also help our industries filling those employment gaps that they have. And so our move to Jackson campaign is that initiative to help bring people to our area to live and to be able to work and raise a family. And so we started this about a year and a half ago as a thought of, once again, in direct response to Blue Oval city of we need something, an active campaign to help attract people, because we have our visit Jackson, which is for tourism, but moving to Jackson is different From being a tourist and so different focus, exactly, and so we kind of spearheaded this project and creating a website that people could go and find a I like to call it a one stop shop of all things Jackson. You’re going to get a brief overview of everything from quality of life to. Health care to education to housing to job opportunities. And then we’re going to send you kind of where to go and find deep information of but on the surface level, you can find everything about Jackson on this site. And then from there, of being able to actually do some direct impact, direct targeting for folks. And so we we want to obviously target Blue Oval city. And so we have lots of geo fencing around that area to kind of send those messages of, Hey, Jackson. We have jobs available. We have good quality of life. We have excellent education and different options. And then, once again, just things to do. So different messages that we are sending to different folks. Louisville City is one of them. And then we also are targeting our healthcare workers, because we have a partnership with West Tennessee healthcare that nursing is also an area that we need more nursing, nurses in our area. And so we’re able to geo fence these schools, the universities that they actually recruit from. So always like to say, we’re those creeper people that you know you you get those messages, and you’re like, how did they know? Or how did they Right, right? And so some other different ways that we’re doing this is, it’s called War notices. So when businesses industries, if they’re closing, they have to report to the state of how many people they’re laying off, if it’s temporary, if it’s furloughed, and dates that go with it. So we actually look at states all surrounding us, and states that we know people are moving from, and we keep up with their war notices. And so we geofence those industries that are closing, okay, we’re particular to and what we do. And we’re, we have certain targets that our industries need. And so we’re, we’re pretty specific in who we’re kind of after. And
Brandon Burton 17:16
so is there a certain radius that you target with the geo fencing in those communities? Like, would you go, I don’t know, 10 hours away in a car drive, or how close do you try to keep it to Jackson? So
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 17:29
we have a 200 mile radius, okay, that we do. And then just from hearing from realtors and other research that we know there might be some other states, maybe outside of that 200 mile radius, but we know that people are coming from that area, or jobs that are similar, that people would potentially be moving from that and so we’re doing that, and then we also from we do a wage and benefit survey, where we partner with Union University, and they do this interview and different metrics with our industries, but they also have these employment codes that can say, Here’s engineering, here’s mechanical engineering, and it’s based on codes, and we know how many people within our current existing industries of what they need? Kind of, okay, we need 50 mechanical engineers in our area, so we’re actually taking those codes and we can put that into our data that we’re doing for geo fencing, LinkedIn, Facebook, all of that stuff as well. Like I said, it’s one of those really creepy things that you like. How can you even do some of this stuff? But our main focus, though, is being strategic. Of thinking about like, okay, plant closings that are similar to us, yeah, or jobs that are people are already here looking for. This is what we need, because we want to support our existing industries in the work that they’re doing, and they’re the jobs that they need. And so that’s what these marketing efforts are are doing, and, yeah, helping refill the people that they need, and then just we’re getting random people from just outside, because our cost of living is lower, our housing cost lower than a lot of other places. And so they’re being attracted to our area, yeah.
Brandon Burton 19:35
So I think of you know, a lot of chambers traditionally have done and still do like relocation packets, right? Yep, and I see move to Jackson as almost being a virtual relocation packet that connects all those dots for somebody looking to relocate to a community, to your community. I’m curious more on the geo fencing, because being strategic and. Yeah, I think a lot of listeners, they may know or they’ve heard of geo fencing, and I don’t expect you to give a full tutorial on how to do it, but how could somebody get started in learning about geo fencing and kind of get the groundwork of how that works?
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 20:15
I think my best advice is, I will tell you I’m not an expert in this at all it is. It is very nuanced and detailed. It can be as basic as you want it, but then as detailed as you
Brandon Burton 20:30
can tail it in the better, it’ll work exactly.
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 20:33
And so we kind of looked at early on, okay, do we want to take this on ourselves, or do we want to actually bring in a partner? And our best case was, let’s bring somebody in, and this is all they do. Smart and so we have a chamber member that their business is this, that that’s what they do, and they have actually worked with a couple relocation places in different parts of the country. They worked at a place in Pennsylvania where they were it was an entity there trying to get people who have lived there, grew up there, they moved and they were trying to get them to come back. So different targeting campaigns for them and so just having their experience, to me, is the best case. Not saying that people can’t do it on their own, but if you have somebody that is skilled in that area, I would, I would go with them, because you’ll get your bang for your buck.
Brandon Burton 21:38
Yeah. Kyle, do you have anything you want to add to the move to Jackson campaign? Or did Lindsay, yeah, cover it all.
Kyle Spurgeon 21:47
It’s so Lindsay talked about, you know, the external part of that, where we’re going out, the inward piece is it’s really been helpful. It’s a tool for us, for especially our real estate folks and our HR managers that if I’m in a meeting or someone from our economic development team, hey, we are struggling. We’re trying to get some folks to move here, whatever. We don’t have enough resources. We point them to that website. And one of the things we’ve done, of course, in the chamber business, we are, we are very protective of our members this website, although it’s done, by the way, by the chamber and funded through our investors, there are folks on there, and we may point folks or that look at the site to non Chamber members. Now, of course, we’re trying to get them to join, but if you’re looking at moving here, as good as our chamber is not 100% of the business is the law, yeah. So it’s become a real tool for us. And you know, you mentioned looking at what chambers do, the relocation packages, yeah, let’s be very honest, that is inefficient. You’ve got somebody pulling together all these magazines and maps and different things and loading them up into a piece and sending it out. And that’s not, in our opinion, the best way to do it. Send them to your website. You look at it on your phone, look at it on your computer, whatever. That is much more efficient, and it’s easy for us to give other people the opportunity to utilize that site? Yeah,
Brandon Burton 23:24
makes a lot of sense. Well, let’s shift gears to the second program, or the other program that was on the application regarding the airport Lindsay. Do you want to kick off with that program was,
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 23:39
yeah. Yeah. So this one, I love our move to Jackson, and I get to work directly with that, and it impacts a lot of people, but our airport is a very tangible thing that people can see within our community, and has made, I’m going to say, a big strides in continuing, making a big impact in Jackson, but not just there the region. And so we’ll, I’ll talk a little bit about it. I’ll let Kyle talk more details of it. He was involved a little bit more than I was in the back end of it, but so we were able to help. And this is where I go back to if we lead or if we support, and you know, we kind of led move to Jackson campaign and the airport was we, we led at times and supported at times. I felt like we were a little bit of both in in our role. And so for the longest time, and I will say I was one that flew it a couple of times that did not have the greatest experience of we had his fed, what eight to 10 people on it that went to Atlanta. Sometimes it would make it there. Sometimes it would get canceled. I had one of those. Ships where it got delayed and delayed and ended up missing a connecting flight. And so I was a big proponent of us getting an upgraded air carrier. And so we were able to help facilitate getting a 50 seat jet service. And part of the Essential Air Service was the department of transportation here in Jackson. And when you talk about having an eight to 10 seater that sometimes made it to Atlanta, was late a lot of times. And then we go to a 50 seat jet that is on time over 95% of the time. That’s a huge difference of what this works does for our community and the region, of giving them an opportunity. And Denver air connection not only goes to Atlanta, but it also goes to Chicago. And so we have opened another door of travel, and not just domestic travel, but international travel, because you think of both Chicago and Atlanta hubs for international connections. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 26:14
that’s that’s a great backdrop, I think, to kind of set the stage for the airport and why the need was there, Kyle, can you tell us more about what the Chamber’s involvement was like? Lindsay said, sometimes taking the lead, sometimes in support that that seems like a hard balance to keep in place, but you guys have pulled it off. So tell us what the involvement was and how that worked.
Kyle Spurgeon 26:37
Yeah. And I’ll say, you know, there’s a saying. I think there used to be a lot of T shirts you could buy. It’s either lead, follow or get the heck out of the way. Yeah, we seldom get the heck out of the way. He just Lindsey described this exactly right. There were portions of this that we led. There’s other parts where, yeah, our expertise is not airports. So we were a partner, but all throughout it, we are a part of that effort. And yeah, we did. I think the last time Jackson had jet service was back in the late 1990s and your listeners, unless you’re driving, don’t do this if you’re driving, but pull up a map and look at where Jackson is, right on Interstate 40, as I said before, between Memphis and Nashville. And when you’re traveling somewhere, you go to a website, and you know, if you’re going to New York City, if you’re going to Chicago, Atlanta, your choice is really or fly out of Nashville or Memphis, which are both great airports. We are blessed to be two hours from Nashville and an hour and 10 minutes from the Memphis airport. So those are choices, but we didn’t have the type of service that a capital city, as we’ve described earlier, in a region like ours really needs to continue to grow. And the demands were there to continue service to Atlanta. We consistently heard, hey, just get us to Chicago now. We have that with Denver air connection. They’ve been a great partner to this community. We have TSA service in place, and TSA and you think about this, if you’re going, if the flight is booked solid, it means you’re going to be the 50th person on the plane.
Brandon Burton 28:22
DS DFW is my airport by it. So having only 50 people online is a dream. You know,
Kyle Spurgeon 28:28
I’d love that. And we have a lot of companies with headquarters, or folks that live in Chicago, in Atlanta, they can now fly directly here, and everything is there, rental car service, parking, and, gosh, it may go up to five to 10 bucks a day, but right now, parking at our Jackson Regional Airport is free. Wow. What this will do for us? It’ll make us Tennessee’s sixth primary airport. And on the number side of that and the dollar side, it means we’re going to qualify for another $850,000 in FAA funding, which for a small regional airport, that is a lot of money. Some other things about Denver air connection. They have code share agreements with Delta united and American Airlines, I think they either recently did or let it, or adding Alaskan Alaska Airlines to that. So it is a I was just on the phone with a friend Sunday, who had flown to Chicago and was coming back. And it’s, it’s been a fantastic upgrade for our community, and it puts us more on the map, as far as a place that’s recognized as a destination. Because, you know, if you’re a town the size of Jackson, our county is 100,000 over 60,000 in the city, people expect reliable commercial air service. We now have that. And. And our hope is that, because now, you know, folks are never happy. It’s like, Alright, you got Chicago and Atlanta. When are we going to
Brandon Burton 30:08
Dallas? Right? That was my next question. You gotta be coming to Dallas next. Right?
Kyle Spurgeon 30:14
My answer is, utilize what we’ve got. And I’m sure Denver air connection will consider other routes. But right now, we’re being very successful. The plane’s not always full, as with any plane, but you see 3040, 45 people on those jets majority of the time.
Brandon Burton 30:32
That’s great. Hey, that’s such a huge impact in the community. And I can imagine as blue oval city, you know, gets up and running to in a couple of years here like that, need for the airport is going to be that much more. And I’m sure those flights will be full pretty much every time. And
Kyle Spurgeon 30:50
you look at Blue Oval city, it’s about 25 minutes from the airport, and blue oval cities at exit 42 between Jackson and Memphis, it is easier to get to Jackson Regional Airport than it is the Memphis airport. Now, naturally, Memphis has got more flights and choices, but if flying to Chicago or Atlanta or connecting through one of those destinations is your preference from that site is much easier to fly to Jackson.
Brandon Burton 31:20
Yeah, huge upgrade. So that’s awesome. Well, as we begin to wrap things up here, I wanted to pose a question to both of you. We’ll get a two for one here. But for those listening who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you suggest in them trying to accomplish that goal?
Kyle Spurgeon 31:46
Lindsay, you want to go first? Or
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 31:48
that’s a really good question, and it’s hard to narrow it down to just one thing, because there’s so many different things that could be. I mean, I mean, I think when I think of the greater Jackson chamber, I think of our team that we’ve built, and if you have a good, cohesive team, it makes all the difference. And not saying that other chambers have bad teams or anything like that, but making sure that you’ve built a good team, that it kind of like Kyle said, he doesn’t have to be at everything, because he’s built a team that can do the job and get the job done, and are passionate people in their areas, skilled in their areas, and are doing great work within the community. So building a good team. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 32:43
I think that’s great.
Kyle Spurgeon 32:44
Yeah, you’ve made my answer easy and Brandon, I’m not going to take the easy way out, although it sounds like it. I’m going to expand on the team piece, okay, because you have to have that good internal team in place, calling internal the chamber. External wise, we have a great team just specifically on the economic development side, city of Jackson, Madison County. We are the quarterback of all economic development activity. Jackson Energy Authority. Here is a member of that team, Mandy White, who is our Chief Economic Development Officer. She leads those efforts, and it’s very selfless everyone on that team. No one cares who gets credit. But we all show up. We know what our role is, and we pursue those projects. And I will tell you the number of projects once they visit Jackson, our closure rate is extremely high with those because they see a team, and they see a team that works together extremely well. And do if we offer a package to an industrial client, or we make a statement at a meeting, they see that on the back end, we do that. We take care of it. We take care of our existing industries. We take care of our small businesses. Here, we run those great leadership programs, but it’s not one individual, it’s not one person, it is that entire team, and it starts with the Chamber team, but we wouldn’t be successful without that community team out there allowing us to do our work. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 34:17
I love that answer, so that’s perfect. I like being able to have that vision, get all the staff on board, have that broaden out to the community at large. Of here’s the direction that our community can go and catch that vision and get everybody on the same page with it, and the chamber is perfectly aligned to be the driver of that. I love that answer, but I like Go ahead. Yeah, I want
Kyle Spurgeon 34:41
to, if we’ve got one minute, I want to brag on our team here, something absolutely I mentioned to you few weeks ago. We started with the inaugural State Games of Tennessee. Lindsay. You’re not going to negotiate with her on anything, but I’ll tell you, she’s a tough negoti. We had a crew come in that managed all the AV for our opening ceremonies to get the rate a little bit less expensive. Lindsay volunteered our entire team to help set up a stage. Now, this wasn’t any stage. It came with a with a full crew, and they were they said, here’s what you gotta do. This what the stage looks like. So as CEO, I said, and watched when our team got directions on what to do, but those directions were not specific to Lindsay, you do this. Kyle, you do that. Logan, you do this. We all fell into place. And the next thing I know, it’s like an assembly line. But no one was told where to go. And I sit back, and I’ve shared this story a lot, it just it made me extremely proud to run an organization to where no one said, Hey, I gotta do this, or you do that. The job got done. It got done very efficiently, and everyone fell into place and did it the way they should, and didn’t worry about themselves. They worried about the team, and we got it done. That’s
Brandon Burton 36:05
a great example, and you got to save a few bucks on it, too. So great job. Lindsay
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 36:11
and and our, our tech company, said that we were the best to work with. So that’s awesome.
Brandon Burton 36:19
So I like asking everyone I have on the show about the future of chambers. So how did, how did the two of you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward may
Kyle Spurgeon 36:30
start this time. Lindsay, I’ll let
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 36:32
you go first. Then, yeah,
Kyle Spurgeon 36:34
I see chambers in that are run well and have the support in a community continuing to broaden their influence. And you know, we talked earlier about those tables, we set more tables too, and we invite other folks to that table. And when you organize your effort, and you lead a team with your chamber, and then that community team, it enables your chamber and your community to grow more and more efficiently. So what I see is that those chambers that have the vision are able to set in an increasing role the vision for the entire community, because we’re conveners and facilitators, and when you do that, right, you’re going to be able to influence that change and make suggestions and get more buy in that’s going to lead to success for your community. So I see us becoming even more influential than we are now.
Brandon Burton 37:36
Yeah, you upgrade your airports by doing that. So that’s right, that’s right. Lindsay, what’s your thought on the future of chambers?
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 37:44
Yeah, I think, you know, I’ve only been in the chamber business for a few years, but being in, you know, prior experience of organizations that were part of chambers and involved in them, I think it’s just, it’s becoming so much more you have the, I’m going to say, membership side, and you have to take care of those members, but that is just a very small piece of what the chamber and what their future kind of looks like. And I think kind of piggybacking on Kyle of being more change makers and leading that change within the community, but also obviously staying within the vision and mission of the chamber, and also changing within the times of the community as well. Because I think one of our biggest things is we see what’s happening at the moment or in the future, and it changes. Airport wasn’t necessarily a big topic many years ago, but recently it is. There’s projects that we’re working on right now that I would say 10 years ago really wasn’t important to our community, but it’s important right now, and we get to be the people that lead those conversations, and and so I think it’s just being able to change within the times within your community, and being a little you’re still serving your members, but that’s not all you’re doing. It is really being that change maker for your area.
Kyle Spurgeon 39:16
Yeah, Brandon, I want to add you, don’t you forget. I want to add one more thing, sure, what Lindsay just said, because we talk about team, and I want to brag on our team here again, if you lead a chamber, part of your personality had better be you’re the idea person. And I’ve been here 15 years, and I look back, you know, when I travel, whether it’s for chamber or personal whatever, you send emails or texts back, because you learn something in another community. You learn something at a conference. There is no way that a chamber can take all the ideas that the CEO generates. So you’d better surround yourself with folks, and in my case, like Lindsay and Mandy and others that are here, they can help you filter those ideas. Because if not, yeah, we’ve all got a mission statement and a vision, but there’s so much that we can do, but you must be strategic in figuring out where you need to spend your time. So folks that sit in my tight chair as the president and CEO surround yourself with those people who are not afraid to tell you, No, gosh, Kyle, that’s a great idea, but we got to focus on this, and that’s what’s going to make you successful. Yeah?
Brandon Burton 40:26
And keep that book of ideas, because it may come in handy in the future, but right now, let’s stay the course,
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 40:32
right? Yeah, that’s, that’s what I tell him. It’s a, it’s a, maybe no right now, but later, it is going to be a really good one, right? Yeah,
Brandon Burton 40:41
that’s great. So this has been fun having you both on the podcast. I want to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Jackson. What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect, and where would you point them?
Kyle Spurgeon 41:00
When do you go for I mean, I’m going to give my direct email.
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 41:04
Yeah, I think that that’s the best way our I mean, our website is JacksonTN.com, but the easiest way to reach out to us is email. Mine is ldawkins@jacksontn.com.
Kyle Spurgeon 41:18
that is kspurgeon@jacksontn.com.
Brandon Burton 41:24
that’s perfect, and we’ll get it. Get both your emails and website and our show notes for this episode to make it easy to find. But um, again, thank you for spending time with us today, on on Chamber Chat Podcast, for really setting a high bar on on what chamber should be doing, the impact that we can be making in our communities. And I wish you guys and your team Best of luck as Chamber of the Year.
Lindsay Dawkins Moon 41:47
Thank you. Brandon.
Brandon Burton 41:50
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