Your Chamber as a Unifying Force with Michael Huber

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Episode 99 — Your Chamber as a Unifying Force with Michael Huber
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3:41 Brandon Burton
All right, Michael, we are back. Thank you for joining us today here on the Chamber Chat podcast. If you would take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.

3:55 Michael Huber
Thanks, Brandon, for having me on the show. I've enjoyed listening to the show. I think it's a great resource for chamber professionals and leaders across the country. So it's an honor to be here. Yeah, I mean, what can you say about the last nine months? As you know, I'm sitting here in my home office, which is my converted recording studio. A lot of the folks and a lot of my friends who run chambers and work. I've worked for chambers across the country. No music's a huge part of my life. I'm in a seven piece R&B band called chamber music actually that plays in Indianapolis a lot. So we're not really doing much live performance now, but I still do a lot of music recording late at night and on the weekends and I have ended up using my recording studio as a home office when I'm not in my physical office. So, you know, we're all doing things differently here. as we get into the close of 2020. But I am excited to talk about this topic with you today.

4:56 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. And by the way, I love the name of your band, Chamber Music. That's awesome.

5:02 Michael Huber
Yeah. Thank you. When we have more time, there's a story behind that too.

5:07 Brandon Burton
Yeah, you'll have to share it. So tell us a little bit about the Indy Chamber. Help us. So get some perspective as to where you're coming from. We know Indianapolis is a large city, but give us a better perspective of maybe size, location, staff and so forth of your organization so we can know where you're coming from.

5:26 Michael Huber
Yeah, so Indianapolis, you know, known for the Indianapolis 500, among other things. I really enjoy living here. I actually grew up in southern Illinois near St. Louis, Missouri, but I've lived here in Indianapolis since 2001. I moved. I moved here for a job and I'm married to a Californian and we love the city. The metro area is about 2 million people. The city of Indianapolis itself is about 900,000 people. Our chamber has existed for over 130 years. And back in 2012. There were a series of mergers where our chamber merged with the Regional Economic Development Corp and a couple of other economic development organizations. That merger was largely driven by large employers. and alignment of board members by those different large employers. And I was hired in 2013, having worked recently in the mayor's office at the airport authority to come into the newly merged organization and try to bring about the kind of a cultural merger, which is still ongoing, as you know, for those of you listening, you know, culture and improving culture is a constant process. And so we are the regional metro chamber and regional economic development corp. And the last thing I'll say is 2020 has been really hard as it's been for everybody around the world. But the thing I'm the most proud of in 2020 is how we made a pivot back in March toward small business services. So we've got 57 employees in March, April, May and June, over 40 of those employees where all they were doing were small business. services. And as we get to the end of December, we will have distributed over 20 million in small business loans and grants. Our previous high in any year prior to that was just over 2 million. So it took a huge team effort. We're proud of the impact that we've made at a very difficult time. And we've learned so much more about serving small business this year.

7:28 Brandon Burton
That is awesome. That is quite the pivot to be able to go from $2 million at the most in the past in these loans and grants to small businesses to $20 million. That is huge. And I'm sure making a huge impact in the small business community there.

7:44 Michael Huber
We hope so,

7:44 Brandon Burton
Yeah.

7:45 Michael Huber
yeah.

7:46 Brandon Burton
So as I mentioned in the introduction for this episode that our topic for discussion today will be around using the chamber as a unifying force, especially among political division. And you'd already mentioned we're kind of coming in on the end of 2020. We're recording this at the beginning of December. And if anyone hasn't noticed, 2020 has been quite the roller coaster. A lot of the downs, not a whole lot of the ups of the Absolutely. roller coaster, but between the widespread impact from the coronavirus pandemic, we also had here in the U.S., a presidential election. A lot of the other elected offices that follow along with that. And I think with all of these pivotal and very changing things in our environment, it has led to a lot of politicizing of pretty much anything that we see in our community anymore. And I say that anywhere from what we saw through the presidential election and how people get divided between political party lines, but also whether or not somebody wears a mask and what their views are of how to safely navigate around the COVID-19 pandemic. Race relations have been a huge topic this year, a lot of focus on and a lot of attention to try to correct some of those points of view and to try to bring unity, which is our goal. So I'm

9:35 Michael Huber
Yeah.

9:36 Brandon Burton
curious to hear what your thoughts are as far as how you would use your chamber there at the Indy Chamber as a unifying force. to try to try to bring people together. What are some Yeah, of your thoughts?

9:50 Michael Huber
well, I appreciate the opportunity. So 2020 has, I think the challenges and I'm thinking about the impacts of coronavirus. The definitely the disproportionate impact that the virus has had on poor people and people of color in our communities, that the data is out there that can't be disputed. How the killing of George Floyd raised awareness and an unprecedented level of conversation and in some communities unrest and an awareness of racism. and of racial inequities in in the united states and in in our communities there's there's no there's no question that it did that and then we go through this most recent election and you also can't question the fact that the rural areas just got more red the urban areas just got more blue suburban areas got a little more purple which is kind of interesting and these are these are facts regardless of where you are on the political spectrum. And by the way, I do find that a lot of people who are drawn to the chamber of commerce work Um, if, if you started off more liberal, you end up getting more moderate. If you start off more conservative like me, I worked for two Republican elected officials, you get more moderate. And so find myself where, and I think a lot, a lot of, a lot of times with the chamber, if you're doing your job right, especially on policy and advocacy, you've got the hard right wing and the hard left wing frustrated with you at any time. And that's something that we all kind of embrace.

11:32 Brandon Burton
Mm-hmm.

11:33 Michael Huber
But what I've really found in. in 2020 is there are in some cases small things that that i can do and we can do and in some cases they're big things to bring people together and in we've been overlooking some strengths that we kind of didn't know we had and and i can i can you know get more into that um brandon i i do think i want to start with this though I think some of it is looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking about your role. So let me just say, let's assume that you're a chamber professional. Whether it's a big city or a smaller rural community and you want to make a difference in bringing people together, it could be across political parties, it could be around issues like racism and race relations. Let's start with our role. One of my big mistakes has been when I was younger trying to do this job, I would walk into situations thinking that I had to have all the answers and I needed to be sort of the information authority on these different topics. I think we have to really get over that when we're trying to bring people with different views together. And I think that there's a there's a posture of and this has been very much my journey, which is. And providing this transparency of, okay, our community has a problem and I don't know how we're going to solve it. And I'm on this journey with you as the chamber president. And our organization, we don't have all the answers, but we want to listen and we want to go on this journey with you. And I think it has to start with. a certain level of vulnerability and open curiosity to get to the answer. Because I think if you, I'm just speaking for myself, if you bring this, well, shoot, I need to really have all the answers before I walk into this meeting or this interaction. It's just not going to go anywhere. Does that make sense?

13:37 Brandon Burton
It absolutely does. Absolutely. And as you started off explaining this. this point of view and you mentioned how anybody gets into the chamber work ends up becoming more moderate no

13:51 Michael Huber
Yeah.

13:51 Brandon Burton
matter what end of the spectrum you're on and I think that speaks volumes to to be able to it shows you're listening to both sides you're getting the point of view of both sides and that's one of the things that I've noticed among this division that we see throughout the country on the variety of different topics that we're that we're talking about. I think what really stood out to me is after the George Floyd murder, of course, there were riots and a lot of these demonstrations, peaceful protests and things of that nature. But one of the things that I kept hearing was white supremacy.

14:35 Brandon Burton
And initially when I heard that, I thought, you know, here I am, you know, a white guy talking about white supremacy. But

14:41 Michael Huber
Yep.

14:41 Brandon Burton
at the time I thought, you know, what are you talking about? In my mind, white supremacy, I'm thinking the KKK, you know, people dressed up in white robes and burning crosses and hanging, you know, lynchings and all these horrible, you know, horrific things. And it hit me that. Certain words are being used in different scenarios. So words have meanings, but the meanings are being. you know changed depending on what the narrative is it's being pushed and

15:14 Michael Huber
Yes, exactly

15:15 Brandon Burton
it's just really you know struck a nerve with me that you know this is something and we need somebody in the middle to kind of say like you know we're not trying to to to separate people we we want to to have unity we want everybody to be cared for but have you seen some of the that same kind of thing

15:35 Michael Huber
And I think so we our organization is on a journey. So let's let's talk race relations, for instance. Most of the chamber professionals that I know. are working in a chamber that is seeking to get more diverse for both for long-term community reasons because it's the right thing to do to be more representative of their community, but also to be more representative of their own business community and really make their membership reflect the growing number of minority-owned companies. entrepreneurs who are people of color in their communities, you know, if you if you don't if you don't look like the business community you represent, you're just not going to be as effective. And so a lot of people are on this journey. And a lot of people are a lot of people in the community are looking to the chamber to provide this. role of convening role of bringing people together at a time when people in the political dialogue are just talking past each other and your your example about the term white supremacy is a really good example I have to condition myself to not get offended and I'm going to say really to not get offended at all because you get into these conversations and you realize that different terms have different meaning to

17:07 Brandon Burton
Absolutely.

17:08 Michael Huber
different groups of people and you know it's like it's not for me to it's not for me to judge that at all so I'll tell you so because people are probably wondering well what did you do so When when George Floyd was killed, we had a police action shooting in Indianapolis around the same time, which was very controversial. A young man who, you know, the police say he shot at the police and some people say, no, that's that's that they don't believe that he shot at the police and was shot and killed by police. Anytime that happens, regardless of the circumstances, it's a tragedy. No question. And. We decided to host simply a series of listening sessions where we got members of our board and other business people. We went in partnership with our own Urban League and other grassroots community leaders to just host a series of listening sessions and they didn't have an agenda. It's just brought people together to have open conversation in small groups. We did it on Zoom because it's the age of coronavirus.

18:11 Brandon Burton
Mm-hmm.

18:13 Michael Huber
And we would have broad topics, but there was sort of an agreement, OK, we're just going to have this open discussion and we're just going to ask we're all we're all trying to get to the right answer as a community. And so we're just going to ask that everybody gives everybody some grace and some leeway and just presume that we were here. We came we showed up to these discussions because we want to make the community better. And. This series of discussions that we had in June and July, Brandon, I left every one of those meetings thinking, man, why weren't we doing this five years ago, you know, and and. And some of the perspectives that I gained, you know, one of one of my one of the black community leaders, grassroots leaders whom I look up to the most here in Indianapolis, he basically pulled me aside in between one of these listening sessions and said, look, Michael, I know you're trying to do the right thing, but you got to understand he's like. A lot of us, when we've dealt with corporate decision makers, there's such a huge mistrust that goes back like decades. And he's like, you know, so you bring a lot of that baggage into these interactions and try not, Michael, try not to take it personally, but you just got to understand that's the personal experience of a lot of us and what we've dealt with in this community for years. And I really thought about that. I was like, wow, but you know. As a starting point, if we're really going to be bringing people together, I think we have to sort of try to set that aside, Brandon, and I'm glad you shared, you know, in these moments where we see terms that we don't like and, you know, it definitely is making me more patient, okay, and helping me kind of sit back and become a better listener, which is definitely a lifelong process.

19:54 Brandon Burton
I love that idea of having these listening sessions and that perspective. perspective that you're talking about about this this man pulling you

20:01 Michael Huber
Well,

20:01 Brandon Burton
aside and giving you that perspective you would have never received that if you if you weren't willing to listen

20:06 Michael Huber
no. And, you know, I've thought about this. So it's like, let's talk, you know, like if you're listening to this thinking, well, I want to do more of this, you know, using my chamber and my community. I've thought about this. So what are some of our strengths that chambers in most communities bring to the table? So business membership across large and small companies. membership across urban and rural areas you know so usually you know most chambers you're going to have you're going to represent areas that if they're not if they're not urban or rural you've got political diversity you represent an area that's going to be more the where the democrat party is more dominant represents areas where the republican party is more dominant and then Most chambers are also making very targeted moves to become more diverse, bring in more diverse entrepreneurs and young people. But you also have to be aware of the weaknesses for us, for the Indy Chamber. One of the weaknesses was what this gentleman who I look up to, grassroots community leader, you know, said, you know what, what corporations represent a lot of times to communities of color is not great for some reasons that are very fair. Chambers are also seen as cheerleaders for the community, so sometimes they are

21:15 Michael Huber
And people who don't know your chamber well are not going to take you very seriously at the start because they're going to be like, oh, wait a minute, but you're the rah-rah-rah people for the community.

21:26 Brandon Burton
Mm-hmm.

21:28 Michael Huber
Also, a lot of times chambers are very afraid to make any of their business members upset for fear that they might lose membership. And to even venture into this arena to bring people together, you are going to lose somebody at some point. It is inevitable, right? It's the right thing to do. But if you go in so gun shy that you don't want to turn anybody off.

21:50 Michael Huber
It's just not going to work because by creating these forums, whether they are listening sessions or, you know, small discussions where you're trying to bring trust, you can't control what people say, nor do you want to. Somebody is going to say something that offends somebody else in your forum and you can't do anything about that. So approaching it with kind of awareness of sort of what are our inherent strengths and some of our inherent weaknesses, I think is really important. You know, even before you make the move to start to create these, you know, discussions, these listening sessions, whatever you want to call it.

22:24 Brandon Burton
So maybe just a quick synopsis with these listening sessions over Zoom, how does that work? And once things get back to more of a normal scene, how would you see these type of listening sessions going on in the future, maybe in person?

22:40 Michael Huber
Yeah.

22:41 Brandon Burton
to avoid conflict that may arise.

22:45 Michael Huber
We've basically two primary action steps. And let me say there are a hundred or more ways to do it in your community.

22:55 Michael Huber
We, in response to the killing of George Floyd, the national protests, the conflicts and debates we were having in our own community, we decided we were going to have a series of these targeted listening sessions. And the first ones, we were very selective about who we brought into the rooms because we wanted to have people from our board and our membership whom we trusted and we knew would be good listeners. and would use good judgment, but also represented some of the predominant, you know, dominant companies in Indianapolis. And those included white, black, Hispanic CEOs, and then with grassroots leaders. And your question, here's the trick. We needed to be open and to really hear from them, but we also needed to show that we had some willingness to take action and to take action quickly on things that could be acted upon. So we've basically done two things. We took a lot of the early wins that came out of this series of listening sessions and created a new initiative called Business Equity for Indy Committee, Business Equity for Indy Committee in partnership with our. 50 member CEO organization called the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership. Many large cities, you know, they've got a chamber, but they've also got like the gang of 50 CEOs. And that's what the CICP is.

24:21 Brandon Burton
Yep.

24:21 Michael Huber
And we are mobilizing this effort and people can read about it if they look, if they Google business equity for Indy Committee, they could also look at the largest private sector employer in Indianapolis is the drug company Eli Lilly. They can look at the Lilly. The racial equity pledge, as we've seen very similar efforts in many of our cities. I've learned a lot through chamber members. So we're taking action on specific things. An initiative to get procurement and supply chain leaders to commit to diversifying their supplier base with more Black-owned companies and companies owned by people of color. A growing number of companies who are really committed to recruiting and hiring and promoting to management people of color. So that's taken the last few months to really mobilize that effort. We're very excited about it. The second thing, though, is a commitment to bringing people together and continuing the conversation on a regular basis. on a regular basis, because, you know, these are problems that took decades, if not hundreds of years to create within our country. And nobody, and this is what the big, one of the big size of relief for me. Just by venturing into this space with your chamber and having these conversations, no one is expecting your chamber to solve them all. Do they expect you to take action? Yes. But no one's expecting you to solve them all. So continuing the conversation strategically and building relationships, specifically building these bridges across business leaders and in the case of race relations. grassroots community leaders is so important. I'll tell one more story and then and then be quiet for a second. This Tuesday, through my love of music, it has triggered a lot of ideas about how to give a platform to a lot of African-American and Hispanic leaders in the Indianapolis community. And there's a guy, I mean, you can find him on IndieChamber.com, but his name is Amp Harris, A-M-P. He's in his early 50s. He's one of the best known concert promoters in Indianapolis. He also manages national. national artists like Stephanie Mills and Mike Epps, the comedian, he's managed Patti LaBelle in the past and he's a friend of mine. So I had him in one of these sessions that we didn't used to have. We just had a virtual town hall attended by a few hundred people, just a conversation where Amp Harris is just talking about his life and talking about his experience growing up as a black man in Indianapolis. And I'm just asking questions. My posture is I'm asking. I'm asking questions, but I'm just there to learn.

26:49 Brandon Burton
Yeah.

26:49 Michael Huber
And he said, and he says, Michael, thank you so much for giving me this platform. You know, I've never had a platform like this. And I was like, are you kidding? I mean, you fill 15,000 seat arenas. And he said, no, no, no, you don't understand. I'm able to develop these relationships through music, but I don't have a platform where I can get to Eli Lilly and some of these CEOs. And I was just sitting there shaking my head. But here's the thing, Brandon. I had taken for granted, and I think a lot of we as chamber leaders do, I sometimes take for granted that all the people I know know all the other people I know.

27:21 Brandon Burton
Yeah.

27:22 Michael Huber
And so some of you are really doing these things well within your chambers, but it's a great opportunity to step back and say, okay, who do we know? Who represent different parts of the political divide? Who do we know from, you know, maybe majority suburban white communities who might not know, you know, are emerging African-American leaders or Hispanic leaders, LGBTQ leaders and, you know, maybe they've got. things in common and we don't have to do anything more than set the table where they can have a discussion. Does that make sense?

28:02 Brandon Burton
It does. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. I'd like to shift maybe for the next couple of minutes. I know we're getting a little close on time, but I wanted to spend a little bit of time on the political side as far as, you know, we just are coming off of a. The presidential election, you had mentioned the rural areas are more red now, urban areas are more blue, there's more division. And I would argue that we probably saw that even going back to the previous presidential election is where I really started seeing that chasm coming about.

28:41 Brandon Burton
It's kind of like there's open wounds after these elections when somebody doesn't get their way and they hold it against the other side, whether blue or red, Republican, Democrat.

28:54 Brandon Burton
How do you try to bring people together in that type of scenario? And I mentioned to you before we started recording, as a man of faith, this has been one of my sincere prayers all year over the race relations and the presidential elections. to pray for unity in

29:14 Michael Huber
Yep.

29:14 Brandon Burton
our communities and our country. Absolutely. So how would you use your chamber to do that?

29:20 Michael Huber
You know, you got to identify the best way that I can answer the question because it is something that I very much struggle with as well. It's been a test of my faith in the last year as well. So I appreciate you sharing that. Um, uh, what can we focus on as a community that's actionable where we both have an interest and we can, you know, develop more of a relationship by working on something together. And I, I think, um, the, the term, the word control, the controllables keeps coming up because, um, I, you know, chamber your local chamber has very limited impact on who's in the White House. Your local chamber has very limited impact on the dynamics of the House and the Senate unless you, you know, maybe have a lot of money and have the ability to endorse a candidate, you know, in a competitive House district, for instance, or something like that.

30:24 Brandon Burton
Yeah.

30:24 Michael Huber
And yet there's so much good that can be done. in our local communities. And I believe that people are hungry now for substantive things they can seek their teeth into that are really going to make a difference at the local level that give people a platform and an ability to work together that where they don't have to agree on federal issues to make progress. And so Brandon, I'm not saying that we have to ignore that, you know, where people might have hurt feelings about the national election. But I do think I do think capitalizing on this moment where people are hungry and they've got a lot of energy and many of them are going to want to sink their teeth into and really get engaged in something that is going to make very concrete difference in their in their own community. Maybe it's the redevelopment of. you know, a neighborhood that needs some love. Maybe it is a significant push. To get aid to children and families who have been hit hard during COVID, people listening can come up with any number of things, but it's almost like creating these local vehicles for change that are really going to attract people who are hungry and maybe have been a little, you know, frustrated one way or another by recent election results.

31:50 Brandon Burton
I love that phrase he had mentioned, control the control. the controllables. And if you can put some good positive reasons for people to come together and not focus on that division, I think over some time, some of that division kind of fades anyways, at least till the next election. But Absolutely. I think if you can bring some people from opposite ends of the spectrum together for a common cause, a good cause in your community, I think that goes a long way. Yeah, so.

32:18 Michael Huber
And, you know, I think in terms of and by the way, many of your listeners do this work well and I learned from them. So but if you're thinking, OK, where could I start? Some of the best advice I received from other chamber leaders was always put a volunteer between you and the problem. I think that's a and so reaching out one place to start in terms of what you know, what could these opportunities be to bring bring people together? um former elected officials who have a lot of energy who are respected by you know people of both parties um your former you know retired uh board members who have had success in as entrepreneurs or in public life are a great place to start you know that's the thing is the realization that i don't have to do it all and in fact it's foolish if i try i've got limited bandwidth bandwidth This is a great opportunity to create some sort of kitchen cabinet discussions within your chamber. And if you don't know where to start, go out with potentially five ideas and start to engage some of the most trusted people in your community, get a small diverse group of people and just see what they come up with and maybe it creates this new initiative.

33:33 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. Great advice. As we start to wrap things up here, I did want to ask you, what would be one action item? You shared some great, great tips and great action items, but if you were to summarize one action item that a chamber professional can do to help take their chamber up to the next level, what would you suggest?

33:53 Michael Huber
Okay. So if you're, if you. If you're seeking to bring people together and you're seeking to bridge a divide in your community. The big one is to think about what your role is and if you're feeling pressure like, I've got to come up with all the answers, I would really advise you to not do that. And I would advise you to start with how can we go on this process of discovery as a chamber and can we make that process of discovery the project? and bring people together who've got different views on a topic. It could be something as complex as race relations. It could be something more that's more along bridging partisan political divides. You get a group of people who've got views on both sides of the aisle or different life experiences together whom you trust, and you could call them listening sessions in some cases in communities. If you already know what you're going to do, you call it the implementation tour, and you go on this journey with eyes wide open of having these open discussions, but there's got to be a sense of trust. And I'm telling you that I undervalued that, Brandon. I just assumed that everybody I knew knew everybody else that I knew. this this and so by the way secondly if you feel like you're already doing this pretty well in your own community go a little bit farther you know think about who's got significant social capital But maybe it doesn't show up in the business circles. Maybe it's a pastor of a church. Maybe it's a nonprofit that does a lot of work with low income families, but who could really benefit from the relationships of the chamber. So if you're already doing this really well, I would even say then reach out a little bit farther. I'm telling you, it's paying huge dividends for us, even though we're in the middle of some discussions, especially around police policies that I don't know exactly. exactly where this is going to land, Brandon. But I feel so much better and better informed because we've been inspired to reach beyond our typical business network of folks that we work with as a result of all the challenges in 2020.

36:18 Brandon Burton
I love that. And I love the idea of looking at it as a journey, which means you're open minded and you're able and willing to pivot as you need to to adjust to those needs as you as you discover them.

36:28 Michael Huber
The commonalities. And I know this is very, this is really basic, but even though our media environment. um our media environment does better and draws more clicks by focusing on division um and sometimes our political environment has think you know think they're more successful by focusing on the division i know this is a basic statement but you you have these discussions and you find out you've got so much more in common than you ever knew and that's that's been my journey as well so i've i've really i And I've really been attracted to this idea, and I think it's an important posture for chamber leaders of, I don't have all the answers. We're trying to serve the community better as a business organization, and we need your help in trying to help us figure out how we're going to serve better because I think the service really that chambers do has got to be at the core.

37:23 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. So I know with all this change that we've seen this year, it's really brought a sharp focus onto the purpose of chambers. So the question I like to ask everyone I have on the show is as we look to the future, how do you see the future of chambers of commerce and their purpose going forward?

37:42 Michael Huber
I would hate to tell another chamber leader what his or her mission statement should be, but I can tell you in our case and the chamber leaders that I'm inspired by, and that is harnessing the power of the business community to make your community better. And by better, we mean a place where anybody can thrive regardless of their life circumstances, racial background. you know, income level, any of those factors. There's so much entrepreneurial and creative energy within the business community that sometimes I, excuse me, sometimes I, we leave on the table. And I think if for those of us to really, it's really our responsibility to harness that creative energy to start to bridge these divides and ultimately create opportunity for every person.

38:38 Brandon Burton
I think that is very wise. There's a lot of the old, you know, Peter Parker, you know, Spider-Man with great power comes great responsibility and there's a lot of power that can be harnessed through a chamber of commerce and directing that power in a positive way.

38:53 Michael Huber
Boy, I think is great advice. Well, and I just again, I thank you for the Chamber Chat podcast because a lot of because a lot of times we think we're unique and oh, no one's this problem that I'm experiencing right now. No one has experienced it before. Occasionally, that's true. I find 95% of the time someone has has has dealt with a similar problem in his or her community. So. I just appreciate your podcast. And I always encourage both my colleagues whom I work with and others to not spin their wheels and always be reaching out to chamber leaders and other communities because it's very likely you're going to find someone who's dealt with a very similar problem.

39:30 Brandon Burton
I appreciate that. And that that's the whole purpose of why I do this,

39:34 Michael Huber
Absolutely.

39:34 Brandon Burton
try to make those connections. Michael, I appreciate you so much for spending time with us today on the. On Chamber Chat podcast, I'd like to give you an opportunity to put any contact information out there if anybody listening wanted to get in touch with you about how you're doing things at the Indy Chamber or continue this discussion offline, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect?

39:55 Michael Huber
We're pretty blessed. It's all on IndyChamber.com and you can find any information about our most important initiatives in economic. economic development and leading the business community. This topic today is very much a new area of focus for us. We're very proud of what we've done in this past year, but we've got a lot to learn. And I really enjoy conversations about creative ways to bring people together and what's working and what's not. So check out indychamber.com and if anybody has any questions. As any questions, I look forward to the discussion.

40:34 Brandon Burton
Sounds great. I will get that in the show notes for this episode as well, which will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com slash episode 99. Again, Michael, thank you so much. You brought a ton of value and great perspective, especially during these divisive times. I hope everybody got a lot of value out of this and can take some implementation steps that they can take back to their chamber and help mend their communities and bring people together. Thank you so much.

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