Building a Chamber Flywheel Through Programs, Events, and Member Momentum
Why programs and events should start the engine — not wear out the staff.
Your chamber calendar should do more than keep your team busy. It should create member value, community relevance, stories worth sharing, revenue opportunities, and momentum that carries forward.
Enter your information below and I’ll send you the Chamber Flywheel Toolkit, worksheet, featured podcast episodes, and bonus resources from the session.
What you’ll receive
Chamber Flywheel Toolkit (great for going over with staff and/or your board)
Chamber Engine Worksheet (same as you filled out in the session)
Calendar Audit worksheet
Content Calendar Planner
Sponsorship Flywheel Builder
Featured Chamber Chat Podcast episodes
Free Chamber Podcasting Guide
Community Matters media kit link (for sample directories & maps to promote your community)
Below is an auto-generated transcription. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
Feel free to join our Chamber Chat Champions Facebook Group to discuss this episode and to share your own experiences and tips with other Chamber Champions.
Brandon Burton (00:01.356) Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, 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. Our guest for this episode is Becky McCray. Becky is a lifelong rural entrepreneur, cattle rancher, and co-founder of Save Your Dot Town, where she helps small communities rethink how they approach growth and opportunity. With a background as a city administrator and nonprofit executive, Becky brings real world experience in workforce and community development.
She’s a creator of the widely used survey of rural challenges, a tool that’s helped agencies, educators, and businesses better understand the evolving needs of rural areas. Becky is also an award-winning author, and her latest book, The Idea Friendly Guide, empowers communities to take action without waiting for permission, funding, or perfect conditions. Having spoken at more than 300 events across the US and Canada, including Main Street America,
National League of Cities and even a TEDx event in rural Australia, combines big ideas with practical steps. And what makes her perspective truly unique? She lives at Everyday in Hopeton, Oklahoma, a town of just 30 people. But Becky, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat podcast. I’d to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening. And if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get
to know you a little better.
Becky McCray (01:38.497) Of course. So I’m excited to be here and this is a great chance for me to shout out my own local chamber, Alva Area Chamber of Commerce in Alva, Oklahoma. Megan and Jody are our co-directors and they’re doing a
bang-up job with our chamber. Something interesting about me is I am a former retail liquor store owner for almost 13 years, an award-winning community volunteer who burned out and quit every single committee that I was on and started entirely over. And in 2006, I started the blog Small Biz Survival the same time that I got my liquor store. And I started using that to share ideas with other rural small business owners.
Brandon Burton (02:20.328) Very cool. I think there’s probably a few more than a few people listening who can relate to the burnout that comes from just, you know, going every direction and a hundred miles an hour all the time. So you’re in good company.
Well, tell us a little bit about Save Your Dot Town, just the organization itself, what it is. Some listeners may remember we had Deb Brown on a couple months ago from the organization as well, but for those who are not familiar, give us that synopsis of what it is that you all do.
Becky McCray (02:53.134) Definitely go back and listen to Deb’s episode because she told great stories from her time in the Webster City Chamber of Commerce. But Deb and I started Save Your Dot Town in 2015. She was still at the chamber at the time. So she was actually piloting a lot of our idea-friendly methods in Webster City, even as we were developing and refining them. So I know one of the questions, yes, was like, tell us about your staff and budget. OK, so Deb and I are the staff. have a superstar.
Brandon Burton (03:01.23) So, that’s
Brandon Burton (03:20.686) Thank
Becky McCray (03:23.148) VA named Ethan who is in the Atlanta area but has small town roots in rural Maryland and then we do a lot of collaboration with other people. So Andrew Batten with Mashup Lab and Dakota Resources and John Shepherd from the city planning world and we have a cooperation with the rural strong podcast as well and lots of other folks. So staff it’s just us but we cooperate a lot to make more things happen.
Brandon Burton (03:46.296) Yeah.
That’s very cool. So today we’re going to lean on your expertise, on your experience and what you’ve seen with chambers and communities in general regarding finding volunteers. And that can be a hot topic, especially as chambers find themselves being volunteered for a lot of things in the community that maybe they shouldn’t or maybe they shouldn’t agree to, we’ll say. But we will dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, Becky, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, today we’re going to dive in on the topic of finding volunteers. And I know we can go deep on the subject. You’ve got some great ideas on this. But is there a high level approach you want to cover around finding volunteers before we go into the more granular points?
Becky McCray (04:40.97) Sure, the way people volunteer is changing, but everything else is changing. So of course it makes sense that volunteering is changing as well. So the idea friendly method is just to work with volunteers, kind of letting go some of the old ways that we have done things. And the new way is to tap.
Brandon Burton (04:44.418) Yeah.
Becky McCray (04:59.042) people’s enthusiasm through more like viral activities and less like a committee structure. So we can talk about how modern volunteering is more about activities and less about committees.
Brandon Burton (05:12.236) Okay, so let’s do that because I know those listening that there’s probably a love hate relationship with committees. know, they’re, they can’t do everything they do without them. At least that’s the feel. And then it’s also can be, you know, a little overwhelming to deal with, you know, a wide number of committees at an organization. So let’s talk about that first. How do you, how do you function without committees?
Becky McCray (05:39.951) Can you function without committees? So the State and Sublimity Chamber of Commerce in Oregon, when we first started talking about killing off committees, their director at that time, Elena Turpin, emailed me and said that they had killed off almost all of their year-round committees and that they gathered people only when they needed them. And they did it using their mission. she said, we spend more time talking about how we make a difference in the community.
Brandon Burton (05:59.115) Okay.
Becky McCray (06:08.76) which I thought was kind of a key distinction, less time talking about could you serve on my committees and more time, this is how the chamber makes a difference in the community. So she said, then your organization becomes a movement that people can get behind and not just another volunteer opportunity. And I have been quoting that for years because I felt like it really summarized the way that we can organize people around those activities and less of getting them onto committees.
Brandon Burton (06:30.19) Yeah
Becky McCray (06:35.2) And it was really made clear to me when I was in Caldwell, Kansas, which has a population of about thousand people. We went around the room and everyone introduced themselves. And I noticed that people that were maybe my age and older, introduced themselves by the organizations that they belong to and serve. So like one person is like, I’m on the Chamber of Commerce Executive Committee. I volunteer with the Historical Society and I’m on the alumni board.
But then people who were like maybe my age and younger didn’t have a list of organizations to point to. It really struck me. They talked about their activities, things they like to do. So there’s a younger woman named Laura who said, I love to garden. Some friends and I do a book club.
Brandon Burton (07:09.902) That’s an interesting point, yeah.
Becky McCray (07:25.116) and I have a little free library. She was so hesitant because she didn’t have that list of organizations. She just told us what she liked to do in the community. So if we think of assigning her to a committee, we’re never going to get Laura.
but we’ll get that older volunteer who thinks in terms of committees. But if we want Laura to do something, we have to go, okay, she likes gardening, she likes reading, she has a little free library, maybe she’s crafty and made it, right? Like these are things we can tap in terms of things she likes to do. But we’re gonna get her more with the no committee method than we are with the, hey, join this committee, serve for a full year or a three year term on a committee. Like who knows where they’re gonna be in three years. And if you need a way to think
Brandon Burton (08:01.134) Right.
Becky McCray (08:08.054) of it, you can think of it instead of a committee, but as a talent pool. A talent pool is where you put someone who has a talent and you call on them when you need them. So you don’t need to assign them to, you know, the beautification committee if you call them when you need help with a beautification project.
Brandon Burton (08:08.653) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (08:14.286) Okay.
Brandon Burton (08:29.921) Yeah.
Becky McCray (08:30.924) The talent pool could form at any time. It could be around for any length of time. You might dissolve a talent pool when you didn’t need that particular talent anymore. You know, don’t call a committee meeting of the talent pool. You just call on people from the talent pool when you need them.
Brandon Burton (08:45.27) Yeah, so it’s.
So that’s, I guess the next question where my mind is going with this is,
So say your example with Laura, maybe she’s crafty with the little free library she did, you’ve got a project coming up. Laura would be great to be a part of this because of her skillset, her talents, her tools that she brings. Still, I think there’s a tendency to say, let’s form a committee for this project, right? So even if you’re tapping into a talent pool, how can one…
get past that mindset of this needs to be formalized as a committee or have somebody to report to or keep everything else organized. How do you make things happen?
Becky McCray (09:30.883) You know, real organizations that have done this talk about how they’ll have folks that have some experience will just figure out what it is the project, what is the outcome that you want to have. And that’s a goal that’s related to your community. The goal is never to have a committee. That’s not why we have a chamber. The goal of the chamber is to make a stronger, more prosperous community. And so if you think about that, how does this project lead to a more prosperous community?
Brandon Burton (09:54.126) Thank
Becky McCray (10:00.958) Knowing that then, you can break it up and go, how can we move these pieces around? Somebody can take this part, somebody can take that part and divide it up, go do it. When you come back together, the bulk of it may be done. It may be all done. Now, I really think that the key here is to think of the volunteer motivation as a curve, like as a power law curve. So there’s only a few people who have huge motivation.
Brandon Burton (10:05.23) This is the right time.
Becky McCray (10:30.562) But there’s a lot of people way down here on the long tail who have like small motivation. They have a very small motivation, but there’s a lot of them. And so if the project is the downtown flower boxes, they’re going to need constructed there, or maybe they need repairs. They need to be repainted and then they need to be revitalized with new flowers. Well, we don’t need to ask one person to be in charge of every single bit of that so much as we could simply put out that this is what we’re trying to do.
Brandon Burton (10:34.062) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (10:43.598) you
Brandon Burton (10:54.638) the best we can.
Becky McCray (11:00.024) Can you adopt one? Can you come and do a particular task towards making that happen? We’re looking for people for the flower planting party. We don’t need a committee to have a flower planting party so much as we just need to arrange for the resources we need, bring those together, and then see if it doesn’t happen, right? Now, obviously there are some, like I was speaking with the Association of Fairs and Expos.
Brandon Burton (11:02.92) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (11:25.582) Thank you.
Becky McCray (11:25.91) And so this is like your county fair people and your state fair people. And they’re like, okay, so some things we absolutely have to have organized. Sure, then go ahead and make those things absolutely organized. But try to think how many things could we turn into kind of more of a viral challenge? Can you do a little tiny part and post a picture of yourself rather than serving on a year round committee?
Brandon Burton (11:47.895) Okay, so that’s what you mean by the viral, making something viral. So that’s a good example. Yeah, let’s go in deeper on that.
Becky McCray (11:53.964) Yeah, you want to talk more about that?
Brandon Burton (11:59.791) I mean, you had mentioned that things, everything is changing, right? And including volunteers. So maybe before we go the viral wave, do you think the change with volunteers, is that just a generational thing? Is it a change with technology and how people interact with others? And is that pointing to where the the viruleness of getting volunteers?
becomes a factor. What do you see and why do you think that change, what’s driving that change?
Becky McCray (12:34.606) A long time ago I noticed that a lot of the organizations that we’re familiar with in our communities have a founding date in the 1900s or 1910s. Like there’s a lot of organizations that you could name that started in that time period. it was several communications tools came together.
Like we had the telegraph and we started having like first class postage stamps so you could mail things easily without having to have each individual piece taken to the post office, weighed, individual postage applied to the penny. Like you could just put a stamp on it and send it. The typewriter was introduced and then you had carbon paper and you could make two copies of something so easily rather than write everything longhand. And then,
Brandon Burton (13:14.638) you
Becky McCray (13:20.13) Not surprisingly, this is the same time period when we get the organizational chart is first used in business. And then Robert’s Rules of Order is introduced. And so there was this boom in how we did organizations around those specific tools. But as I’m describing them to you, you were thinking, those are some really old fashioned tools. I haven’t telegraphed anybody.
Brandon Burton (13:40.6) thing this is great technology this is awesome at the time it was
Becky McCray (13:43.083) It’s so awesome. I know I have a great picture of a typewriter and it’s an ad and it’s got like rays of light behind it and a crown over its head because it is so amazing. But we have moved beyond that. Even if you collect typewriters for fun, you are not sitting down at your Smith Corona portable and handling all of your daily business with it.
unless you’re really exceptional. But we have, we all know what kind of communication tools we have today and the amount of computing power we carry in our hands. of since the organizational tools we’ve all been trained with were created and used around a time period and around tools that are no longer the cutting edge.
New ways of organizing ourselves need to take advantage of the communication tools available to us today. And so that’s the long version of how we ended up with this change. So what the viral difference looks like is I was in Pullman, Washington, which has a population of about 40,000 people. And they had a dirty sidewalk problem. And they were talking about we should do another cleanup day. And so one person
Brandon Burton (14:41.378) Yeah.
Becky McCray (15:00.386) from the back of the room says, the chamber did the last cleanup day. The chamber should do another one. This is exactly what you were talking about. People volunteer the chamber into doing things. Fortunately, I was standing there and I said, no, you do not get to assign this to somebody else. If you don’t want to do it, then it doesn’t need to happen because it’s not your priority. And they were very awkwardly quiet for a minute.
Brandon Burton (15:09.344) Yep. Volunteer the chamber.
Brandon Burton (15:23.438) Great point.
Becky McCray (15:27.552) And then a business owner in the back of the room raised her hand and she said, her name’s Willow. She said, I will sweep my own sidewalk. Which is perfect, right? Like that’s great. That’s at least one section of sidewalk that’s gonna be cleaner. I suggested to Willow that she should take a photo, she should post it on Instagram and tag two of her friends who are also merchants downtown and say, today is clean your own sidewalk day. Go out and sweep your sidewalk.
This is what Willow did. And this worked for Pullman. Suddenly, almost all of the downtown merchants were sweeping their sidewalks on Wednesday afternoons. That’s Clean Your Own Sidewalk Day in Pullman, Washington. And seeing that, then the city says, if you’re going to do that on Wednesday afternoons, we can run the street sweeper early, early on Thursday morning and pick all that up. But if Willow had tried to committee her way into this,
Brandon Burton (16:09.41) That’s awesome.
Becky McCray (16:24.82) Let’s form a committee at the chamber. We’re going to put people on the committee that they will sweep sidewalks, and then we’re going to try to talk the city into changing their work schedule. If she had tried to convince people of this, everyone would have resisted. Willow didn’t try to convince anybody of anything. Willow enticed them into doing a thing that felt more like a fun viral challenge and less like, hey, could you serve a three-year term on the beautification committee?
or give up your entire Saturday for Cleanup Day on the hottest day of the year because Cleanup Day is always the hottest day of the year.
Brandon Burton (17:00.918) That’s right. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing. It’s always going to be that.
Becky McCray (17:03.724) You can schedule that thing for the depths of winter and it will turn off scorching.
Brandon Burton (17:08.268) That’s right. Well, and honestly, who wants to go to a committee meeting about sweeping your sidewalks, right? But when you put it in their hands, there’s a sense of pride that comes with it where they want to share it. And it has that snowball viral, the viral effect, which is awesome. I love that idea and being able to just put the ownership back in their hands, but then to see it gain momentum. That’s so cool.
Becky McCray (17:16.299) Exactly.
Becky McCray (17:34.361) Right, and the key thing is to find what’s the tiny, small piece that each person can do on their own that adds up to the result we want for our community. The result they want is a clean downtown, and so each person cleaning one section of sidewalk is a usable unit to make that happen. And we don’t need accountability. We don’t need somebody to go around and go, you didn’t sweep your sidewalk. Like, chill out, dude. That’s not how this works.
Brandon Burton (17:52.492) Yeah.
Becky McCray (18:01.714) You know, but it’s more fun to like have three other people keep tagging you of like, I was sweeping my own sidewalk. Like Willow literally owns a cute broom so she can have better photo ops when she cleans her sidewalk.
Brandon Burton (18:01.91) Right.
Brandon Burton (18:12.27) Yeah. But on the next level could be clean your neighbor’s sidewalk day, you know, and it’s like doing an act of service for somebody else and it could just keep going.
Becky McCray (18:21.88) I know. And there’s two parts to that. Willow told me that there was one person who would not clean their sidewalk and some of their customers started doing it on Clean Your Own Sidewalk Day, would come and sweep their business sidewalk because the customer wanted to see them be part of it. Now tell me that’s not amazing community involvement. The second thing is, like if you have some stuff that you want folks to do, one way to do that is like make your honey do list for your community.
Brandon Burton (18:40.716) That is cool. That is really cool.
Becky McCray (18:49.964) I stole this idea from Rob Hatch from Maine when there was a controversy in his town because some people took it on themselves to do a thing and then the city didn’t approve of them having done it. It turned into a giant fight. How dare they replace that old bridge on the walking trail, right? Like, okay, but what if we just made a list of things that it’s okay for people to do? And then they could pick from that. And so if on that is like,
Brandon Burton (19:14.926) We have to make a good project. And so, when we have this project, it’s not a mistake, I don’t know why it is.
Becky McCray (19:18.412) somebody needs to power wash the benches in the downtown, do you know anybody that owns a power washer? They love their power washers. They’re dying for things that they can go power wash because it’s so much fun. And so if one of the entries on that list is power wash the downtown benches, somebody is going to be like doing their back deck going, I love doing my power washing. Wonder if there’s any I can do. They can pull up the list. They can go up benches downtown, off they go.
Brandon Burton (19:39.458) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (19:46.232) Yeah.
Becky McCray (19:47.041) It’s going to get done. You didn’t do anything but put it on the list. So if you can maintain a list of like these things are OK to do, it’s OK to clean out these flower boxes. It’s OK to wash these windows. It’s OK to, you know, anything that you’re trying to organize, if you can find that small piece that people can do, but then let them know. Then we talked about that curve of like lots of people have little motivation.
I don’t have to be super motivated so much as I just need to find the piece on that list that matches my motivation.
Brandon Burton (20:20.0) Yeah, that’s funny about the power washers. It’s like somebody with a chainsaw too, right? I mean, if they get a chance to use it, they’re out using it, right? And they’ll do whatever they need to to provide that service. I love that. So these honey do lists for the community, which is just suggest like, say a chamber where to do it.
Becky McCray (20:24.736) You know, they are.
Brandon Burton (20:41.304) Do they put it on their website? Do they share it on social media? Do they put it down like one thing at a time? Or do you just keep a list out there at all times? What do you think would work best or what have you seen work as far as a honeydew list go?
Becky McCray (20:56.568) So the idea of friendly method says test it, take small steps, try it out. So it’s going to work different in your community than my community. So just try something out. But here’s my suggestion. First of all, just start making a list of the things you wish you had time to accomplish yourself. My own Alva chamber, at one point it was, come in and assemble the cabinet that we’re going to set our copier on. OK, just put that on the list. You haven’t had time to do it? I totally understand.
Brandon Burton (21:04.045) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (21:20.821) Okay.
Becky McCray (21:25.634) was going to move the copier to a more accessible, easier to access height so that it’d be easier to work at. This is a usable thing. Somebody is good at putting together flat pack furniture, and it may not be you. So put that on the list. Go around, think of all the things you know of, put together that list. Where should you share it? Where do people actually pay attention to you? That’s changing all the time. So you figure out how it works best.
If you have a text message service and you’re like texting people about events, text people and say, the updated honeydew list is at link. And make sure it’s mobile friendly so they can go and go, power wash the benches, I’m in, or paint the railings, I’ve got some leftover paint. Whatever those things are. So start with what you know, put it the places you know you can get people’s attention, and include on there how they can nominate a task that they see.
Brandon Burton (22:00.175) Thank
Brandon Burton (22:06.189) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (22:20.526) I like that.
Becky McCray (22:20.934) there’s this empty building and I see the light fixture has fallen down in there, the flower box in front, everything is dead. That can go on the list. Somebody can, and this actually happened in Pullman, it was a city council member adopted the flower box on the front of the empty building, planted flowers and carried water to it all summer and had great conversations with people about the future of downtown.
Brandon Burton (22:42.474) I bet, I bet. So what would you think if you catch somebody in the act, you know, doing one of these items of service on the honeydew list, you snap a picture and share that out too, and then people know you’re crossing it off the list or?
Becky McCray (22:57.62) Absolutely, I love that. That’s a great, I hadn’t thought about that particular part of it. Like, could you catch them doing it? You could ask them to let you know when they do it, and so that you know what’s been done, or you just may notice things. And even if you didn’t catch them doing it, you just noticed the new flowers or the clean bench, or the copier is suddenly at the right level. Like, take a picture and go ahead and say, I don’t know what anonymous volunteer did this for us. Great to have it. This looks wonderful.
Or if you see, just the same as you do already, like when you see two businesses do a cooperative ad, do you not like take a picture of that and like promote it and go, look at these businesses cooperating, we love to see that. Whatever you’re trying to encourage, you should encourage.
Brandon Burton (23:36.174) Yeah.
That’s right. So just overall, what would you say the secret is to attracting volunteers? You talked about getting that talent pool, that list of abilities and talents of others, but if you had to kind of hone it down into what is the secret, what is the formula to getting volunteers, what would you say?
Becky McCray (24:02.734) The secret is to let go of the old ways that you have been taught as much as possible and tap into the ways that people like to do things. So if it’s just three words, it’s entice, not convince.
Brandon Burton (24:17.451) Okay, I’ll make that entice, not convince. That’s awesome. Any other lessons that have stood out to you as you’ve seen other communities adopt these practices for getting volunteers that really stand out to you? Any other stories or examples that you want to point to?
Becky McCray (24:37.446) I do want to tell a Deb story because I have the chance to tell a Deb story. When Deb, you know I’m going to tag her. my gosh, I’m so going to tag her. So when Deb was at the Chamber of Commerce in Webster City, Iowa, which has a population of I think about 8,000 people. So it’s kind of to me a big town and to some of y’all a small town. Just depends. So they did an event called Junk Fest, J-U-N-Q-U-E because it was nice junk. Junk Fest.
Brandon Burton (24:39.552) Okay. Make sure to tag her on this so she’ll know. She’ll know we’re talking about her.
Brandon Burton (24:56.918) Right from 30. Yeah. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (25:05.55) Classy joke.
Becky McCray (25:06.35) It’s a big, you know, craft and classy junk and recycled and upcycled and all the great things. So they originally did it with like the old way volunteers. So it was Deb and two really good core volunteers who put the thing together. And Deb was chamber director. So Deb and these two volunteers put the whole thing together. They managed to make it work. It was great. They loved it. The second year, a group of people who didn’t qualify as
for Junkfest because they were home-based sellers of like home goods or cosmetics or something that didn’t qualify for being part of the handmade Junkfest. They said they wanted to be part of it, but they had talked to somebody that owned a lot across the street from the location. Could they set up over there? Now, this is kind of against the rules, but Deb and her core volunteers are idea friendly enough that they go, sure, come alongside. So this is one of our secrets in
Small Town says like, let the new volunteers come alongside so that they can add to the event that we’re putting on, even if it’s not part of the old way we’ve always done it. Let people innovate in nearby spaces. Then year three went great. Year four, it felt like it all fell apart for Deb because her two core volunteers could not help this year for personal reasons. And
Brandon Burton (26:12.302) you
are not the work I’m interested in.
you
Brandon Burton (26:29.133) There’s a lot of those things. I don’t know if you’ve heard of those things.
Becky McCray (26:35.298) they had to move to a different location. So this feels like the whole thing has been blown apart. They were expecting 7,500 attendees the same as the last year. And she’s going, can I do all this by myself? So with that intimidating information, she went, I don’t have to do all that by myself. At this point, idea friendly was already a thing. So Deb applied some idea friendly method thinking of.
Brandon Burton (26:38.798) Okay.
Becky McCray (27:00.63) I need to have small but meaningful ways for lots of people to participate. So she called some of the vendors who knew a lot of the other vendors. So she called them in. They came to a lunch and they sat down together and the vendor said to Deb, like, so what are you going to do? And Deb said, actually, this is, and she told a story just like this, what are we going to do? Right.
Brandon Burton (27:03.64) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (27:19.106) We’re do, right?
Becky McCray (27:24.034) but this is their event and she’s like, you know what works for you? You tell me, what if we just like figure out a bunch of ideas for you to try out and find what works? So they all start sharing these ideas. They didn’t write them all down. They just like went, ooh yeah, that one. And they didn’t like formally vote on them. They didn’t run them to the subcommittee. They didn’t like send out a mail poll. They figured out what they wanted to do. They chose the ones that seemed most promising at that point that they could test out. And so then they did what they ended up doing. They…
decided they wanted to bring their trailers because they all have a trailer they use to bring their stuff to junk fest. It was now going to be in downtown. Well, they weren’t allowed to do it when it was in the park since it was downtown. They talked to the city council and they giving them permission to just go ahead and do it even though it was against the city code. So they did do it, they got permission. So they brought their trailers. They changed the size of the spaces a little bit to better fit the new location. like…
Brandon Burton (27:58.575) friends.
Becky McCray (28:18.688) the vendors led on this. This wasn’t just Deb doing it by herself or with her core volunteers. She had all the people who were most involved taking all those small pieces. So much like for Willow, cleaning her own sidewalk was a meaningful unit, for the vendors, helping to determine what works for them is a meaningful unit. So what Deb actually said at the time, and I have the quote she wrote about it, she said, this changed my whole outlook on this event. It is now fun again.
Brandon Burton (28:29.358) you
you
Brandon Burton (28:42.19) And all of a sudden, this is changed by the outcome of this war. It is not a friendly war.
Becky McCray (28:46.924) because I’m not doing it alone by rote and everyone has a small but meaningful role. So she was much less stressed because she had a lot less of the responsibility on her own shoulders and everybody took a smaller piece. So I just love this idea that rather than finish all the plans herself from the comfort of her office, she brought it forward to the vendors and it was up to them to take more parts of that and make it happen.
Brandon Burton (28:52.43) Thank you.
Brandon Burton (29:00.107) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (29:12.566) Yeah, that’s a great idea, great example. Thank you, Deb, for listening. Thanks for that. Well, Becky, I like asking on behalf of all the Chamber Champions that are listening who want to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item would you share with them as they strive towards that goal?
Becky McCray (29:35.823) I had to go back and listen to Deb’s tip and make sure I wasn’t going to give the same one. So one that is not what she said is to start a success list. And this is an idea I got from Carol Peterson, Milnor, North Dakota, population 700. And so she started, she received this advice when she started, she passes it on to others, I’m passing it on to you. But every time a business opened, she wrote it down. If they expanded, if they remodeled.
Brandon Burton (29:39.874) Yeah.
Becky McCray (30:04.242) New investments, business successions, new truck businesses and trailer businesses, so like the food trucks, home-based businesses, finding every business that opens, expands, remodels, all of that. And then she adds in grants, community projects, public improvements, successful events, any of these that win an award, this all goes onto her success list. And so for a town of 700 people, they have this
list of amazing things that they have accomplished together and so when somebody says nothing good ever happens in Milnor she’s like have you seen the success list? She’s got to respond and again you asked how do you promote this? You promote it everywhere. You promote it everywhere and I think the reason that I think this would help you take your thing to the next level even if you already track part of this and you think that’s good. A success list reminds you of what’s going well.
Brandon Burton (30:43.054) Right? I love that.
Becky McCray (31:02.602) It reminds people they’re part of a winning team that’s doing good things. It counters the negativity of nothing good ever happens here or no business has ever come here. And also when you start digging deeper for this level of success, you’re gonna uncover a lot of people who are doing amazing things in your community that you didn’t know about. They have been flying below the radar doing a community group or a small activity club or like they’re doing a kayaking group or there’s a running club.
These are the people who are shaping the future of your community and you want to know about them and you want to share their successes so you build a stronger feeling of community.
Brandon Burton (31:37.577) So, that was kind of fun.
Yeah, I love that. And even tapping into those people who have the kayaking club and the running club and everything, they have their group of followers. So as they get on board with the vision of whatever the chamber’s doing, whatever project they want to volunteer with, whatever they’re getting involved with, they have an audience, they have their group that they can share things with too. And back to the point of getting those volunteers, you get one person from a running club that shows up to something and they’re going to bring five or 10 people with them. So.
I think that’s great advice. I like asking everyone I have on the show about how they see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward.
Becky McCray (32:13.326) Definitely.
Becky McCray (32:22.4) And while I’m not a chamber person, I do hear from Deb, like I get an earful from Deb about Chamber World, but I do, looking at all the trends that I see and all of the results that we get on our Survey of Rural Challenges and what people tell us about their communities and what their challenges are, in-person connections, where people can have a shared experience that gives them something to reflect on and think about what they just were part of.
Brandon Burton (32:26.51) Great.
Becky McCray (32:47.51) If it can help them connect with different groups in the community, people they never normally talk to, it’s gonna change their way of thinking. And if they play a small but meaningful role in it, even if they just sweep one sidewalk, then they see themselves as the kind of person who’s involved in their community and does positive things. So when you add that up, then you are creating a stronger community. You are overcoming our divisiveness, and you’re giving people that space to.
Brandon Burton (33:06.126) Thank
Becky McCray (33:14.958) our way into a new way of thinking about our community and about our own role in it.
Brandon Burton (33:21.634) Yeah, I love that idea of building those in-person connections.
And in a world where, you know, everyone’s doing the social media thing, AI has taken a huge role in things. You know, people, I’m not one of these people, but some people think the ideal world is where you never have to leave your house and you just stay in your house and AI does everything for you and technology, this and that. But having those human connections, we are human and we need those connections and utilizing some of these tools even, like you’re talking about postings, the sweeping the sidewalk on social media.
you’re utilizing these tools, but you’re utilizing them in a way to make in-person connections. And I love that because it’s meeting people where they are and then…
appreciate that. Becky, 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 what you Deb are up to. Where would you point them and what would be the best way to connect?
Becky McCray (34:23.444) SaveYour.town is our website address. BeckyMcCray.com is my personal website and I have a newsletter that goes out there. And if you go to SmallBizSurvival.com, that’s that blog I started in 2006 for small town businesses, still alive, still thriving, still going. So if you need to know something about small town business, SmallBizSurvival.com is a great resource for you.
Brandon Burton (34:42.584) next.
Brandon Burton (34:48.428) So we’ll make sure that’s all in our show notes for this episode. But this has been a lot of fun having you on on Chamber Chat podcast and sharing these examples and stories of communities across the country and the good that they’re doing and gathering volunteers and not, you I see it as you see the old image of.
you driving a team with a horse and carriage and you’re doing the whip versus being in the front and then people follow. And I see that, you know, with this kind of model and how it’s working. So let’s be the leaders, let’s be out there and have other people be encouraged to follow us. Becky, this is great. I really appreciate you spending time with us.
Becky McCray (35:28.214) I love it. I love your closing image of not being the driver, but being like, hey, let’s go do it together.
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Brandon Burton (00:01.259) Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today’s guest is Megan Curtis, Executive Director of the Illinois Valley Chamber of Commerce. Originally from a small town in Idaho, Megan made Southern Oregon home in 2018 and has been a driving force in the region ever since.
She joined the chamber in 2019 and stepped into the executive director role in 2022. With a background in hospitality and the service industry, Megan brings deep experience in small business support, rural economic development, and sustainable tourism. Her leadership extends across the region through several key roles, including serving as secretary on the Travel Southern Oregon Board.
president of the Illinois Valley Community Development Organization Board and as an active rotarian. Known for her energy, optimism, and passion for community building, Megan is dedicated to creating meaningful connections and helping drive lasting impact throughout the Illinois Valley. When she’s not working to support her community, she enjoys spending time outdoors and making memories with family and friends.
Megan, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Tap podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening. And if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.
Megan Curtis (01:34.53) Hello, Brandon. Thank you so much for having me and hello, Chamber Champions. So one random thing about me is that I am a twin sister and we were born on Groundhog’s Day. So our entire childhood, you everyone was like, do you celebrate with Punxsutawney Phil? And of course my mom would let us stay home from school on the day if we saw our shadow. So we always saw our shadow. But last year, last year we went ahead and made the pilgrimage to Punxsutawney.
Brandon Burton (01:47.777) Okay.
Brandon Burton (01:54.967) That went by.
Megan Curtis (02:03.862) My sister, my mom, and I, all three of us, so we’re all three Aquarius and it was a wildly chaotic and fun girls trip.
Brandon Burton (02:13.623) That sounds like fun. Yeah, that’s very cool. I love hearing these interesting facts about people. You never know what you’re going to hear. well, if you would. Yeah, yeah, but I love it. That’s great. Well, tell us a little bit about the Illinois Valley Chamber just to give us an idea of the size of the chamber staff.
Megan Curtis (02:21.902) It’s true and that’s pretty random but…
Brandon Burton (02:38.625) budget, scope of work you guys are involved with just to kind of set the stage for our conversation today.
Megan Curtis (02:43.95) Absolutely. So the Illinois Valley Chamber of Commerce is a relatively small organization. We’re located in Cave Junction, Oregon, which is Southern Oregon. We’re about 30 minutes from the California border close to the Redwoods. So we have a smaller budget, about 30,000 a year, and around 70 members currently. We did receive last year
Brandon Burton (02:54.455) Okay. Okay.
Megan Curtis (03:10.434) funding through Travel Oregon for our Gateway to the Stars project. So that’s up to $100,000 from them. So that’s big money we’re trying to bring into the Valley.
Brandon Burton (03:18.487) Okay. Yeah, very cool. So we’ll, I’m sure, spend more time talking about that as we get into our conversation today. So do you guys have a tourism focus? Are you strictly chambered? Do you focus on economic development? What’s your focus? Okay.
Megan Curtis (03:36.622) So we have both, yes, we’re both. We do business building workshops and after hours mixers, the ribbon cuttings, the regular chamber activities. And then we are also the destination management slash marketing organization for the city of Cave Junction. And that’s why we work really closely with Travel Southern Oregon. They’re the regional destination management organization for Southern Oregon.
Brandon Burton (03:43.118) Thank
Brandon Burton (03:49.304) Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Yeah, that definitely will help set the stage for our conversation as we focus on the impact of being a gateway community. So we’ll dive into that and what all that means as soon as we get back from this quick break.
Megan Curtis (04:11.48) Yes.
Brandon Burton (04:16.631) All right, Megan, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, today we’re talking about what the impact is of being a gateway community. So first, tell us what does that mean? What does it mean to be a gateway community?
Megan Curtis (04:29.08) So we are actually known, Cave Junction is known as the gateway to the Oregon Caves. We have a national monument and preserve right here in our backyard. It’s about 20 miles out of town. And we are also the gateway to Crater Lake as well as the Redwoods. So being a gateway community, there are a lot of people that travel through and now we’re just trying to focus on how we get them to stop and stay.
Brandon Burton (04:52.407) And that’s basically the whole idea of the game.
Megan Curtis (04:57.698) We want them to come invest their money in our community, have a great time, make some amazing memories, and then tell everyone they know about it and send them our way.
Brandon Burton (04:58.015) That’s very good.
Brandon Burton (05:07.647) That’s right. That’s right. And then you get on podcasts and stuff like that to help promote it, right? Come visit Cape junction. Yeah.
Megan Curtis (05:10.67) Yes, yes, come see us. We have a beautiful, beautiful outdoor recreation opportunities out here.
Brandon Burton (05:21.247) Yeah, so let’s maybe talk a little bit about that, the outdoor recreation activities. So I know you’d mentioned about the dark sky, dark skies. Tell us about that and.
Megan Curtis (05:33.984) In fact, the Oregon Caves, Oregon Caves is actually a dark sky park through dark sky international. So it would be responsible for the city to, you know, make sure that they’re doing their lighting in a responsible way so as not to impede on Oregon caves designation. And so we’re looking at, hopefully submitting a nomination to dark sky international for the city of cave junction to be a dark sky community. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (06:02.867) Okay, very cool.
Megan Curtis (06:03.734) And then the outdoor recreation here, I mean, we we have pitcher plants out here, Darlingtonias, they’re cobra lilies. And so they’re carnivorous plants. So there’s a really great ven of them that you can see on $8 Mountain Boardwalk Trail. It’s like a quarter of a mile trail and super easy, very accessible. And you can see the whole ven of them.
Brandon Burton (06:12.455) Okay.
Brandon Burton (06:28.117) That is cool. So similar.
Megan Curtis (06:29.144) But we also have wine tasting in the trees, like in tree houses. We have the out and about tree sort. And they have a zip line and guided horseback riding tours. So there’s a lot to do out here. Plus we have the Illinois River. So a salmon stronghold out here.
Brandon Burton (06:41.365) That’s awesome. Yeah. That’s awesome. So I’ve never heard of, you said, cobra plants? Is that right? These carnivorous plants? Cobra lilies. I’m gonna have to check those out.
Megan Curtis (06:51.916) The cobra lilies, cobra lilies. Yes, they are very cool and they really do resemble cobras.
Brandon Burton (07:00.381) Okay, that is interesting. It’s worth a trip in itself.
Megan Curtis (07:03.502) I know that’s a really unique thing for the valley. And there’s some in Redwoods. There’s like a little botanical trail that you can take and see them in the Redwoods. But a lot of people don’t see, it’s just a tiny sign on the side of the road. So a lot of people don’t see that. Yes, exactly. Not looking down.
Brandon Burton (07:16.631) When you go to the Redwoods and you’re looking up, right? You’re not looking down so much. So yeah, very cool. So what have you guys seen as being a Gateway community? You talked about some of these recreation activities, but what are some of the ways that you try to pull and attract and get people to stay there and experience the area and spend time in your community?
Megan Curtis (07:44.814) Right. So it’s been a little difficult. When we moved here in 2018, the Chateau is a historic lodge up at Oregon Caves and it closed down for renovations. They expected it to be done in about two to three years. However, they ran into a bunch of seismic issues. And so it’s still not open. My husband and I joke, we’re like, we’re going to live here until the Chateau reopens. And I was like, well, we might be retiring here.
Brandon Burton (07:46.327) So, thanks for listening to me.
Brandon Burton (08:01.975) Bye.
Brandon Burton (08:09.111) Yeah.
Megan Curtis (08:13.326) It’s a good thing we really love this place. And then there is a hotel property in the city of Cave Junction, but it also closed in 2019. So right now the Chamber is working really hard with partners to try to find a hotelier that will come in and purchase that property, build a hotel. We’re hoping to have the Monterey furniture from the Chateau put into our Kirbyville Inn in Kirby.
Brandon Burton (08:16.181) That’s right.
Megan Curtis (08:41.614) so that folks can see what the rooms look like in the chateau without being in the chateau. So that’s kind of where we’re focusing right now is finding someone to put in a hotel so that people can stay longer. We do have a lot of campgrounds, including a KOA that’s brand new. It’s absolutely lovely property. Lots of RV camping and lots of dispersed camping, but a lot of people are looking for traditional lodgings.
Brandon Burton (08:48.426) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (09:09.751) Thanks.
Megan Curtis (09:11.15) We’re having a hard time attracting those visitors at this time, but we’re working on it. Yeah. And we’re also working really closely with Main Street Cave Junction, you know, to try to beautify downtown and make it more welcoming. We’re hoping to do a brand discovery process for the Illinois Valley. So the Illinois Valley is made up of a few different communities. There’s Kirby, Selma, Cave Junction is the only incorporated city in the Illinois Valley.
Brandon Burton (09:15.435) Yeah, gotta find those solutions.
Megan Curtis (09:40.888) And then there’s O’Brien and Tequila. So we’re trying to represent the entire Valley and bring everyone together and decide who exactly are we and how do we want visitors to see us so that, you know, they’re going to come see what we have to offer, invest in the community and then tell everyone they know about.
Brandon Burton (10:00.788) That’s right. That’s right. So what kind of space does that, does the Illinois Valley cover? So you mentioned the different towns, but what kind of square miles or what, how much space is that? Okay.
Megan Curtis (10:10.35) So it’s about 20 miles, yeah. And I’d say square miles. Yeah, it’s fairly big size. There’s about 20,000 people in the Illinois Valley. The city of Cave Junction has about 2,000 people in city limits. So the city limits are relatively small. And it doesn’t extend to the Oregon Caves, 20 miles up Caves Highway.
Brandon Burton (10:24.087) Okay.
Brandon Burton (10:28.895) Okay.
Brandon Burton (10:35.999) Yeah, so on the chamber side of things, as far as supporting and helping develop business and things like that, what are some of the industries that you see in your community? And I would imagine recreation would be up at the top of the list, but what are some of those industries?
Megan Curtis (10:52.718) Unfortunately, the like the outfitters here, most of them are in Grants Pass, which is about 40 miles north of us. Grants Pass and Merlin, those communities. We do have a few out here, but we also have a lot of restaurants, gift shops, museums. We have a smoke jumper based museum and then we have a Kirbyville museum. We have Great Cat’s World Park.
So you can come see the big cats and yeah, there’s definitely a lot of nonprofits in our area. So trying to attract the businesses to open is what we’re working on really hard right now. We’re holding a pitch night next week. So folks can come in and tell us about all of their great ideas and we can walk them through, you know, here’s some funding over here for that, or you should partner with this person.
Brandon Burton (11:34.508) This
Megan Curtis (11:50.08) to make sure that these great ideas get off the ground.
Brandon Burton (11:54.07) Yeah, I like that. Tell me a little bit more about that. The pitch night. I picture like Shark Tank, right? You come in and you share your idea and you’re getting feedback and maybe not, you know, having investors, you know, throw money at it, but you’re you’re helping to point them where some funding is.
Megan Curtis (12:00.578) Yeah, you know, yep. They’re just gonna.
Megan Curtis (12:10.294) Right, into the right direction. Yes, especially, you know, with the SBDC at Road Community College, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of people that, that decide that they want to do something and then they just do it without a plan. And so then it kind of shuts down fairly early on. And what we would like to see is, know, this is a great idea. You can go here for help with the business plan so that you know exactly what you’re getting into or, I’m, you know, that’s
a very niche kind of project. I’m not sure that it’s going to, you know, take off here. Just kind of weigh those options out and get some input from others in the community. Like, hey, yeah, that’s a great idea. And I could totally get behind that. Or, yeah, is there really a need for that? Mm-hmm.
Brandon Burton (12:54.903) Yeah, maybe help them make connections with, yeah. Yeah, I could see where there could be supporting businesses where, you know, having a certain business come into town would help support another and they feed each other customers. So could see, you know, having that synergy created. So how do you…
Megan Curtis (13:06.669) Yes.
Megan Curtis (13:12.332) Yeah. Well, and that’s another thing that we’re trying to work on is the hospitality aspect of it, because a lot of our businesses on Main Street don’t realize that they are in the tourism industry. you are tourists will stop here. And so we need to be able for them to know that, and this is going on over at the big museum today, or this is going on over at this place. And then when they get to that location, the staff there is kind of the same way. And it’s like, if you like this.
Brandon Burton (13:22.561) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (13:37.559) Thank you.
Megan Curtis (13:40.662) you should go over to this spot and check this out and then just kind of send them on a loop through town.
Brandon Burton (13:44.441) Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. And I’ve also heard even just the idea of teaching customer service. When you’re in an area where tourists come through, you want them to feel welcome. And the more welcome they feel, the more money they’re going to spend and the longer they stay there. So customer service is huge.
Megan Curtis (13:56.462) Mm-hmm. Yes.
Exactly. Exactly. Well, and even the folks that are pumping the gas, you know, if someone’s like, what is there to do around here? I mean, the first thing I would say is go see the cobra lilies. Yeah, well, we can now since COVID, they usually have a self-serve and a full service.
Brandon Burton (14:10.923) That’s right. For those listening in Oregon, you can’t pump your own gas, right? Okay.
Brandon Burton (14:20.855) Okay, I graduated high school in New Jersey and New Jersey is the other state where, you know, it’s full service gas station. So, yeah, it sure does. Yeah. So how are you guys promoting this pitch night? this, you trying to work with, I don’t know, best way of saying it, adults, more established, you know, people that have, you know, making their, their attempt at business. Are you working with
Megan Curtis (14:28.056) Yeah, comes in handy in the winter, I’m not gonna lie.
Brandon Burton (14:51.125) High school students, what’s your direction you’re going with it?
Megan Curtis (14:53.92) It’s actually open to everyone. We’ll be serving food. So that’s usually a big draw around here. But we’re working with the Southern Oregon Regional Development Organization, SoReady, as well as the Southern Oregon Innovation Hub. So they’re promoting it to their members. We’re promoting it to our members. We’re just kind of cross promoting through those avenues. And of course, we’re reaching out on Facebook and social media to try to get the people that are
Brandon Burton (15:00.267) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (15:20.311) Yeah.
Megan Curtis (15:21.57) that are on there, but there’s a lot of folks out here that aren’t. And there’s a lot of businesses that don’t have websites. So we’re like, well, as a chamber member, we could put you on our listings, you know?
Brandon Burton (15:25.345) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (15:32.799) Yeah, yeah, that’s right. So as a Gateway community, have you guys got all the gas attendees to figure out how to tell people to go downtown, to Main Street? It seems like that may be an uphill climb.
Megan Curtis (15:45.76) Not yet, not yet. We’re sure working on it.
Megan Curtis (15:51.724) Yeah, yeah. I don’t think the community was really focused on attracting tourists for a long time. I know that safety was an issue out here on the strategic plan from 2020. It’s a community-wide strategic plan that Illinois Valley Community Development Organization does about every five years. so public safety was the first priority and the last one in 2020. And we’re seeing that trend change right now.
and people are wanting the tourism dollars. They’re wanting to see the sense of pride that it brings in the community for folks to be like, wow, this is a really amazing place.
Brandon Burton (16:25.792) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (16:33.653) Yeah, to share this amazing place you guys have built,
Megan Curtis (16:35.424) Yes, storytelling is a big deal right now. People want to feel connected to a place. the way that we tell those stories is what’s going to make it memorable.
Brandon Burton (16:46.613) Yeah, and there’s only so much you can do as a business if you’re relying on just the people that live there. The best way to grow that pie is to just make it bigger and, you know, let more people in. So that’s right. That’s right. Anything else to add to you about being a gateway community that maybe makes you guys a little bit unique or different approaches that maybe others don’t consider because maybe they don’t have to, but maybe it could be something that would be beneficial for them to
Megan Curtis (16:52.204) Yes.
Megan Curtis (16:56.034) Yeah, widen the circle.
Brandon Burton (17:16.289) to know about or at least hear how you approach things.
Megan Curtis (17:17.758) Yeah, I really think the stars out here are exceptional. I mean, you can look at a light map and see, you know, there’s a lot of people that can’t see the Milky Way from their home, and we can see that here. So I think being a gateway to the parks and the stars is probably our best bet right now. It is highly sustainable. It is responsible not just for the people, but for the nocturnal wildlife.
Brandon Burton (17:41.451) Thank you.
Megan Curtis (17:46.242) We have a lot of bats out here. Those fluorescent lights, it’s just, they don’t need to be pointing into the sky. We just need to direct the light to the ground instead of all over. So I think, I think it’s an important thing to remember that.
Brandon Burton (17:49.464) Yeah.
Megan Curtis (18:05.482) It’s connecting you to the cosmos, to the planet, to giving you a sense of responsibility that I can steward this and in a responsible way, bring in some extra astro tourism.
Brandon Burton (18:06.439) and
Brandon Burton (18:20.887) Yeah, I love that astro tourism. I think Elon Musk is trying to work on that too, is astro tourism and sending people to Mars, right? Yeah, I don’t blame you. No, I love that approach, though, just making it be a welcoming area for for visitors in general, but also to be able to make sure that
Megan Curtis (18:23.944) Hahaha
Megan Curtis (18:29.492) Yeah, well, in a different way. I think I’m going to keep my feet on the ground.
Brandon Burton (18:48.619) those that are coming to experience the stars and the beauty, know, the milky way and everything the sky has to offer, making sure it’s retained and is a, you know, pristine place for the skies. I think that’s awesome.
Megan Curtis (19:03.33) Yes, yes, I know I would love to do some nighttime kayak trips or paddle boarding Lake Selmak, know, like come see the stars tonight. But you’ve always got to have a plan B because it tends to get cloudy here sometimes. Everybody’s like, did you see that full moon or the lunar eclipse? I saw some clouds. It was pretty, know.
Brandon Burton (19:18.303) Yeah, yeah.
Brandon Burton (19:24.471) Not this time. Yeah, it sure lit up behind the clouds. Yeah, that’s great. Well, I like asking everyone that I have on the show, as far as any tips or action items for listeners who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what might you suggest for them as they work towards that goal?
Megan Curtis (19:31.106) Yes.
Megan Curtis (19:49.562) I, okay, so if folks aren’t already doing it, I highly recommend getting to know your elected officials and working with them hand in hand. Know your city councilors, your mayor, your county commissioners, your legislators, or even their field reps. You know, we work closely with the field reps for Wyden and Merkley here, especially with the park and they’re great, you know.
champions for Oregon Caves and the Chateau. They would really like to see it reopen as well. So I think it’s just really important that you start having these conversations now to build better identities and communities together so that you’re part of the conversation from the beginning, not coming in at the end like, hey, wait, we didn’t know about that. Or why didn’t you do it this way?
Make sure you go to the City Council meetings and just keep them apprised of what you’re doing and if you need any support from them. I think it’s really important just to build those partnerships. Working together is the only way to get it done. It takes a village to raise a village. So we all need to work on this together.
It reminds me of the quote that you need to dig your well before you’re thirsty. So building those relationships with your elected officials, you know, before you need something, before your chamber is, you know, fighting a battle or whatever it is, if you build those relationships, dig that well, put in the work before you need it, knowing that someday it’s very likely you will need to lean on those relationships and if nothing else, just to get their perspective.
Megan Curtis (21:18.678) Yeah. Yup.
Megan Curtis (21:24.611) Yes.
Megan Curtis (21:30.402) Yeah, it’s very important even with the businesses. pardon me. It’s very important even with the businesses, you know, don’t go to them when you have an ask, when you need something from them. Like be there for them, ask what you can do for them. Same with the city, same with the state legislators, you know, same with the county commissioners. Build those relationships so that when you do have that ask, they’re like, we know who this person is. We already have a relationship with them.
Brandon Burton (21:35.444) No, you’re good.
Megan Curtis (21:58.606) We see the work that they’re doing. So yeah, we want to support them and what they’re trying to accomplish.
Brandon Burton (22:05.301) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I see it on, you know, with the podcast where I’ll have people reach out to me just totally random, you know, I see you do a podcast, I do editing and you know, schedule a call and I’ll show you how I can do you know, save you time and what I’m like, I don’t know the first thing about you. And then there’s there’s other people that will take the time to listen and the I really like this episode, what Megan said about the dark skies and you know, they, they bring out these things and then
Megan Curtis (22:23.022) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (22:33.043) I’m more likely to listen to these people that show that they’ve they put forth the effort to show that they care about what I’m doing and it’s, you know, same way. So as a chamber, if you make those connections, build those connections so you can lean on them later if and when you need them. I think that’s a great tip.
Megan Curtis (22:39.117) Yes.
Megan Curtis (22:48.706) Yes.
Yeah, yeah. And when we align, you know, then we’re protecting the local identity, the unique charm, and making sure that folks know that that’s who we are.
Brandon Burton (23:04.811) Yeah. Yeah. Dave Atkinson wrote the wonderful book horseshoes versus chess. And, in this, talks about how a chamber executive, he had, when he joined the chamber industry, it was explained to him that running a chamber is a lot like playing chess. You know, a lot of people think it’s more like playing, horseshoes where you come and you throw a horseshoe and if it gets close, then you get a point. He’s like, it’s really much more.
like playing chess where you have all these different pieces and they all can do different things. And leading a chamber, you’ve got your school district, you’ve got your elected officials, you’ve got economic development, you’ve got tourism. So they have all these different pieces, they have different responsibilities, and it’s up to you to understand the rules and what they can do and to help make those relationships work. So I think that.
Megan Curtis (23:46.402) Yes.
Megan Curtis (23:54.691) guess.
Well, and it’s always really important, you know, with the Illinois Valley Community Development Organization, with Main Street, Cape Junction, with the city and with the chamber, you know, we all need to have those meetings periodically and be like, okay, this is our lane. Like, this is what we’re focused on. This is your lane. Like, how can we not cross into each other’s lanes, but help each other through, like, support?
Brandon Burton (24:13.943) Mm-hmm. Yes. This is my…
Brandon Burton (24:22.185) Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, Megan, also like asking everyone I have on the show as we look to the future of Chambers of Commerce, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?
Megan Curtis (24:36.75) That is a great, great question, Brandon. you know, Chambers, I don’t think are going to continue to just be the resource hub, focusing on the small businesses. I think that it’s important that Chambers are part of that process of, you know, the brand identity, who we are, how we want to be seen, and convening those meetings, you know. So getting everyone together, deciding
Brandon Burton (24:47.447) and service them. And I hope this work helps them in this necessary way.
Megan Curtis (25:06.094) how we tell our story, how we, you know, because these stories are what’s going to help our local businesses, not just the chamber members. And then in helping the local businesses, you’re helping the people that live here. So I think that it’s really important for chambers to get involved and feel that partnership that shaped the future, you know, of your area, of your local businesses. But then also provide your business workshops and earmixers and
Brandon Burton (25:32.715) Yeah.
Megan Curtis (25:35.726) Our concert’s in the park. But it’s important in communicating your identity.
Brandon Burton (25:37.493) That’s right. Yeah.
Yeah. I’ve heard it said that it’s easier sometimes in the chamber world to do addition than it is to do subtraction. You you’re constantly adding more and more things and the list gets longer and longer. And every now and then we got to do some subtracting too, you know, see what’s not serving us and, and, you know, where the trends are and really what’s, what’s making an impact. But yeah, I think that’s, I think that’s a great.
Megan Curtis (25:50.988) Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Megan Curtis (26:03.916) Yes. Well, and I think, you know, being realistic with your board is a really great start. You know, if you’re recruiting board members and you’re like, it’s only like an hour once a month at our board meetings. And what you’re really looking for is because I am a staff of one. I’m part time, part time. So I’m a staff of one. Yeah, exactly. So, you know.
Brandon Burton (26:26.997) Yeah, we’re at a that never shuts off, right?
Megan Curtis (26:33.494) being upfront with them through the recruitment process and being like, okay, so yes, we have these board meetings once a month. They’re about an hour, hour and a half long. But we also have concerts in the park through the summer every Thursday, you know, it runs from six to eight, but you know, I need folks that are willing to come volunteer for a few hours. You help me set up the cornhole boards, help me make sure the sound guy gets in and get the food trucks in their proper spots, that kind of thing. So I think
It’s really important for Chambers to be very upfront and make sure that the people that are volunteering for them know exactly how appreciated they are and the difference that they’re making.
Brandon Burton (27:14.677) Yeah, I think that’s a great tip and great reminder. I appreciate that. Well, Megan, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you and maybe learn more about the Illinois Valley and just all that you have to offer there. Where would you point them?
Megan Curtis (27:18.264) you
Megan Curtis (27:27.001) sure.
Megan Curtis (27:31.688) I would love that, absolutely. Please come see us, call me. So my phone number is 541-592-3326. And then I do have a rather long email address. It’s illinoisvalleycc@gmail.com. So yes, please come see us.
Brandon Burton (27:56.651) Well, we’ll get those in our show notes so people don’t need to try to write it down while they’re driving. We’ll make it easy to find and link to it. Right. Very good. Well, Megan, I appreciate you putting aside some time to join us here on Chamber Chat Podcast and to share some of your experiences and the way you guys are approaching things there at the Illinois Valley Chamber of Commerce. I really just appreciate you being with us. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.
Megan Curtis (27:59.191) Yes.
Yes, no, don’t do that.
Megan Curtis (28:20.064) Enthusiastically. We’re doing it enthusiastically with energy and positivity.
Brandon Burton (28:27.701) That’s right. That’s right. But thank you for being absolutely.
Megan Curtis (28:29.792) No, thank you so much for having me.
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Brandon Burton (00:00.844) Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the show, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our guest for this episode is Ryan Egly. Ryan is a dynamic economic development and community leadership professional, serving as president and CEO of the Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. In this role, he leads countywide strategy across economic development.
workforce development and tourism, partnering with businesses and government leaders to drive measurable growth. Under Ryan’s leadership, the Lawrence County, under Ryan’s leadership, Lawrence County has secured more than $275 million in private investment and 1,475 announced jobs. He also has overseen the transformational organizational growth, expanding chamber membership from 230 to more than 500 members.
scaling the annual operating budget beyond $1 million and building high performing professional team. Ryan holds a master’s of arts in leadership and public service from Lipscomb University, a bachelor of science in organizational leadership from Middle Tennessee State University and associate of science from Columbia State Community College. Beyond his local leadership, Ryan serves in key statewide and regional roles, including Launch Tennessee’s board of directors,
the Sycamore Institute Community Council, the Tennessee Tourism Committee, the Tennessee Valley Authority Economic Development Rural Cabinet, Secretary-Treasurer of Tennessee Economic Development Council, and Tennessee’s ultimate director for the Southern Economic Development Council. He’s passionate about rural economic transformation, strategic partnership, and building communities where families and businesses thrive.
But Ryan, I’m excited to have you with us today on Chamber Chat Podcast. I want 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.
Ryan Egly (02:09.995) Absolutely. And Brandon, thank you for having me and hello to all of the listeners out there. I want to start by thanking everyone for the work that you do in your communities. I’ve been in this role for 12 years now. And if someone would have told me that, you know, when I first started that I would have known everything about a chamber of commerce at this point in time.
I would have said you’re crazy just because it’s transformed so much and there’s still so much more to learn. And so I know there are lot of people that are getting into this profession and so welcome to the chamber world. I know a lot of folks have been in the chamber world longer than I have. And I want to say again, just thank you for your leadership. Our organization, as Brandon mentioned, it’s chief roles drive economic development and tourism marketing.
as an economic driver for Lawrence County, Tennessee. And so I say that because one of our major tourism drivers is our Amish community here in Lawrence County. And I bring that up as an interesting fact in that I have a large family. I’m one of eight siblings, I guess. But this interesting fact is that I’m not Amish. So I guess that was just kind of…
Brandon Burton (03:20.686) There you go.
Ryan Egly (03:22.051) Kind of a memorable thing. And we’re the oldest, me and my identical twin brother. as many of our, listeners out there, Brandon might expect when my twin brother is out and about, he gets solicited from time to time about everything going on in the community. So I have to have weekly briefings with him to give him some talking points in addition to my boards. So anyway, that’s a little interesting fact about me.
Brandon Burton (03:43.852) I love it. I love it. I don’t know that I’ve had somebody on the show before who has an identical twin, at least who lives in the same community, because that would be hilarious seeing him go out. Hilarious from my perspective. He might not think it’s so funny, that’s great. I love that. Well, tell us more about the Lawrence County Chamber. Just give us an idea of size, number of staff, budget, scope of work you guys are involved with to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.
Ryan Egly (03:57.591) Yeah, right.
Ryan Egly (04:13.007) Yeah, absolutely. So our organization is 77 this year. we are an institution in our community. I’ll start there. Started back, I guess, in the 40s when there was the rise of civic organizations like the Rotary Club and Kiwanis and every community needed a Chamber of Commerce for business leaders to network with one another. In the early 2000s was when we took on more of a primary economic development role from a technical perspective.
And then in 2015, we took on the tourism role. What that meant was basically leveraging additional public resources to help, you know, drive our business climate upward and bring more jobs in. That also, you know, those shared resources between the economic development staff, tourism staff, and the chamber staff really makes a pretty cohesive environment. And so what I like to tell others is that we have a holistic chamber. Now today we have a staff of seven.
Brandon Burton (04:57.87) you
And
Ryan Egly (05:12.431) I’m very proud again. I’ve been here 12 years. I have a director of economic development that handles all of our industrial recruiting, business retention and expansion and our manufacturing portfolio. I’ve also recently announced that our controller has been elevated and promoted to the chief operating officer. So her job is to really run the day to day operations of the chamber. Of course, keep
Brandon Burton (05:22.126) Thank you.
Ryan Egly (05:35.183) our board in line and provide some sustainability in the event that let’s say I get hit by, well, let’s say I hit, win the lottery and, know, don’t come to work next week. But yeah. but yeah, so I’ve got a director of economic development and a COO and the three of us make up our executive leadership team. And then underneath that we have a membership manager. she’s newer to the team, about six months in, we also have, a, a communications and hospitality coordinator. So someone that,
Brandon Burton (05:36.046) you
Brandon Burton (05:43.171) I like that outcome better.
Ryan Egly (06:04.93) You know, gets pictures, manages our social media, works the front desk. And then we have two, and I don’t want to call those lower level. They’re, were, those are just newer positions, but we have two other positions that are more mid level and have been here a little bit longer. And that would be our destination marketing manager. So that’s someone who just drives the visit Lawrenceburg tourism brand. And then we have a director of engagement and, and, and her job is primarily, you know, sponsorships, nondos revenues and events to help corral the business community around certain.
or get information out. And so that’s how we’re currently structured from a staff perspective. When I came in in 2015, our organizational budget was about $400,000 a year, and that was primarily just economic development, and there was a staff of four. Today our budget is right at $1.2 million and we have a staff of seven.
Truly, Brandon, we need to hire two or three more people just because our community is growing. And as our community grows, our business community and our public partners are asking us to do more and more. And so, so yeah, that’s kind of how we’re structured. And we’re very proud of how we’re structured. People around the state of Tennessee have studied how we are structured and they’re kind of.
Brandon Burton (06:58.237) Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan Egly (07:16.11) doing R &D on us, ripping off and duplicating our bylaws and our org chart. And we think it works really well for our rural community.
Brandon Burton (07:25.198) That’s what this show is for. People come here for the R &D. So just get it and then reach out and duplicate, rip it off, duplicate, scale it to whatever size chamber you are who’s listening. So that definitely helps to set the stage for our discussion today. And today we’ll focus most of our conversation, which I don’t know, it may be a little bit controversial, but to think of your guys’ 3P.
Ryan Egly (07:29.066) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (07:53.72) growth strategy. We’ve had a lot of emphasis on the 3C, you know, becoming 3C chambers, but to see that the 3Ps are still relevant and driving growth in your community. We’ll dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, Ryan, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, today we’re going to dive into the details about your 3P growth strategy. And as I went through your bio, you guys have seen quite a bit of growth.
During your time there at the chamber both membership budget staff, you know all that all these different areas. So Talk to us about what’s driving that growth and what are these things that are really helping to move the needle?
Ryan Egly (08:37.654) So I think what’s really helping to move the needle and again, my background is primarily economic development. And so the three P’s of economic development are people, product and power. so in doing that, you know, it’s all about people first. Everything about this business is relationship based, including
Brandon Burton (08:43.789) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (08:48.43) There you go.
Ryan Egly (08:59.65) how you treat your larger employers in your community because they make such an impact. And so when I became president and CEO in July of 2019, I realized that we have to get the right people in the right seats on the bus, know, thinking about the book, Good to Great. And what that really meant was also how do we engage them in a way that translated to more financial resource for the chamber to go and recruit more of those right people.
Brandon Burton (09:05.922) you
Brandon Burton (09:14.734) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (09:22.894) Thank you.
Ryan Egly (09:26.72) So, that’s kind of my portfolio in our membership and we were able to go out and, we revised our membership structure to instead of being fair share, we did it. We transferred to a tier based structure and we said, Hey, we want to have 10,000 or sorry, we want to have 10 of our main people giving $10,000 a year. and, so I didn’t mention this a moment ago, but we have 500 members and we have three membership classes. have our business members that are tier based.
Brandon Burton (09:36.718) Here it is. And I’m a moment to thank you for your time. And I’m a moment to thank for your And I’m going take a to your time.
Ryan Egly (09:54.979) We have a young professionals membership group. And then we also have our ambassadors that pay a membership annually as well. So what I’m talking about is that first kind of business membership on the top tier. And those are going to be our larger contractors or larger manufacturers or hospital and businesses that really want to be on the forefront of the economic development side. And again, driving that people part of course that there’s the product and power part, which is very technical.
Brandon Burton (10:07.188) you
Brandon Burton (10:20.494) Thank
Ryan Egly (10:23.148) where our business is going to be locating. So it’s developing new industrial parks. It’s helping our downtown association, you know, market buildings and vacancy in our downtown area, which by the way, there’s very little vacancy in our downtown area today. It’s also the power side. And that’s, mean that not just electricity, but literally the gas, the water, the sewer, road networks, and to a degree, all three of those things kind of are upheld by the workforce component as well.
What about our training programs in our community college or technical colleges? A new University of Tennessee system institution. The University of Tennessee Southern has just been located 20 minutes to our East and so obviously we’re partnering with them to make sure that we’re retaining our young talent again, which is that people proponent. So again, the economic development part of me is kind of packaging all that together and then I turn around and say hey small business. You are a part of driving regional prosperity through membership. Here’s our tier structure.
Where do you want to be? And again, we’ve been able to grow a good clip, so to speak. New members just call at least once a week. So that’s a great thing. We do have some attrition. Some folks drop off for whatever reason. Maybe they’ve moved or they’re changing their business strategy, but I’m really, really proud of where we’ve been. Again, those revenues on the membership side do matter. think this year will be about 20.
Brandon Burton (11:33.112) We got that in the plan. So, we’re all in.
Ryan Egly (11:48.558) 22, 25 % of our budget will be just membership alone. And I think that’s really, really important.
Brandon Burton (11:54.094) Yeah, that’s really good. So hopefully that teaser got people to listen in about 3P Chamber because he just totally spun it on its head talking about people, product and power and listeners like, okay, yeah, that makes a whole lot more sense and doing the parties and parades and pageants and a lot more sense and a lot more relevant to the direction Chambers are going today. So appreciate that clarity.
Ryan Egly (12:12.717) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (12:23.308) You touched on a lot of things there between the people, the product, the power. And what are, do you have certain programs you have in place? You talked about working with community college for talent attraction and what, what are, how do you, how do you hone in the focus on these three P’s?
Ryan Egly (12:40.225) So definitely again, I want to kind of think more about the traditional three P’s the parades, pageants and parties because a lot of those bring in those non dues revenues, right? And that’s what’s so important to you. And this year, if memory serves me right, we will have an equal amount of membership revenue and non dues event engagement revenue is what we would call it. And these are the programs I want to focus on for your listeners because I think it’s something that can be duplicated in every community. So.
As an example, our next big event is our Women at Work Week. And so this is an opportunity for our women in business to gather around a certain topic. And so this year it’s about growing where you’re planted. And so it’s a very much a professional development inspiring type week long event where we have some talking points and some information that’s shared. Of course, it culminates in a luncheon and also a coffee.
and a few other key events. In fact, I think a Friday night shopping experience in our downtown also. Yeah, and so it’s really cool to corral different parts of the community around a certain topic. And this year I’m really proud of my team. They brought in actually more sponsorship revenue than ticket sales for the first time ever. And so again, yeah, so there is a place for the parties in my three P’s too. Again, that’s getting people to the table. That’s part of it.
Brandon Burton (13:50.913) That’s awesome.
Brandon Burton (13:56.493) sure.
Ryan Egly (13:58.944) Something else that we do and I’m really excited about is the first week or I guess the second week of April of every year we do something called state of the county. We’ve this is the third year we’ve done it and the idea is hey it’s April all of the census data and everything has been released in March and so it’s opportunity for me to just to show numbers and charts to our business community and interested people to see hey how are we growing where are we deficient from what the numbers say because that matters.
because you know what can be measured can be managed as they say. So I always give a 15 minute presentation just on numbers, but then we invite our mayors and our county executive to do a panel discussion. Again, it’s just it’s a luncheon. The members of the community business community they pay come in. They buy a ticket. We have sponsors and again I’m really proud. Actually we’re launching that next week to our members for sponsorship and then in May we do a big.
course everyone should do a golf tournament. It’s so important to get out on the course, but something that we’ve done differently. Historically, we have only done an afternoon flight. And that kind of, you know, slows the pace of play and something that we did about four or five years ago was hey, we want to really make this experience better. And so what we decided to do was we broke it up into a morning flight in an afternoon flight and then just did a big lunch in the middle for everyone to network. And so we actually saw about a 25 % increase in teams.
Brandon Burton (14:56.844) Yeah.
Ryan Egly (15:22.977) We also changed our pricing structure and our sponsorship structure. And so again, the parades, pageants and the parties, they do matter because I’m sitting here, those three events alone bring in about 11 % of our budget in total. that’s something that I would always recommend everybody do. Now we operate on a fiscal year though. So we try to do those toward kind of Q3, Q4. So the first half of a calendar year and something that we’re working on now,
Brandon Burton (15:30.99) Let’s go.
Brandon Burton (15:35.374) And I’m to tell you a that I’ve telling you for long time. And it’s The of it’s called, Day. And it’s The Day.
Ryan Egly (15:52.234) Also is we’re moving to annual billing and what I mean by that is we’re going to start billing only on January 1 for the calendar year and we’re doing that because we run our shop local campaign at the end of the year, which is where we touch all of our members. So we think that’s just a better touch point than having to run down somebody once a month and have that flow of billing on a monthly basis and we’re really excited for that opportunity. We think it’s going to free up our membership manager and our engagement manager to kind of corral people around those.
Brandon Burton (16:00.501) Okay.
Ryan Egly (16:21.943) traditional three P’s, the parades, parties, and pageants.
Brandon Burton (16:23.918) Yeah. so I love that idea of changing the billing cycle to January and right after you have all those touch points and you said that’s, that’s a shift that you guys are in the middle of right
Ryan Egly (16:37.645) Yeah, that’s right. And that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to be billing everybody normally for the first half of this year. And then come July 1, we’ll put, you know, information out to our entire membership saying, hey, heads up, you know, if you paid in July of 2025, you are already a member for 2026, so to speak. But then January, everyone’s going to be 2027 members is the idea. We’re not going to prorate. We’re just going to delay everyone from July 1 on.
And in a similar fashion, we’re going to turn around for our people in the first half of the year and just say, Hey, heads up, you’re to get your bill. Really they’ll get their bills at December 1 for January 1 and they can pay whichever fiscal or calendar year they choose to do so. So again, we want to put that choice in their hands as far as what year they’re captured, but they’re going to be paying for 2027. And that’s that again, thinking about it from a touch point perspective, everyone’s paying their bill, December, January, our key events are lined up March, April, May.
Brandon Burton (17:17.41) That makes sense.
Ryan Egly (17:33.505) So they’re engaged, they’re getting their value. And then we turn around in October, November, and we’re touching them with our shop local shop small campaign, reminding them that, their investment helps promote shop local business. and then they get the bill again. So we just think it’s such a smart, easy and efficient billing cycle.
Brandon Burton (17:48.726) Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it has, it follows the same roadmap for all the members instead of thinking, you know, this member renews in March and you make sure we’re touching base, leading up to that. And yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And I’m glad you went back and revisited the traditional three P’s because there is value in them for sure. Especially as they’re aligned with what your mission is and what your, overall purpose of your organization is. And with the examples that you shared,
They very much are in line to, you you have these events and you have like the women in business and it’s a, you’re, curating an event where specific people are invited and, there’s a goal and a purpose and it drives towards a bigger mission of the organization. And whenever that’s in line, I would say, keep that, keep doing it as long as it’s making money. Like you don’t want to do something that that’s it’s losing money, right. or, something that’s run its course and people are excited about it anymore. So.
Ryan Egly (18:40.257) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (18:48.15) I’m glad you revisited that. Any other things as far as the leading into the bigger purpose, I’ll say, of the chamber of your, the people, product and power that is helping to drive that as your engine in your organization?
Ryan Egly (19:05.928) Yeah. So whenever I’m talking with maybe a new manufacturing operation, it’s more than just the industrial site and it’s more than just, you know, can they serve utilities today? It’s how they are, how should a new business integrate into the community? And so, you know, the product I’m selling, like I mentioned, is not just the product and the power, but it’s, it’s the other three P’s that, you know, I just, we just kind of walk through and making sure that you set the platform.
Brandon Burton (19:28.588) Yeah.
Ryan Egly (19:33.098) or set the table for them to come to the table and they’re able to pick like, Hey, you know, I want to be involved in the Christmas parade, which we put on or, Hey, this is the annual meeting every October. This is the who’s who of the community. We need to be there. We need to be visible. How can I be visible? And ultimately zooming out of that, it’s a value first mindset. you know, you know, as an economic development agency, we’re to be servicing our, manufacturers, whether they invest in us as members or not.
It’s just the truth. What we’ve seen is if we can prove the value, the money will come. Same thing with our tourism and hospitality industry, because we’re the destination or the designated destination marketing organization for Lawrence County, Tennessee. Again, we don’t care if you’re a restaurant as a member or not. If you need help, if you want help bringing people to your front door, we’re here for you. Again, though, we want to convert that into a sale. So are you really using those things as pipelines, but it’s value first and it’s turning around and saying, okay, here are the
Here are the programs that historically, again, even me, thought, this is just the fluffy side of the economic development. I don’t really like this. My job is way more technical. The truth of the matter is this side will help me bring the new industry to town. Does that make sense?
Brandon Burton (20:44.496) Yeah, yeah, it does. And I was actually thinking of that, that aspect before you started talking about it, as far as whether it’s economic development or the tourism front, how those conversions go from bringing the, putting the product out there, driving people in, and then converting those into memberships and
It sounds like usually that’s happening in a natural way. It’s not, hey, since we got you here, you you owe us now. it’s not a, it’s not a, you know, quit group pro, you know, kind of situation. It’s a, it’s more organic and, and a natural, natural thing. and I like that. I think there’s, there’s a lot of value in showing, you know, the value of your organization and what you’re doing for the community. And then they’re like, Hey, I want to be a part of that. So very good.
So for those listening, I always like to see if there’s like a tip or action item that you would share with an organization who’s wanting to take their chamber up to the next level.
Ryan Egly (21:47.371) So the biggest thing that I’ve learned, I actually learned this at my church because our church is structured where it’s pastor led, staff supported, board protected or trustee protected. And historically at smaller, more rural chambers of commerce, it seems like it’s board led, staff supported. And then we just hope for the best, right? And so when I came in again, I immediately knew like, hey, I have a vision for this. And so let’s start with that first tier, you know,
Brandon Burton (22:05.922) Yeah.
Ryan Egly (22:16.906) It’s really CEO led. It’s whatever, if you’re the lead of the organization, cast your vision, own your vision and drive it. If you are lucky enough and big enough to have a staff around you, even if it’s one part-time person, or maybe it’s like me where I’ve got six of the best of the best surrounding me, my job is really to empower them to do their jobs and they’re supporting that vision in that way. And so again, it’s chamber CEO led or executive director led.
staff supported and then let your board block and tackle for you. There are various Facebook groups that I’m a part of that I love reading, but I see maybe you have a rogue board member or a chairman that’s trying to lead the organization and there needs to be just an honest conversation about nipping that as soon as it starts to happen. But it’s that structure that I find works best and especially in today’s environment. When you think about, you know,
Brandon Burton (22:57.358) I’m to be to you about a big decision and one that’s been made by the way we’re treating it by the way we’re passing this process right now. I think that the best way to control this is to just go ahead and do it right now.
Ryan Egly (23:14.538) the politics of the nation. When you think about even the local and state level too, you have a lot of NIMBYism that we all know what that’s all about. And it’s going to take a strong personality, a strong leader, and someone that can be diplomatic about it to lead that effort. And so to that end, as you kind of position yourself to the listeners, if you position yourself as that lead organization, you need to make sure that you are the most diplomatic person in the room. Be a chameleon, be a generalist.
Brandon Burton (23:15.182) you know, you’re going to be to that. You’re going to be that. So, you’re not going to be that. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (23:37.102) So she was talking about the need for compensation. And actually, no, it’s not. We have to look at We have to look it.
Ryan Egly (23:44.422) And, but be confident about your vision as well.
Brandon Burton (23:47.763) Yeah, and for those who are new to the chamber industry, NIMBY is not in my backyard, so I’ve got to share these acronyms out there. So I love this structure you talked about, CEO-led or executive director-led, staff-supported, board-protected. For somebody listening, it’s like, our board leads and the chamber does the operations and…
How can that shift take place in an organization that already kind of has its model there? Is it more of a mindset? Is it something you need to formalize? What would you suggest?
Ryan Egly (24:24.277) I think it’s a mindset and it’s important to note it probably took us four or five years to get there. In my experience, it was just a matter of really diving into the relationships, making sure that your bylaws one, if you’ve had a board chair that’s been there 30 years, mean, God bless them, make them emeritus of some kind, invite them to the lunch meeting, do whatever you have to do. Yeah. But ultimately you’re.
Brandon Burton (24:48.802) Keep them involved, yeah. Change it up though.
Ryan Egly (24:52.585) Yeah, your executive committee or executive board, they need to come and go because you need people cycling in and out. You need those key people, again, that are gonna be giving you the $10,000 a year or your higher level members cycling in and out of your leadership so they can help kind of poke and prod, ask the key questions. And I’m not just talking about, hey, what if you did this for the women’s luncheon? But more like, hey, how is your staff doing? How are you doing? How are you avoiding burnout? How are, how?
Is the office structure, is that what you need? You know, asking those key higher level questions and there’s a time to get in the weeds and what we’ve done, here’s the tip for the listeners, is we put those into committees. So we’ve created like a women’s group committee or we have our committee for our annual meeting as an example, or our Christmas parade committee. Again, where the people want to plug in and get in the weeds, absolutely do that, but it should be separated from the organizational kind of functioning, if that makes sense.
Brandon Burton (25:41.582) Yeah, yeah, makes a lot of sense. It keeps you from getting in the weeds. it keeps the focus on Sharp. So I like asking everyone I have on the show about the future of Chambers. So how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?
Ryan Egly (25:53.449) Yeah.
Ryan Egly (26:05.868) So I think there’s, I’d like to qualify that because there are chambers that are, you know, legacy institutions. And then there are also newer chambers that are trying to maybe get restarted or starting for the first time. And I think as, I think we’re seeing two things happen in each of those sectors. So for the ones that have been around for a long time, you’re either growing or dying. I would say the same for the other. The ones that are growing are the ones that are being relevant, are doing relevant value-based activities.
again, think about just getting information out there. Maybe they’re performing a task on behalf of the government, IE economic development, tourism, et cetera. And they’re leveraging all the resources around them. The ones that maybe aren’t combining those efforts or seeking those strategic partnerships to bring more revenue in that is non dues based. Those are the ones that are kind of being becoming less relevant and maybe may have maybe on your city council or county commissions, little bit more opposition. That’s what I’ve kind of noticed. And so.
Brandon Burton (26:49.166) you
Brandon Burton (26:59.134) I’m to and
Ryan Egly (27:04.627) future of chambers, because I’ll be honest, I think the ones that are not maintaining relevancy in their business community, the ones that aren’t growing, they’re going to have a hard time. And I hate, I hate it that they’re dying. That just bluntly, but the ones that are getting out there that are speaking into regional policy matters that are building bridges between maybe local universities or community colleges and their businesses, the ones that are out there helping with their downtown associations to revitalize main street. Those are the ones.
that are going to be at the forefront of, I think what we’re seeing is a economic shift. And those are the ones that are gonna have a voice at the table when things start shifting and we need new policy around that, specifically at the local and state level. And so again, I know that chambers historically have been, I don’t wanna say non-partisan or anti-government, but the truth of the matter is you have to be involved in the process moving forward.
in some capacity, at least at the local level. And I’m not talking about campaigns. I’m talking about driving change in your community. So I think that’s probably the future.
Brandon Burton (28:07.726) Yeah, when I think politically, you know, for a chamber, if it’s something that’s going to affect business, you better be involved. You better be speaking up for him being an advocate. So yeah, I like that. Well, Ryan, this has been great. I’m glad we got you on the show and been able to cover this topic and the great things you guys are doing. I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and
Ryan Egly (28:16.789) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (28:36.918) and learn more about the three P’s, the people, product, and power, and the approach you’ve taken there in Lawrence County. Where would you direct them to get in contact?
Ryan Egly (28:45.771) Absolutely. So first and foremost, thank you for having me Brandon for out to the audience. Thank you. If you made it this far, thank you for listening in. If you’re interested in getting in contact with me, I love talking with my sister chambers out there. We can be reached via phone. Yes, we have an office phone that we pick up area code 931-762-4911 and then via email ryan@lawcotn.com. That’s L A W C O T N.
or just come visit us on the web. Lawcotn.com or visit lawrenceburg.com. We’d love to have you and host you. Let me take you out for a cup of coffee. We’ll talk in person and of course when you’re here, stay overnight. Spend a lot of money here. Improve our economy. We appreciate that.
Brandon Burton (29:27.755) That’s right. That’s right. Everybody having the show should be pounding that drum as they get off, right? Come visit us and spend lots of money. I love it. Ryan, this has been great. Thanks again for setting aside some time and sharing your insights with us here at the Chamber Chat Podcast community. I appreciate it.
Ryan Egly (29:34.869) Yeah, that’s right.
Ryan Egly (29:47.83) Thanks, Brandon.
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Brandon Burton (00:01.056) Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our guest for this episode is Mike Conn. Mike is a people coach and culture strategist dedicated to helping Chambers of Commerce equip their members to lead people well. He is the author of Communication Culture and the creator of the Communication Culture System, a practical framework built on three core principles, lead people, manage processes, and measure and improve results.
With more than 1,500 paid speaking engagements under his belt, Mike brings real world hands-on experience to chamber leaders who want to reduce friction, strengthen engagement and alignment, and build healthier, more effective organizational culture across their membership. But Mike, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast.
I’d like to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening. And if you would, share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.
Mike Conn (01:09.249) Absolutely. Thank you, Brandon. I appreciate it. It’s an honor to be here. Probably the thing that I’ve watched and listened to a few other episodes, I thought if I ever get to be on this podcast, what would I say is interesting about me? And then I had to swipe left, swipe left. No, that’s probably not as interesting as I would want it to be. Especially you’ve had some amazing guests that have kind of a nice curveball that came out of nowhere. So for me, I would say the thing that I think is kind of interesting
Brandon Burton (01:32.472) So thank you.
Mike Conn (01:36.008) is that I think you wouldn’t notice just by looking at me as I’m a beginning tap dancer.
Brandon Burton (01:41.998) okay. I wouldn’t have guessed it, but that’s awesome.
Mike Conn (01:46.71) Now, I don’t know what the statute of limitations is on beginning tap dancer, but I’m going to ride that wave as long as I can. I grew up watching Gregory Hines tap dance and I thought, that’d an amazing thing to do, but I never really cared to do it. But then when I saw Richard Gere in the movie, Chicago, and someone comes out and says, and now it’s time for a tap dance. I’m like, I want to do that. And so in my mid forties, I
Brandon Burton (02:09.068) Yeah.
Thank you.
Mike Conn (02:11.928) prepaid seven lessons to my tap dance teacher because I knew I would chicken out if I didn’t have some skin in the game. And so anyway, that is true. There is a YouTube video, Mike Conn tap dancing debut. Now here’s the disclaimer, it’s two minutes and 28 seconds of your life, you’ll never get back. I’m gonna here.
Brandon Burton (02:32.718) Right. Beware, viewer, beware. So I think you can claim that you’re beginner until you make it to Broadway or get on the Tonight Show or sign your first movie deal. So I think you’ve got some runway. Yeah, you’re good. That’s awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about your consulting and coaching company offerings and what it is that you do to help those as far as the communication elements go.
Mike Conn (02:44.408) So I’m still under the umbrella then. All right, that’s good.
Mike Conn (03:02.392) Yeah, I appreciate that. My business really started at a chamber banquet, an annual chamber banquet here in our town. I wasn’t a member of the chamber yet. I was doing some speaking gigs. I’d served in the church for about two and a half decades and I was still serving in the church and still also doing some conversations with people. They called it maybe people coaching. We’re not sure exactly what it is, but our people,
Mike, my team’s not functioning like a team. Can you help me? And I said, yeah, sure. So I got the opportunity to go in there. A buddy of mine bought a table for a chamber event and I went to it and it was kind of cinematic, at least in my mind. And at one point I thought, you know what? And I even, I even nudged him and I leaned over and I said, Hey, listen, here’s what I know. Mike Conn coaching and consulting the international headquarters are going to be right here in Duncan, Oklahoma.
And he was like, that’s great. Hey, Mike, can you pass me the water? it was kind of, but I say it was wasted on him. He had already hired me to come in and speak to his team. He was an insurance agency owner. And the first time it was like, well, Mike, you talk to students in schools. This is kind of how it began. I started doing social emotional learning issues in schools. And so I went to the fifth grade teacher.
Brandon Burton (04:02.914) Yeah.
Mike Conn (04:28.024) at a local elementary and I said, listen, while I was still in church staff, I said, your fifth graders have developed a reputation and it ain’t great. Could I have 30 minutes with them before they go to middle school next year? And she looked me dead in the face and said, no, but I’ll give you an hour. And so we scheduled a time. It was in May and I’m not saying that we needed some filler time. What I’m saying is she invited me in, I brought a stool, she locked the door behind me.
Mike Conn (04:57.4) I’m kind of kidding. So I go in with these fifth graders and I delivered a talk and I had a note card that had four things on it. And one of them was, I’m a dude in Duncan who’s for you. And I think you need to know that. Another one was, you’re entering the most selfish phase of your life, dot, dot, dot. So make great choices. And there were two other things that I’ll leave out for now. When that all started, I came back, that was in May, I came back in August, same teacher, and I said,
You know how I did the talk last year, um, at the beginning, at the end of the year, she said, well, could you do one at the beginning and at the end? said, well, I’m not homeroom parent material, but I think I could maybe offer some service in this mode. You said, okay. And so what would that look like? And then I came back over the weekend with a nine session framework on leadership that was built for fifth graders. And she’s like, wow, this is amazing. Hold on. And she went and got her teaching partner and said, do that whole spiel again.
Brandon Burton (05:36.494) Yeah.
Mike Conn (05:55.594) So I did it and they said, okay, could you start this next week? And I said, I mean, yeah, sure. And that began what has turned into 934 sessions in public schools since September of 2016. And so my buddy who invited me to that chamber banquet, he said, Mike, so you help students navigate social emotional issues. That was after about 120 sessions. I said, yes, sir. And he said,
Brandon Burton (06:10.604) out
Mike Conn (06:23.19) That sounds a lot like developing soft skills in the workplace. Could you come talk to my, my customer service team? And on the outside, said, absolutely. And on the inside, I’m like, dear God, I hope so. Like, how’s this going to go? It’s a play at home game. Yeah. So that began a beautiful thing that’s now turned into my con coaching consulting. It’s got two main branches of the tree, so to speak. And what I’ve learned.
Brandon Burton (06:35.086) Smoking like an entrepreneur.
Mike Conn (06:53.208) I got my first church job in 1996 and and what I’ve learned is people are people are people and we can be very Vocal about things that we won’t take we won’t accept we you know You can’t you know, can’t you know, it’s easy to put our fist in the air and say we’re not gonna take it like we’re quick to do that But when one of the issues that we have a hard stance on hits close to home, then it changes everything because people are
Brandon Burton (07:12.738) Thank
Mike Conn (07:22.71) people are gray. And so when I first started with this business, I had a business coach. was, it was actually right after COVID. And, he said, Mike, at this point I’d done about 500 talks and I was very, very comfortable with it. And he said, Hey Mike, you’re not a leadership coach. I’m like, okay, great. he goes, Hey Mike, you, know what else you’re not? You’re not a culture coach. I’m like, awesome. And he, he said, do you want me to tell you what you are? I said, yes. And I need you to hurry because those are the two words that I’ve used the most.
Brandon Burton (07:35.246) Thank Thank
Mike Conn (07:51.48) tell people what it is that I do. He said, Mike, you’re a people coach. And when you invest in people, you know what happens? Their leadership increases exponentially. And when, when you help leadership increase exponentially on an individual level, an organizational level, a community level, then the culture just gets better and better and better. I said, okay. He said, do you feel better now? I said, yeah, a little. He said, Mike, I’m just saving you. If you say I’m a leadership coach.
then everyone sees you and John Maxwell in a ring and it’s you against him. Who do you think is going to win that one? I’m like, Hey, he said, it’s probably not going to be you. So anyway, that, shout out to Kev on that, my business coach. so that, that really kind of got me into looking for ways to see, okay, how could I help organizations who are led by people, they serve people.
Brandon Burton (08:27.138) Yeah.
Thank
Brandon Burton (08:37.166) you
Thank
Mike Conn (08:49.364) and they’re built by people, how can I help them be better with the people that are in the building? And so that really led to me diving deeper into this.
Brandon Burton (08:58.722) Yeah, that’s a great setup and background. In the past, I’ve done some episodes where we talk about culture at a chamber, culture within the community. But it’s a lot more high level. There’s not as much of the tactics that you can take and apply back to your community. we talk about the importance of culture and being that example in the community and in your organization. But I’m excited about our conversation today because we’re going to talk about communication.
Mike Conn (09:16.984) Yes.
Brandon Burton (09:28.334) and how that really helps to build and develop culture within your organization. But what I was excited about having you on the show today, Mike, is a lot of chambers have some involvement, whether it’s formal or informal, with economic development in their community. Whether they have that contract or they’re a support arm for the economic development organization in their community.
Mike Conn (09:46.721) Yep.
Brandon Burton (09:55.418) A lot of that with economic development is focusing on workforce and talent attraction and development. And what I see what you do is workforce and talent retention. And that should speak volumes to listeners who have, they run membership organizations. They know about attracting and selling new members, but they also know how important it is to retain the members within their organization.
So if we can help to amplify that in reaching out to your membership, the members of your organizations and helping to infuse the culture and retention of their people, developing that culture in their places of business to where that workforce and talent attraction part doesn’t have to be so much effort because the retention is so good.
That’s what we’re going to be diving into today as we talk about communication culture, and we will get into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Brandon Burton (10:57.728) All right, Mike, we’re we’re back. And as I mentioned before the break today, we’re talking about communication culture and specifically, I’m interested in the the retention aspect of the the human capital that we have in our communities, the Chamber members have in their organizations. There’s a lot of time and effort and resources that go into hiring and developing. Why is it so important for us to retain?
and create a great culture in the workplace.
Mike Conn (11:31.602) And I think that’s a great question. it’s, there’s this thing that sits in the blind spot of a lot of the employees slash team members in the organizations.
A lot of times they think, okay, I got in, but now they’re just looking for a reason to let me go. And I know that, I mean, I know that the posture changes, some of the conversations change. I’m a big believer in the locker room. I believe it’s the most important room in every organization. And a lot of, you know, a lot of people say, well, wouldn’t that be the conference room? Wouldn’t that be the training room? No, the locker room. I mean, I played football, but I don’t know. No, no, no, no. The locker room is
Brandon Burton (12:03.31) I was like, we don’t have a locker room. Yeah, tell us about that.
Mike Conn (12:10.708) Everywhere like as soon as you get out of your car and you’re walking into the building or if you’re remote as soon as you get into your space or the conversations you have with yourself about the good people you’re gonna be having conversations with later that’s all the locker room and I get hired for two reasons to keep the locker room from becoming toxic and then remove the blind spots from the leaders and What happens a lot of times? There’s just one organization. I’m thinking of now I go in there on the last Friday of every month for about five years and the
the owner does his meeting and then he says, well, we got coach Mike in the back and you know, I kind of knocked you down and he’s going to kind of pick you back up and whatever, whatever, whatever. It’s kind of a shtick now, you know, back and forth. But I say in that, and I would say to every organizational leader who is listening to this, we don’t hire people so we can fire them. You know that it costs too much. It costs too much to advertise, to replace them.
Brandon Burton (13:02.786) Right.
Mike Conn (13:08.362) I mean, according to Gallup, think is the stat I’m thinking of the most. costs like 150 % of their salary to replace them. But an employee or a team member, they’re not thinking that way. They’re thinking, well, if I don’t jump through all the hoops, okay, well, here we are in 2026 or whatever year you listen to this. And they’re just looking for a reason to let me go. That’s not right. That’s stinking thinking. Listen.
I don’t, as a business owner, I don’t hire people so I can look for the first opportunity to fire them. What a loose business model that would be. So what we’ve gotta do is we’ve gotta cultivate the culture. People say create culture, and yes you create, but you only create something once. And then the rest of the time you cultivate it. Cultivate’s simply a farming term that means control what you can control. And when I think culture,
Brandon Burton (13:41.368) Press.
Mike Conn (14:01.528) Because everybody’s got their own definition of whatever that may be and that’s fantastic. I love to bring common ground definitions so we can all get to a same place of what we’re talking about. And for me, culture is simply the way we do what we do and the way we allow it to be done. But that’s not how I hear it. That’s what I said. That’s how it is in my book, Culture 101, the way we do what we do and the way we allow it to be done. But the way I hear it is, this is how we do it. Like it’s such a…
Brandon Burton (14:29.422) You practiced that a few times. I can hear it.
Mike Conn (14:31.256) Because I mean, listen, I mean, let me tell you that I was in I was born or I was in life in 1995 without telling you like, like Montel is always in my in my mind. And I do get some people sometimes, are you the guy who talks about culture with 90s one liners? Yeah, that’s me. A category. That’s for sure a category of one, right? Like if you’re looking to try to separate yourself. That’s one of the ways to do it. Maybe not preferred, but that’s one of the ways to do it.
But when we talk about culture, it’s the way we do what we do and the way we allow it to be done. Okay, and what I hear a lot of organizational leaders say, they literally say this, they say, hey Mike, I need to manage my people better. I need to manage my people, manage people, manage people, manage people. And to me, I’m a big, I’m kind of, words are kind of important to me. And,
Brandon Burton (15:24.574) Yeah.
Mike Conn (15:26.456) especially with what I want to be known for and what I want to become the best in the world at, words are incredibly important to me. what I, instead of like finger in your face, angry eyebrows, like that’s not what you, that’s not who I am. That’s not what I do. So I put my arm around or come close and say,
Brandon Burton (15:47.022) You
Mike Conn (15:47.5) When you say manage people, managing people is like pushing a rope. Well, let me back up. And then I say, who in the room likes to be managed? And they’re like, do we raise our hand for this or not? I’m like, when a guy like me says, what do you think? Or who in the room feels like, it’s not a trick question. Do you like to be managed? And they’re like, well, no. Okay, well, what makes you think that’s the best way forward?
So it’s a word swap, right? And the culture that I want to cultivate, it’s a word swap. And instead of managing people, we do three things. We lead people, we manage processes, and then we measure and improve results and production. And when we focus with leading people,
that really kind of parts like the Red Sea. It’s like people who have been trained to lead people and then also what I refer to as the widget maker’s path to management. The widget maker was really good at making a widget and then someone said, here’s $5 or $500, whatever for your widget. What’d be better than one widget is multiple widgets. Can you make more widgets? And they’re like,
Brandon Burton (16:50.382) Thanks.
Mike Conn (17:04.716) Well, sure. And so they pay for more widgets. And then, the widget makers like, man, I’m really enjoying this. And then someone who needs a bunch of widgets all at one time says, Hey, can you, we want you to oversee the widget making and they promote them to the chief widget maker. And then the chief widget maker who was really good at making widgets, but has no people skills, no interpersonal skills, no leadership training feels like they got pushed into the nine foot deep end of a pool.
with no life jacket and they’re just managing people the way they were managed whenever it was before instead of leading people. That’s a tremendous distinction and…
When I’ve shared something similar to that with some of the chamber executives that I’ve had the privilege to have conversations with, they’re like, oh, the widget maker. Yeah, we’ve got some of that. And I had a conversation just last week with a nice lady in the HR department. She said, we’ve got 27 new middle managers. And I would say of those 27, probably 19 came to that through that widget maker path or whatever you just described. And then she said,
What do we do with that? And then I smile and I say, well, it sounds like you’re looking to cultivate the culture, control what you can control around the area of communication. And the goodness for you is I happen to be the guy who wrote the book about that communication culture. so I’m happy to help. It’s 46 bite-sized chapters with 40 blind spot alerts, because we’ve all stepped in something we didn’t see coming, and it’s written on a sixth grade reading level. And I did that on purpose because I want
everybody to be able to understand the conversation and take at least one thing. I’m a big believer in putting handles on hope. And what I know is true is the only difference in any tool is the intent of the person who’s holding it. this, in just the wrong person, everything looks like a nail when you’ve got a hammer, right? But what we also know is true is you can flip it over and then you could take something that was designed to be a tool and turn it into a weapon. And if that doesn’t resonate, then just Google.
Brandon Burton (18:44.398) you
Brandon Burton (19:02.766) Okay.
Mike Conn (19:12.984) Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, especially after these Winter Olympics. It’s one of those things that I come to leaders and I say, it matters what you say and it matters more the way that it’s received. So kind of back to what you said at the beginning, what’s something that we can do to impact the culture. It’s really a people first.
Brandon Burton (19:23.534) you
Brandon Burton (19:31.374) So
you
Mike Conn (19:39.954) Culture and I believe the most powerful three-letter word in the English language is for and I heard about it from a guy named Jeff Henderson who wrote an amazing book called know what you’re for Jeff worked for Coca-Cola Chick-fil-a. He also worked for a church for a long time in Atlanta, Georgia and He just said hey Mike. well, he didn’t say he he said it in the book, but I thought he was saying it to me He said most churches are known by what they’re against instead of who they’re for and I thought
That feels familiar. And I don’t think that’s a, it’s not intentional, it’s just in their blind spot. And what I’ve discovered the more I get to engage with people, the short people in the schools and the tall people, wherever, it’s, that’s not a church people thing, that’s a people thing. Because it’s so much easier being about what we’re against, and we can have what I call social media courage to go in and leave comments and never have to identify that I said that thing about that person. So.
Brandon Burton (20:34.828) Great.
Mike Conn (20:39.798) That’s why if Jeff were sitting beside me on this podcast, I would say, Jeff, that’s a great question. Who are you for? It’s a great question. And I turn up the dial and ask it a little bit differently. I think a good leadership question is who are you for? And I think a better leadership question is who knows that you’re for them. And so that is the target that I go, I try to coach and lead leaders, organizational leaders, new managers.
CEOs, whatever, anyone who has at least one person reporting to them, what you say is important and what’s more important is how it lands, how the people who you are leading, do they know that you’re for them? Because when they do, then feedback is something different. My talk on feedback is the human pinata. Because if your feedback’s not designed to build up and encourage, it’s not feedback, it’s target practice. Well.
I get about 70, 30 engagement with that. The 30 is the people who are like, Nope. But this 70 is like, man, that totally resonates with me. And it’s not, again, it’s not as much about what you say. You and I could say the exact same script, but if I’m investing at least 10 minutes a day and making sure that Brian who reports to me knows that I’m for him, then the feed and
Brandon Burton (21:47.928) Yeah.
Mike Conn (22:07.096) I don’t know. I think you grew up in California, right? So I don’t know how it was with your principal in elementary school. whenever Mrs. Howard was my principal in elementary school and whenever we would hear her come on the intercom and say, Mrs. Payne, please send Michael Conn to the office. Everyone in the school said, ooh. They didn’t think I was going to get a pizza party. They knew, but it’s that same thing.
Brandon Burton (22:10.68) Correct.
Brandon Burton (22:26.56) Ooh, yeah.
Mike Conn (22:36.492) that people already, they’ve already identified it. They already had that experience and whether their name was called on the intercom or it wasn’t, they had that, ooh, that same reaction that you did. So I appreciate the participation. I don’t know if you can hear the audience, to me, that’s, we’re swimming upstream because that’s one one’s experience. So instead of angry eyebrows, finger in your face, do this this way because I said so, then.
Brandon Burton (22:46.658) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (22:56.674) Yeah.
Mike Conn (23:04.864) then it’s a leadership thing and we’re trying to lead them and guide them to do what’s best for them, best for the organization, which of course is gonna be best for the leadership as well. So it’s not tricky. As you can tell, I’m pretty passionate about this topic.
Brandon Burton (23:21.262) Yeah, so the the I’m calling it the for culture who knows your for them culture it really resonated with me as I was going through your book because So my dad was in pharmaceutical sales that you know the whole time I was growing up and he led sales teams and in the pharmaceutical industry It’s a common thing where there’s turnover, you know one company buys another there’s mergers. There’s accusate acquisitions
Mike Conn (23:26.594) Yeah. OK.
Brandon Burton (23:49.298) And inevitably there’s layoffs that come with that, right? Whenever you have this drastic change within organizations. And usually my dad was on the side of, you know, the stronger of the companies coming in, not always, but usually, and seeing firsthand how he led his sales team and stood up for them and fought for them and advocated for why they needed to remain as part of the sales team.
because of the trust he had with them, because of the results that they produced, because of the culture that they built as a sales team was so valuable going forward that his team would follow him anywhere. And towards the end of his career, he went to a lesser known pharmaceutical company. It was more of a startup and his whole sales team followed him because they saw that leadership. There was a culture that was developed there and they understood what he was for and that he was for them.
When I think of these companies and creating these cultures within the companies and really retaining their talent, retaining their employees, oftentimes we’ll think to, we need a better retirement plan. We need to have flexible work hours. We need to be able to allow people to work from home or ride scooters in the office or have a meditation room or snacks or whatever, because that’ll keep them long-term, right?
Mike Conn (25:11.032) True.
Brandon Burton (25:17.902) There may be some benefit to that, but there’s also a big cost that comes to all those things, which I’m not saying don’t do any of those things, but investing in the individual, helping them develop, helping them realize where they fit in with the organization, helping them realize that you are for them, helping them realize that they’re a part of something bigger, I think is so much more valuable in having them stick around for the long term than.
Mike Conn (25:40.696) Absolutely.
Brandon Burton (25:45.518) providing snacks in the break room or whatever it may be. I don’t know if there’s more blind spot. I see that as a blind spot where we maybe focus our intentions in the wrong place or too much attention in those areas. What other blind spots come up for you as you examine this?
Mike Conn (26:02.924) And that’s a tremendous visual of that. And it really is infrastructural alignment. It’s the infrastructure of the people. Other blind spots is for leaders, we lead towards agreement instead of alignment. Listen, I don’t know about you, I don’t know your life, but I don’t even agree with the dude in the mirror every day. Like if I could do Groundhog Day, I wouldn’t do it exactly the same way every time, right?
Brandon Burton (26:29.4) Yeah.
Mike Conn (26:30.612) So it’s ludicrous for us to think, okay, well, I’m going to stamp it. I’m going to say it, and then you’re going to agree with me or you’re going to be out. And that’s not how most people do it. I understand that, but that’s the perception of how most people do it. And so what’s in our blind spot is a thing that you can control. And it’s such an easy thing that you and I both can control. There’s a great book called People Operations, and it’s about the people part of HR, right?
And in that they lay out three amazing stats that I bring up very early on, especially we’re talking about the locker room, we’re talking about culture, and it’s about the employee engagement. And according to this book, people who were surveyed, of the people who were surveyed, they said, what’s your greatest variable in employee engagement? 72 % said recognition. 60 % said they don’t feel like they’re recognized enough.
Brandon Burton (27:00.846) Thank you.
Brandon Burton (27:22.989) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (27:26.99) Thanks.
Mike Conn (27:28.438) And if you’re anything like me, when someone says, don’t feel like I’m recognized enough, you’re like, you know, fingers in belt loops, not enough. What about this? We do this, this like, listen, careful. You’re not on trial. You ask the people what their experiences and when they answer you listen, but if you don’t listen with your eyes, if you only listen with your ears until what’s actually said, then you forfeit.
Brandon Burton (27:36.078) Thank
Mike Conn (27:55.498) Everything else, like I don’t know the exact number. I love to ask this question. Two weeks ago, I was at a chamber in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and I said, what percentage, there are 12 people in the room, what percentage do you feel like of communication is non-virtual? And we got everything from 57 % to 91%. Okay, that’s your experience. God bless you. Thank you for playing.
To the extent we only listen to what people say, then we’re forfeiting the difference. So if it’s 91%, which seems a little high, that, well, let me rephrase. That’s not been my experience, but it’s high. Then we’re forfeiting what people are actually saying. The last stat of those three, 72 % said it was recognition, 60 % said they haven’t been recognized enough, they don’t feel like, and the third stat is 53%.
said they’ve never been recognized in their current place of employment. And for us in leadership to get defensive, that’s a huge plus-five. It’s exactly the wrong move because when you ask people what their experience is and they tell you, your job is not to refute it. Your job is not to disprove it. And unfortunately, we spend a lot of time doing that. one of the easiest ways, I’m a guy, I try to put handles on hope.
Okay, Mike, okay, that’s great. What’s one way, you know, now I’m on the prices, right? Bob, is there at least one number right? Like, what’s one way that we can recognize people since they said that was really important? It’s very, very easy. I call it a megaphone minute. Guess how long it lasts? It’s 60 seconds. And you just say, an example of a megaphone, like you’re just looking for something that they’ve done well.
Brandon Burton (29:37.39) About a minute. Yeah.
Mike Conn (29:45.92) and you’re just recognizing it. And you know, people like to be recognized in lots of different ways. I understand that an example of a megaphone minute would be then this is authentic. And we talked about this before we started recording. man, Brandon, your podcast is awesome. I started in 2019, January of 2019. Ask me how I know. Cause I listened to that first episode again this morning before we recorded, but you do a masterful job of setting the stage. First of all, you introduce everyone as chamber champions.
Secondly, you’re guiding the conversation on what value can, how can I set up this guest to deliver value that they can deliver in ways that maybe I could deliver too, but we’re gonna give them their moment in the sun. Speak to their expertise. You have done this very, very well. This was only 40 seconds of a megaphone minute. But when you, it’s different instead of saying, hey Brandon. I keep keep going.
Brandon Burton (30:39.918) We’ve got 20 more seconds, so can keep me to our skit.
Mike Conn (30:43.884) But it’s not, well, I will say this is probably our fourth time chatting and you’ve been the same every time, consistent every time and consistent with the multiple episodes that I’ve listened slash watched. The reason why that matters is if the first time you hear me say something positive about your podcast, that’s when you’re on Facebook or whatever social media is when people are listening to it right now.
Then it’s like, okay. So we talked on the phone or we talked on zoom or we talked wherever we talked four times and you couldn’t be bothered to share that with me then. But now when the lights are on and people are counting likes and shares and all that stuff, it’s a totally different thing. And it comes across to the employee, to the team member as disingenuous. So a small thing that we can do that really, really turns up the dialogue culture.
Brandon Burton (31:30.909) Yeah.
Thank you.
Mike Conn (31:38.142) is when you see someone doing something good, reward them for it, recognize them for it, call them out for it. So then it doesn’t feel like the principal in elementary school saying, please send Michael, only two people call me Michael. And one of them has been for 26 years. like it’s, it’s, it’s that kind of a thing, but in our leadership, it’s in our blind spot because we think we’ve got a rule with an iron fist or we can’t be seen as weak or whatever. And for me,
Brandon Burton (31:51.118) Great.
Mike Conn (32:07.668) Vulnerability. I’m not a fan of transparency because I some thoughts. I don’t want anyone to know I’m capable of It’s just it’s just weird But vulnerability, I think is a superpower and bernie brown speaks to that a lot of course and I think the more we can lean in and say Listen, I don’t know how to say this and I don’t want to make this awkward But you do a fantastic job by this this this and this it’s way different than just saying hey Brandon nice podcast
Brandon Burton (32:35.522) Yeah. Yeah. Now the recognition piece, reminded me when I was in college, I had a, an office job and really I just helped with customer service and package things up and sent things out and you know, very mundane, you know, but in being in that job for, for long enough, I saw some areas where we could improve the process and automate a few things and just overall reduce errors and, and quicker turnaround.
Mike Conn (32:37.174) So it’s totally different.
Brandon Burton (33:05.676) So I worked with our IT department in the company and we implemented these changes. Well, my manager, was not my direct report, but the manager above that person, saw this and I wasn’t making hardly any money. I didn’t have a 401k. It was really just a starter, entry level job. But this manager, two levels above,
He saw it and he came one day and had a, it was just a certificate that he made on his computer and printed out in the office and probably got the frame for it at the dollar store. So the cost was very minimal, but it was the innovator award. Nobody has been awarded an innovator award before, but he presented that to me and it was awesome. You know, I put it up by my desk and the young people walk by and see it, but I felt recognized. I was seen, I was recognized. didn’t.
cost, you know, a dollar, you know, to do that. And it goes a long ways. But I wanted to ask you, as we start to wrap things up, I wanted to see what kind of tip or action item you might have that you would share for those listening who want to take their organization up to the next level.
Mike Conn (34:24.664) Well, again, I really enjoyed the conversation and what you just articulated to me, what you articulated for us with the Innovator Award. It’s really what I want to be known for. And when I read the book, to Great, man, it was a great read until I got to chapter five and I thought he and Jim Collins asked three questions there on the hedgehog concept. And I thought this is the dumbest question I’ve ever heard in the book. Excuse me. I closed it.
The question was what do want to become the best in the world at the best in the world? What a stupid question Best in the world if I could become the best in the world at one thing. I know what would be it would be help people feel seen and feel valued but to me seen is not just a word It’s an acronym and the s is for significant because so are you are and so is every human with breath in their body Whether they look like you or vote like you or act like you
The E is for enough, because you are enough. don’t need you to try to be, if you’re, we don’t need you to try to get Instagram famous or social media famous. The second E is for entrusted. Listen, you’re quirky. I’m quirky. Like, what’s the quirk that makes you smirk? Like is it that you sing 90s one-liners when you talk about culture? Okay, then do it. Whatever that is for you, because everybody can do good, but nobody can do good.
that you can do the same way you can do it. Lots of podcasts, but people do it differently. So lean into the way that you’re built to do it. And then what I know is true is the N is for needed. And what I know is true is people who don’t feel needed do things they wouldn’t normally do to get noticed. So when you say, Mike, what’s one thing that we could do?
It brings me back to, mean, my conversation with Kev, yes, I do speak about leadership, but what I really want to do, like if you sign up for a John Maxwell course on leadership, you do it because you want to become a better leader and you will be. For me, the kind of avatar or the person who is drawn to me and my content, they’re people, they’re leaders, but they obsess over the personal growth and development and success.
Mike Conn (36:31.344) of the people who are following them. And that’s what I would say. There’s one thing that we could do to level up our leadership immediately and improve the culture. It’s not a switch that you flip off or on. It’s a dial that you turn up. So my first question is on a scale of one to 10, one being awful, 10 being awesome, how would you rate your current culture of recognition in your workplace, of your team?
Well, it’s about a four. Okay, cool. it’s a 9.3. Okay, fantastic. Be as quick as you want. What’s the difference between a 9.3 and a 10? And then flip it around. It’s costing you the difference between a 9.3 and a 10. Which people don’t say 9.3. When I ask that question, they say it’s probably about a four. Oh, well that’s a different conversation then. What’s the difference between a four and a 10? And then what’s it costing you? And then really the finger in your chest question.
Brandon Burton (37:16.078) Yeah.
Mike Conn (37:25.144) How bad does it have to get before you’ll change it? How long are you willing to let it go on that way? So what I would say the easiest win for every leader, and you could do this right now as you walk out, set your timer to one minute, point at someone, go through your roster of people who report to you. Don’t call them by number, call them by name. It’s really important to people that you know their name. And then say,
Hey, Brandon, do you have do you have a minute and they come in and then you look up in the face and you say the thing that you’re proud of them for that you appreciate and then if you want bonus points you connect the success of the organization to that and then You look and see it man. No, I know that wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be I’ll do that again And then before you know it you invest megaphone minute one for every person who’s on your team and the culture
Brandon Burton (38:10.838) I’ll come at it
Mike Conn (38:18.878) Within minutes, maybe days, worst case scenario weeks is different because you’ve reset, you’ve recalibrated what we’re looking for. And instead of looking to find what’s wrong, people now are looking to recognize and reward what people are doing well. I can give you more hours on that, but I know that’s not in our time budget today.
Brandon Burton (38:37.132) Yeah. Right. Now I love how actionable that is though. And maybe people need to listen and skip back a few seconds, you know, two minutes or so, and then listen to that again, because it is very actionable and will make a difference. I love that, you know, the way you present things is there are actionable things you can take and do to implement in your organization, whether it’s the chamber itself or helping to foster within your member.
businesses. Mike, everybody I have on the show, I always ask them, how do you see the future of chambers of commerce and their purpose going forward?
Mike Conn (39:16.513) I love that. I love that question. And I believe the chamber and the local public school are the two entities in every community.
that make the biggest impact because of the tremendous impact they’re already making. So that’s why my business model, I go try to partner with the local chamber and then local schools, local businesses, nonprofits, whatever. That’s how much I believe in what I’m saying. And so when I look at the future of the chamber, I see the incredible opportunity should you choose to accept it in the full mission impossible way, right? You choose to lean into it and say, how can I not try to just
Brandon Burton (39:50.382) Great.
Mike Conn (39:54.914) keep you as a returning member and to re-up your membership. A word swap instead of calling members, calling them investors, which I’ve heard several of your guests on the podcast use that language. And people that I’ve had conversations with, they’ve made that swap already. I really could give a 10 minute answer on this. I’ll bring it back to one line. And I’ll say what I believe the future of the chamber is.
For the people who lean into the people aspect of it Then I think not only is retention because retention and Turnover are not the same thing. There may be two different sides of the same coin But the more we lean into the people side the more retention it’s a it’s it’s very very active and the more turnover kind of dissipates because it’s it’s what we’re leaning into so the more the chamber can be the
the encourager, the conduit, the lab that gives resources to the businesses who are stretched way too thin and they don’t have an HR team, they are the HR team, they’re also the chief toilet scrubber and the trash taker outer. They do all of that together. The more that the chamber can position, you’re already in the great position to serve them and encourage them.
It’s really advocate, connect and grow, right? And to be able to lean in and help people give them something to work towards. And I know your audience is gonna keep doing it.
Brandon Burton (41:24.61) Yeah. I love that. Well, Mike, I appreciate you spending time with us today on Chamber Chat podcast. I appreciate the the 90s references, the Montell cover solo, the Mission Impossible reference and the Nancy Kerrigan, Tanya Harding reference. mean, just right pulled right out of the 90s makes me feel like a teenager again. I love it.
I want to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you or even bring you on and hire you and tap deeper into your brain and the resources you have to share.
Mike Conn (41:59.312) Great. Man, I appreciate that. Thank you, Brandon. Again, I’ve had a great time today. I’m on LinkedIn at Mike Conn. It’s a good place. I’m on Instagram. Instagram DMs is where a lot of conversations happen. Some people like to text the old-fashioned way. I’m happy to…
My cell phone number is 580-952-9229. And for those good folks who love email, it’s Mike@MikeConnCoaching. And for those who say, but do you have a website? Well, mikeconncoaching.com. whatever is your preferred method of communication, I’m not difficult to find.
Brandon Burton (42:43.734) That’s, that’s perfect. And we’ll get that all in the show notes. And for those listening, we are working on a, some sort of an offer for, for listeners of Chamber Chat. So if you wanted to go to chamberchatpodcast.com/MikeConn and, and find that there as well and see what all Mike can do for you and your organization and really to help your member businesses retain their, their talent that they’ve worked so hard to attract. But Mike, thanks again for spending time with us today. This has been a great.
I really appreciate you and everything you provided.
Mike Conn (43:17.41) Thanks, Brandon. It’s my pleasure.
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Brandon Burton (00:00.854) Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our guest for this episode is Matt Owen. Matt serves as the executive director of Chamber Professionals of Ohio, the statewide association dedicated to professional training, development, coaching, and support for Chambers of Commerce professionals across Ohio.
With more than two decades of Chamber CEO experience, brings deep expertise and organizational leadership, economic development, and strategic growth. In his role at CPO, he leads statewide strategic planning, professional development programming, advocacy initiatives, partnership development, and major events designed to strengthen Ohio’s Chamber network. Under Matt’s leadership, CPO has expanded its training offerings and
Enhanced membership engagement and strengthened collaboration with key partners, including the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and regional chamber networks. He’s passionate about equipping chamber leaders with practical tools, peer connections and innovative resources that help them navigate today’s rapidly evolving business environment. A collaborative and mission driven leader, Matt believes that strong chambers build strong communities.
He’s dedicated to advancing the chamber profession while fostering a supportive statewide network that empowers leaders to grow and lead with confidence. Matt is also a proud U.S. Navy veteran who served aboard the USS Bainbridge as a missile technician. Matt, welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. We’re happy to have you with us today. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the chamber champions and to share something interesting about yourself as well.
and thank you for your service.
Matt Owen (02:00.06) Hey, thank you. Big fan, Brandon. Thank you so much for your Chamber Chat podcast and tuned in several times, not only to check out some of my colleagues here in the state of Ohio, but also some of those great champions that are across our country here. So thank you so much for all that you do for the Chamber world. I don’t know if I have anything exciting to tell you about myself. I’ve spent…
almost 26 years in the chamber industry. I guess maybe something that means a lot to me is I’ve also been a club soccer coach. I was a club soccer coach for 28 years here in the state of Ohio. And my dad was a former semi-professional player, obviously a construction worker back then. You didn’t make any money playing soccer in America in the 50s.
Brandon Burton (02:42.637) Wow.
Matt Owen (02:57.848) sixties and seventies. But I absolutely love soccer, love what’s happening to soccer here in America and how much it’s grown over the past 35 years. Big Columbus crew fan. I will go see FC Cincinnati play as well. But the crew was here first, so they’re near and dear to my heart. So if you see some things up above me here, there’s a
Brandon Burton (03:24.483) Yeah.
Matt Owen (03:24.55) couple of trophies and a couple of balls from teams in the past and I really, really enjoyed it. But I kind of hung up my whistle here a couple of years ago, but I do miss it and loved coaching my kids. And I do have one that’s in college that is playing soccer right now. So I get to enjoy watching him play. So yeah, great.
Brandon Burton (03:46.691) That’s awesome. I’m impressed you’re able to coach club soccer and lead chambers and they both take a lot of time. They both pull you and stretch you thin. So I’m impressed.
Matt Owen (03:52.526) Thank
Matt Owen (03:57.478) They do, yeah. I was fortunate enough I could control my schedule as a soccer coach a little bit. we are a regional, not a national team. just traveling around the Midwest was busy enough, but I really, really enjoyed it. The same way I love, obviously, traveling around in our state and helping chambers become more ineffective in their communities as well.
Brandon Burton (04:24.622) Very good. Well, if you would take a few moments and tell us about Chamber Professionals of Ohio, just to give us an idea of what the organization is and what you strive to do, your mission, your purpose. And I think that’ll help to set the stage for our conversation today.
Matt Owen (04:43.078) Sure. Chamber Professionals of Ohio, we are what many states refer to as a CCE, Chamber Commerce Executives Training and Development Organization. We are housed within the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. Not all chamber training organizations across the country are housed with their state chamber. Some are and some are not. Some stand on their own two legs.
Our particular organization has been around for 100 years. We started in 1916. And then over the years, we’ve developed ourselves into really just a great organization where the chambers across the state can get not only coaching and professional training, but we offer services such as board development. We also do a lot of strategic planning.
And then there’s some other fun stuff that we get to do when it comes to how to network, how to control your board in a way in which hopefully is effective working with your board. And then some things that we have throughout the year that we refer to as our of our key events. One is the winter conference that we just came off of.
in Canton at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. We have a Chamber Day in June, which we share host with the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. And then later on in the fall, we will do a leadership summit that will just focus on becoming a better and more effective leader in the state.
Brandon Burton (06:30.988) That’s perfect. That definitely stages our conversation very well. So today we’ll focus the majority of our conversation around professional development support and the importance of that. And we’ll dive into the details of that as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, Matt, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, today we’re talking about professional development support. And you’re very much in the throes of that.
But when you think of chambers, I know you’re very tuned in to the chambers in Ohio, but as there’s chambers across the country that are listening to this, what are some of the pieces of advice and counsel that you might have when it comes to professional development and really just furthering themselves as chamber professionals, wouldn’t say chamber leaders, but professionals across the board as they serve within chambers?
Matt Owen (07:30.246) Yeah, I think first it depends on what stage of your career that you’re in. If you’re just coming into the chamber world and you’re in a lead position such as a CEO or executive director, I really highly encourage you to partner with your state CCE and to get some development and training that you need.
Brandon Burton (07:30.701) Yeah.
Matt Owen (07:55.728) They have courses similar in each state, something like your first 100 days in the organization. Those are great courses to have. And there’s kind of a checkbox of information that helps you get acclimated in your position. And then from there on into your second, third, and fourth year, there’s kind of a stage of development, kind of like rounding the bases in baseball.
you know, once you round first and you start heading to second, so you just took chamber 101 and now you’re heading for chamber 201. And those kind of training and development areas in 201 are more mature. You’re starting to talk about a little bit more board development, obviously how to manage your budget more efficiently, how to improve your effectiveness and not only membership.
retention, but also how to gain new members. And then really, you know, once you reach a point in your chamber career where you need more extensive training and development and advocacy and being the voice of business, which chambers are for their community and their members, you can start getting into more public policy and government affairs issues, a lot more mature chambers and mature
Brandon Burton (09:11.585) you
Matt Owen (09:22.364) Um, uh, directors, uh, feel that, uh, that 301 is where you become more of an influencer in your community. Um, a little bit more impact in those areas. Uh, and, uh, I think that that’s kind of a general basis of what most CCEs across the way are doing. And if we, if we look at it in high insight, um, uh, you come full circle again in your career.
26 years in the industry. can tell you that with the way things change so fast in the chamber industry is that I find myself rounding home after rounding third and going back to first base again and starting all over because the way that membership and retention and the way the foundation of things work, they start to change technology-wise and you can really, really find yourself doing things all over again.
Brandon Burton (10:08.974) Thank
Matt Owen (10:20.486) but just in a different way. And it’s not always the same. I think that’s what’s great about the chamber industry and being in the chamber industry all these years is that it changes quickly. It changes probably as fast as it’s ever changing with technology. But I think our chamber executives out there, especially the ones that get to the point where they’re 10, 12, 13 years in, they kind of get burned out.
Brandon Burton (10:22.626) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (10:34.67) Thanks.
Matt Owen (10:50.052) We talk a lot about, you know, how do you, how do you cope with burning out? And, and I hope that, they find ways that are within their organization to get away, refresh, maybe some training and development, maybe some outside conferences will refresh them, and get them back on track.
Brandon Burton (10:57.326) They probably didn’t stick with the organization. So they probably didn’t have the facts. I’m not being too fair.
Brandon Burton (11:09.942) Yeah, so a few weeks ago I’d seen Kyle Sexton had done a thing as a Facebook or LinkedIn post or something just with more of a thought exercise of you know, if I were a new chamber exec, what would I do in the first 100 days? And he went through and broke it down. Who would I meet with? Who would I go visit? What members? What leaders in the community? And just going through it then he opened it up. You what am I missing? And and seeing people’s comments on there is
I think it’s a good thought exercise, even if you’ve been in the industry for 10 or 20 years, to kind of take a step back and say, if I were new in this position, what would I do in my first 100 days? And see, are you still in alignment with what you would do if you were new in the community? Are you building those connections? Because ultimately, you should get to that influencer in your community step.
As you’re a convener of leaders and influencers within your community, you need to be an influencer. So building it up to there, I love that that’s the trajectory that you guys take with these trainings. And burnout, I mean, that is so real. What is, as you guys have approached that topic of burnout, what’s some practical tips or advice that you can share around that?
Matt Owen (12:33.869) Yeah, I think there’s a point to where you can step back a little bit. And then I always find that whether it’s conferences or whether it’s even workshops that you kind of throw yourself back into that that are very basic again and that remind you of, know, why you fell in love with what you do as a chamber.
professional, kind of hitting the reset button a little bit. know, there’s obviously vacation is great, but you kind of come back to the same challenges. And those conferences, workshops can sometimes make you look at those challenges in a different angle, in a different approach. I have always found that conversing and networking with my peers
not just here in the Midwest, but networking with them across the country, utilizing those big conferences like ACCE, ASAE, and conferences such as those. They always kind of refresh me. And then if you’ve been in the industry long enough and you meet somebody that’s going through the same struggles that you went through at one time, and you can offer some assistance or some help,
It really kind of, it helps you feel the value of your experience. Chamber world, especially small chambers can be just a one person show. It could be maybe two people. Many chambers across the state of Ohio here are like that. We have 311 chambers in our state. Many of them are very, very small. They’re 250 members or less. They may have.
either a part-time director or maybe a full-time director with a part-time person. And you’re on your own a lot. if you’re not used to working that way, it can be very draining and it can be overwhelming. So that kind of support often helps the burnout when you can relate with other chamber professionals, you know, either around you or somewhere else in other parts.
Matt Owen (14:59.63) of the country. It always energized me when I felt like I wasn’t alone. Burnout is one big reason, and I’m not just talking about chamber work, but just nonprofit work, especially nonprofit work in a small environment, it can be a huge issue. And we all face, obviously, the balance of work and your private life.
Chamber work is usually extremely busy. My friends and I often say we’re seven to seven, seven days a week. And it can be that way. Those 55 and 60 hour weeks running a small chamber can really drain you. But you really do need to find a way to recharge yourself, energize yourself, and find the drive that you had in the beginning and why you kind of fell in love with it.
Brandon Burton (15:36.748) Yeah.
Matt Owen (15:57.98) That often helps me. I love chatting with my peers. And I’ve had some peers that have been around my entire career. A guest of yours, Janet Tressler Davis, who retired from the Westerville, Ohio chamber just this past year. Janet was one of those I met early in my career, met her at a conference. She already had several years under her belt.
Brandon Burton (16:12.866) Yeah.
Matt Owen (16:25.596) She was one that I could always chime in with, ask questions to, even complain and get things off of my mind. And she was great. And then I found out that there’s a lot more other resources out there, just like Janet, who can assist you. And I think that’s the key in the chamber world is.
Matt Owen (16:54.35) is finding that support network. And I want here in our state to know that we can provide that for them as well. I know there’s challenges, there’s challenges with every organization, whether it’s for-profit or non-profit. And sometimes they just need somebody to talk to. And I think one of our big initiatives here is we want to be available for that. We want to be here, we want to listen.
It educates us as well to make us a better agency. So yeah, that’s a tough one. Burnout is very real and we deal with it a lot. And I think everybody has their own way of dealing with it and that’s just how I dealt with it.
Brandon Burton (17:43.267) Yeah, so I’ve had the experience a few times where I talked to a chamber executive and they’re, maybe they’ve been in the industry for some time. Maybe some not as long as others, but they maybe disengaged from going to state conferences or engaging with the continued professional development because
You know, they’ve been to, if you’ve been to one, you’ve been to all of them is kind of their attitude. And I don’t learn anything, you know, when I go to these things anymore, I’ve heard a few people say that. And I always have a hard time hearing that because I feel like there’s always something to be learned. And usually it’s through those relationships you build and being able to bounce ideas and hear different approaches, which is largely why this podcast exists. But, what would you say to.
an individual who might have that kind of mindset. I’m thinking of it, they’re probably not listening to this podcast because they’ve heard it all and they’re not going to learn anything. Right. But somebody listening knows who those people are and how can we reach them and help them spread, have that open mind thinking.
Matt Owen (18:52.006) Yeah.
Matt Owen (18:57.798) Yeah, I think two things are very important to that topic that you brought up right there is one is, is you can never stop learning. You can always learn from something. Even if you’re to the point of your career where you’ve got like myself, 20 some years behind you. And the reason why that is is because tactics strategies may seem similar to what you’ve done in the past.
but how you utilize the technology that we’re going through. We’re going through another power technology age of AI. And I really don’t want to scare anyone, but it is going to make a huge impact on our industry. I don’t know how that’s going to affect everything that we do, but if you pick out ways in which that technology can assist you in…
Brandon Burton (19:35.128) Yeah.
Matt Owen (19:57.154) in everyday work. And that’s everything from like how you’re working with your CRM. It’s a lot of data. There’s a lot of matrix that go into that. And I feel that if you don’t take time to learn that, because our national conference are offering those, that type of training now.
And then I think too is, that I do think for those seasoned veterans out there who might have that attitude of I don’t learn anything from those things anymore. Well, I think it’s your responsibility to give back to the industry. I think it’s very, very important. And I want to give back. I want to get back in the areas in which I struggled and maybe didn’t understand or.
Brandon Burton (20:40.578) I love that. Yeah.
Matt Owen (20:52.506) Some things at the time I didn’t value enough and didn’t pay attention to enough. I think mentors regardless are needed out there. So I would encourage a veteran out there in the chamber industry, whether they’re a veteran in a regional chamber or a Metro chamber that’s in a leadership position, you could be a director, a VP, or you could be the CEO.
I think it’s your responsibility to really help the next generation of chamber leaders by giving back.
Brandon Burton (21:28.322) Yes, I’m so glad you touched on that with the giving back aspect because there’s so much that one has to offer when they have that sort of experience in the industry and making a career out of it. And it’s not a place of ego either to say, I’ve been doing this for 40 years. I need to go get, it’s not about that, but it’s just supporting the industry. It’s helping to lift up and sharing your experience.
Matt Owen (21:47.964) you
Brandon Burton (21:57.411) I’m a firm believer that as you do that, you keep learning things too, you know, as you share your experience and then hear how the newcomers in the industry see things, there’s a convergence that comes together where you’re like, yeah, I learned something, right? So I think it happens all the time. What else in the professional development arena do you want to make sure we touch on in this conversation today?
Matt Owen (22:12.805) Exactly.
Matt Owen (22:24.55) Well, outside of just never stop learning and always continuing to expand your knowledge in your profession. I think it’s important more than any time now is to learn how to build the team around you because that ultimately reflects the entire organization. think right now what I’m seeing is we’re having a little bit of difficulty.
getting the right board members in place on chamber boards across our state. I’m realizing with my friends in my position in other states are dealing with things such as good board management and what they should be doing. And I actually, I want to make sure that I’m clear on this is that, you know, the staff manages and the board governs and we’ve really found that that is being mixed up. We’ve had boards that are what we refer to as working boards.
and they’re kind of getting into the managing portion of it and it’s causing some a lot of issues. The board really needs to know what their role is. So educating those boards out there in our state as to be what their role is so they can be more effective and what they do. And then training and developing your chamber leaders to be
Brandon Burton (23:31.32) Yeah.
Matt Owen (23:53.724) to be better executive directors in how to manage. If they grow from, let’s say, 300 members to 800 members over the course of, let’s say, 15 years, they’re probably gonna be doing things like hiring staff members, expanding into areas in which they did not have before, hiring a marketing or a social media person.
hiring more membership people, you might have a marketing slash events coordinator now, which is becoming a little bit more normal, is that you’ll have a dual role in that area. But also just the fact that they may not know how to manage and helping them learn how to manage and lead their staff, I see has become a gap in our leadership qualities here.
Brandon Burton (24:49.741) Yeah.
Matt Owen (24:50.628) And we want to kind of, we want to bridge the gap. We want to make them better managers, better effective leaders of their organization, especially when it’s growing. And you’re going to go through growing pains. If you’re doing well and you’re expanding and you’re adding more programs at your chamber of commerce and more non dues revenue is coming in, you’re in a great position to grow.
In some chamber executive directors, they don’t know how to grow. And when it comes to staff, and hopefully we can bridge the gap with that as well. those are some of the areas in which I think we need to be better at. And I’m realizing that in my position in our organization here in Ohio, we need to be better in addressing those needs as well.
Brandon Burton (25:35.512) Yes.
Brandon Burton (25:49.987) Yeah, that makes sense. In fact, our previous episode was all about board development, the relationship between the Chamber Executive and the board, because there is some muddy water in between there, or maybe you have an overreaching board or maybe a Chamber Executive who doesn’t know how to quite, you know, control or interact with, we’ll say, with their board. So when it comes to board development and training, what
resources, what outlets would you put out there as options for chamber staff to be able to help their board understand? Because it doesn’t seem appropriate necessarily for the chamber executive and CEO to say, okay, board, here’s how you do this when they work for the board. So there’s this weird dynamic where, yes, they need that training and development, but how do you provide it and who is best suited to do that?
Matt Owen (26:50.17) Yeah, we have a short, it’s a three hour board development course that we do with the board of directors. And we kind of actually separate the board and the staff and so that they make sure each one knows what the role is. And then we actually bring them back in the room after each one of them has their session. I will tell you as a resource, Brendan, I am a big fan of Bob Harris.
He’s an IOM teacher. He’s the one that pretty much put the saying, you know, the, I’ve got it up on my whiteboard here. Board governs, staff manages. Bob Harris, I had the absolute and utter honor of meeting him in my first IOM class at Villanova University. It was like a celebrity sighting for me. I have like, I have like stolen so much.
Brandon Burton (27:22.008) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (27:43.554) Hey.
Matt Owen (27:47.672) information from him over the years. felt like when I met him, I was going to have to tell him that I’ve stole so much information from him. And he said, that’s absolutely awesome. I’m so glad that you have. He is he’s kind of the developer and mastermind of how a board and staff should operate. He’s got some really good information, even on his site. He’s got a he’s got a great approach.
Brandon Burton (27:53.07) Thank
with the brains.
Matt Owen (28:17.538) a simple teaching method and I’ve used a lot of his points in my training when we sit down and talk about the role for the board, the role for the staff. He just makes it really simple, makes it really easy. It isn’t complicated. And I think it’s very, very effective. I learned it early in my career. There is a lot of confusion out there. Some board members
They have no board training whatsoever. They’re just volunteers in the community and they come onto a chamber board or whatever nonprofit board and they really don’t know exactly what their role is. And I will also say the same thing to new executive directors coming in who maybe this is their first time in the nonprofit sector. This is their first time obviously being in a chamber boardroom.
Brandon Burton (28:58.562) Yeah.
Matt Owen (29:13.916) and they don’t know how a board meeting operates. And so we have just as much to train our new chamber directors as we do board development. I don’t know, do you know Bob Harris? Have you heard of Bob?
Brandon Burton (29:25.614) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (29:30.562) Yeah, yeah, I’ve been in rooms with him at different trainings. Yeah, yeah, he’s fantastic. Yeah, yeah.
Matt Owen (29:35.12) Yeah, he is fantastic. Yeah, I might as well call Michael Jordan because that’s how I think of Bob. In our world, he’s a superstar, man. He’s a celebrity.
Brandon Burton (29:51.277) Yeah, that’s fantastic. Great plug for him. Well, Matt, I like asking everyone I have on the show on behalf of the listeners who are trying to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them as they strive towards that goal?
Matt Owen (30:07.824) Yeah, I think it’s narrowing down those top three priorities for your Chamber of Commerce and then putting you in order and making sure that you actually put together a strategic plan, a strategic plan that has benchmarks, one that you don’t just design this strategic plan and it’s set somewhere. You need to run parallel with that strategic plan and those are initiatives.
and, and then I think obviously the big thing is, that continue to get your board of directors as well as your staff. and then everybody in your community that, is a viable entity with your chamber of commerce together, at least one time of year. And maybe it can just be open discussion on the needs of the community, what the community business community is struggling with.
and get that feedback because those are the things that are going to drive you. You can’t drive in the dark. You got to know where you’re going. And the only way you’re going to do that is you’re going to have to find out. You’re going to need to bring your community leaders, your business leaders together and then carve out your path. And I think that’s probably one of the biggest things I learned early in my career is don’t drive in the dark.
You need to get your business leaders together. You need to hear from them. And then you decide, okay, now this is where we’re going. And I think that’s a huge, huge impact. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (31:48.131) Yeah, absolutely. Well, as we look to the future of Chambers of Commerce, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?
Matt Owen (31:57.142) I think our chambers are going to start collaborating a lot more with their economic development, their CVBs. I think we’re seeing a trend here where many of them are starting to be housed underneath one roof. And I know that could be a trend that’s short-lived, but I am starting to see the effectiveness of those entities coming together.
under one roof. And I know that it may not be, let’s say four or five chambers merging together to become one chamber, which we’ve seen a few of that, a of those happen in our state as well. When there’s a very, very rural state, county in our state and maybe two or three chambers come together as one. But I do think that I’m seeing the combined resources effort
Brandon Burton (32:39.032) Yeah.
Matt Owen (32:55.868) And that’s putting your priorities together and straight with your chamber, your CBB, your economic development agencies. And I think that’s, I see that being more of a future evolving state of the Chamber of Commerce.
Brandon Burton (33:17.016) Yeah, I see a lot of wisdom in it when it can align, you know, when those incentives are aligned.
Matt Owen (33:22.02) Yeah, and it’s not easy to do, but we’ve seen some really good success stories over the past several years coming out of COVID here in our state. And they’re operating very, very efficiently. And they’re not easy to construct, but the more construction of these entities, the better path we can show other communities of how they did it. And they can be a model. anyways,
Brandon Burton (33:38.061) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (33:47.661) Yeah.
Matt Owen (33:52.4) That’s my futuristic path for what chambers are going to look like in the future. I think there’s going to be more collaboration and merging.
Brandon Burton (33:57.484) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (34:05.134) I like it. Well, Matt, I wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners. You might want to reach out and connect and learn more about your approaches and things you’ve shared. Where would you point them?
Matt Owen (34:18.7) Absolutely. You can always find me online. Our website is www.chamberprosohio.com. I am on LinkedIn. I would be glad to connect with you on my LinkedIn page. There’s a lot of Matt Owens out there in the world. So I’m the Matt Owen with Chamber Professionals of Ohio or the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. And then
My email address is mowen@ohiochamber.com.
Brandon Burton (34:54.478) Perfect, we’ll get all that in the show notes and hopefully link the right LinkedIn account so people can find you easy that way. But Matt, thank you so much for setting aside some time and spending it with us here on the Chamber Chat podcast. I appreciate your insights and experience and encouragement to those that are here listening. I appreciate it.
Matt Owen (35:15.004) Thank you, thank you for all that you do again, Brandon. Thank you so much for this podcast.
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Brandon Burton (00:00.908) Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the show, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
Our guest for this episode is Tony Vedda. Tony is the President and CEO of the North Texas LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce, where he has led the organization since 2007 as its first chief executive. With more than four decades of chamber leadership experience, Tony began his career as membership specialist for the greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and later worked with the Metropolitan Chambers in Arizona and California.
He also served as the executive director of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Business Association, the nation’s first LGBT Chamber of Commerce, further solidifying his commitment to inclusive economic development and advocacy. Tony returned to the chamber to chamber leadership in 2005 as secretary for the newly formed North Texas LGBTQ chamber before being named president and CEO two years later.
a role that he continues to hold today. Under his leadership, the chamber has grown into a powerful voice for LGBTQ-owned businesses and inclusive economic growth across North Texas. Tony is an IOM graduate and he holds a prestigious certified chamber executive designation from ACCE as well, an honor earned by only 3 % of active chamber leaders nationwide and the only LGBT chamber leader to receive it.
Brandon Burton (01:57.102) He also holds a certificate in diversity and inclusion from Cornell University. Tony is deeply engaged in professional leadership and advocacy. serves on the ACCE board of directors, chairs the ACCE certified chamber executive commission, and is a founding member of the Texas LGBTQ chambers of commerce, a statewide advocacy coalition.
He is also a respected speaker and faculty member of the US Chambers Institute for Organization Management. But Tony, 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 if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (02:43.959) Well, I’m really impressed with what you just read because I don’t know who that guy is, but I’d hire him in a heartbeat. He sounds perfect. Yeah, it’s always weird to hear those those introductions, but thank you, Brandon. Thank you for inviting me to be on today. Something interesting about me. I am the most uninteresting person in the world, I believe, but I’ve had a lot of
Brandon Burton (02:51.371) That’s right, for anyone listening.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (03:13.641) interesting jobs in my life. When I was very young, I worked in a computer assembly plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, prior to working at the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce. Shout out to Terry Cole, who is still the CEO at the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and was when I was just a little baby membership person.
Brandon Burton (03:26.795) OK.
Brandon Burton (03:42.412) Wow.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (03:43.671) Anyhow, I ended up leaving Albuquerque to pursue a degree in music theater performance at Arizona State University, which has served me well in my chamber work. There’s a lot of acting and cap once and going on.
Brandon Burton (03:58.275) I was gonna say, Tony is a great emcee for anyone who’s ever been at a conference, he’s emceed, he’s great.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (04:04.119) I find myself often tap dancing in front of my board. No, not really there. I love my board. But yeah, and I’ve had a chance to live in great places. I lived in New York for a while. I lived in New Hampshire, not so great. Just kidding, New Hampshire’s fine. I performed at Hershey Park in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where it always smells like chocolate. Anyhow, I finally ended up here.
Brandon Burton (04:10.208) Right?
Brandon Burton (04:26.444) Very cool. Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (04:32.246) my husband, who was not my husband at the time. We had been dating for two years in San Francisco and his job moved him back here. And as I like to say, I had just about gotten him the way I wanted him and wasn’t really wanting to start all over. So I moved with him and we’re still together. 30, 31 years later and we’re still together.
Brandon Burton (04:50.134) I love it.
Brandon Burton (04:56.79) It’s worked out. That’s great. I love it. Well, it’s fun getting those interesting histories and facts about people. If you would spend a couple of minutes and tell us about the North Texas LGBTQ Chamber just to help give us an idea of size, staff, scope of work you guys are involved with, budget, but also I think it’d be helpful to tap into some of the demographics of the LGBTQ community.
and how that plays into the larger economic impacts.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (05:28.407) Yeah, sure, I’d love to. And I’m a little bit of a geek when it comes to number kind of things. So I’m always happy to talk about that. So our chamber, as you mentioned earlier, was started in 2005. There was a predecessor organization that began in 1996 or so, I believe, called the Stonewall Professional and Business Association, which was mostly networking. So the idea of creating a chamber
came along at the time Houston had a very active and very successful Chamber of Commerce. So their CEO came up and helped the founders of ours get things going. Interestingly enough, a few years later that chamber closed. But then a few years after that, I went to Houston and helped them restart a new chamber, which is having its 10th anniversary. they are doing great guns. mean the…
Brandon Burton (06:06.87) Okay.
Brandon Burton (06:16.802) Restart it, yeah.
I was going say, I thought they had one in Houston now. So yeah, that’s awesome.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (06:24.629) the student has surpassed the teacher. So anyhow, so we are a dynamic staff of two who do the work of probably 12. Lisa Howe is my vice president of membership and programs, and I lean on her a lot. She also runs our leadership program through our foundation, which is a big job. We have just under
just under just over 400 members, let’s just say 400, 400 members in our chamber. estimate, again, we have to estimate on LGBT statistics mostly because we only know if somebody self identifies, but based on some trusted data, we estimate that they’re probably about,
Brandon Burton (06:56.909) Okay.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (07:20.302) 3,000 to 3,500 LGBT owned businesses in Dallas County. So you can think that out further from that North Texas. So when you look at that, our penetration rate really, really is not very good. So I don’t know why I’m admitting it, but there you go. That’s right, there’s endless opportunities. I will say, you we’ve had a
Brandon Burton (07:27.522) Wow.
Brandon Burton (07:38.958) You got your work cut out for you, that’s all.
That’s right.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (07:49.098) a lot more interest from small business members lately, which has been good because of the current political climate. A lot of our corporate partners, not a lot, a few, have felt the need to step back, which is disappointing, but understandable. So we’re okay. Let’s see. So for years, this great firm in D.C. called Whittick Communications would estimate the spending power of the LGBTQ community.
Brandon Burton (08:05.837) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (08:18.039) Last time they did it, I think it was pre-COVID or just around then, and it was about a trillion dollars. So we take that information and we kind of extrapolate for us here. And in North Texas, that spending power is about 5.4 million. I’m sorry, billion. You know, my M’s and B’s. So 5.4 billion dollars. So that’s a pretty significant number.
Brandon Burton (08:30.793) you
Brandon Burton (08:37.624) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (08:46.359) And so that’s great when you’re looking at the consumer side of things and businesses itself to consumers. But because we are a chamber, we also look at GDP. So what are our businesses adding to the local economy? so I believe, hang on, I have to look at my note real quick. Yeah, so the information that we’ve garnered says about $4.4 billion.
A GDP is generated by the LGBTQ by LGBTQ businesses in the North Texas area, and it’s a metropolitan statistical area. know that kind of thing. So we are we are we are adding to the community and to the tax base in a big way.
Brandon Burton (09:26.318) Wow.
Brandon Burton (09:33.799) Absolutely. So it’s an interesting.
challenge, I guess, when, you know, individuals need to self identify and almost put themselves out there saying, Hey, I fit this demographic of a LGBTQ, you know, owned business to be able to find those 3000 to 3500. Um, so I, mean, I don’t, I don’t fault you at all for having 400 members because it’s got to be difficult to sift through.
all of that to try to find all these individuals and businesses.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (10:11.159) And to be clear, we do not ask anyone to self identify. And so members of our chamber do self identify and many of them are allies who have varying reasons for being part of the chamber. But they support our mission and the work that we’re doing. And as long as they do that and of course pay their dues, we’re happy to include them in the chamber.
Brandon Burton (10:24.75) Yeah.
Sure.
Brandon Burton (10:38.026) Absolutely. So I guess the question I was getting at is, is there a way to try to find your way to those businesses? Because you’re not asking them to self-identify, but you want to be support for them and help them in their business. And how do you try to bridge that disconnect there?
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (10:55.881) Yeah, so you know, we just passed our 20th anniversary and we are still and I should not be proud of this. We are still probably the best kept secret in North Texas. It seems like weekly I hear some is that I didn’t know there is a gay chamber in North Texas, so. And I think that’s typical for most chambers. I think within certain communities you you assume there’s going to be a Dallas Chamber, Plano Chamber, etc.
Brandon Burton (11:07.694) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (11:23.255) Sure.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (11:24.907) But, you know, the LGBT community isn’t often thought of in those same terms. And like most chambers, we do not do a very good job telling our story. Most of the time, our story is somebody else’s. So a good example, this is from many years ago, so I think it’s safe to talk about now. So there was a hotel being built in Dallas that the city was very involved in. We were very supportive of the hotel.
Um, and then found out that the operator of the hotel, uh, didn’t even offer, uh, domestic partner benefits, which is kind of a minimal thing back then. Um, and so we were able to get in with them, have a good talk with them. Um, they, they of course had to offer those in California, except it was the law, but they didn’t hear, but they did. Uh, and then a few years later, the national chamber was coming here for its annual conference. And I reached out to the same folks and the.
Brandon Burton (12:04.364) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (12:23.745) things had changed a little bit. And I said, okay, now we need to talk about marriage and recognizing same sex marriage and whatever. It was hardly a conversation. I mean, it was pretty quick. And so they absolutely agreed the following year at the beginning of the year, they changed their benefits to recognize LGBTQ marriages from any state. And at the time, Texas didn’t have same sex marriage. So those are things that the chamber did.
that except for me talking to you about it now, I think maybe one of your outside person knows because it’s not our story. It’s that business story of all the great things they’ve done, but it was done because of the work of the chamber. But, you know, we’re the background people.
Brandon Burton (13:04.942) Sure.
Brandon Burton (13:13.548) Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Well, today we’re going to focus most of our conversation around the relationship between the executive and the board and you know the good, the bad and the ugly that comes with that. And we’ll dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Alright, Tony, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break today, we’re going to talk about the executive and board relationships and
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (13:34.295) Very good.
Brandon Burton (13:43.265) I know you have a perspective that you’ve seen throughout the industry of maybe tensions that rise between the executives and their board chairs or the board in general. Share with us some of the background that you’ve seen that’s led up to this topic for discussion today.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (14:01.291) Yeah, if I go way back when I was at the Golden Gate Business Association in San Francisco, which was the early 90s, I was the only paid. Executive at an LGBT Chamber. There weren’t nearly as many of them, but I was the only one at the time which I thought was kind of odd. But what we saw then in in in the LGBT Chamber world organizations tended to kind of come and go.
Brandon Burton (14:22.2) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (14:30.575) and or they’d be very active and very inactive and it had to do with their board leadership because they had no staff. There was no continuity between, you know, year over year and such. So that was something that I observed then that I probably didn’t really appreciate until I started working here. But I had been in and out of the chamber industry a number of times, a number of times I kept saying I was going to walk away.
When I moved to Texas, I said, that’s it, I’m done. No more chambers, no more nonprofits. Nonprofits are great, except for when they expect you to be nonprofit as well. And so I wanted to have a successful career and be able to retire one day. So I worked in banking for a while, which if any industry will make you dead inside, it’s…
Brandon Burton (15:10.53) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (15:16.18) Yeah
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (15:25.111) banking. But nonetheless, it was it was very educational. I enjoyed my time in banking. But this chamber came along. And I’ve been out of the industry a long, long time. I can can can spare a little volunteer time to help out. And the next thing you know, I was elected to the board, we became the secretary, and then actually put together a plan to hire somebody, not necessarily me, but we ended up with three great candidates and then two. And then I
Brandon Burton (15:27.425) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (15:54.488) I won, I think. And I got the role. The other person, I will say, because it was down to two of us, the other person the board loved and said, we’re going to ask him to be on our board. And I said, so you’re going to call this guy and say, we’re not going to hire you, but we want you to come work for free. And I said, well, yeah, kind of. All right. So I called him. I didn’t know him from Adam. I called him the next week and scheduled lunch. And we became good friends. And he became our board chair.
Brandon Burton (15:56.663) Yeah, you were the last remaining candidate. Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (16:24.055) a few years after that. So it all worked out fine. But why I tell you all that is because at that point, I decided that I had run away from the chamber industry a number of times and that I wanted to or needed to admit that this is an industry that chose me, not the other way around. you know, no one is going to school to study to be a chamber executive. Little kids,
Brandon Burton (16:25.982) You worked some good magic there, that’s awesome.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (16:53.303) At Halloween, don’t dress up as chamber executives. It’s not something people think about. It’s all about just following the rules.
Brandon Burton (16:56.476) Yeah.
You know what, Tony, I can totally see your persona at Spirit Halloween this year. anyways, we’ll send that in to him.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (17:04.757) Yeah. With my little booby’s face and yeah. I’ll say maybe maybe as a visit organization because no, they they get a lot of fun things to do, but chambers not so much anyway. So once I I got this job, I just decided I needed to go in, you know, whole hog. So I was hired in May of 2007.
Brandon Burton (17:17.282) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (17:32.776) And the following summer, I went to my first year of Chamber Institute, a chamber in Los Angeles, West is best, even though it doesn’t exist anymore. But I did four years of the US Chamber Institute, loved it, learned so much about it, continually talked to. By that point, I had peers in the LGBT chamber industry, kept trying to get them involved in it, and really the idea of professionalizing.
the LGBT chamber industry within the greater chamber industry. So I graduated from Institute, which was wonderful. excuse me, I was asked to serve on the board then, and then I was the board chair and all those things. You miss a meeting and the next thing you know, you’re the chair of something. And about two years later, the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives was having a conference in Oklahoma City.
Brandon Burton (18:21.538) That’s right, they nominate you while you’re gone.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (18:31.223) So I I drove up there to see you know what this all about and there was somebody from my class getting their CCE and I thought hmm I should probably consider this because. I’m not going to remember more by waiting. I’m probably not going to get any smarter by waiting, so the next year I I applied and went through that program and became a certified Chamber Executive, which is I think one of the smartest things I ever did.
Brandon Burton (18:48.492) Yeah, it’s true.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (19:00.951) And now many years later, I’m thrilled to service the now the outgoing chair of the CCE commission. But I think that that trajectory that I took going to IOM, not fast tracking and trying to get it all done, but doing it one year at a time, which even then is drinking from a fire hose. It really gave me a better perspective of my role as CEO and
the board of directors and what their roles are. And so lately. It seems like there’s been a lot of. Stress between CEOs and boards or board chairs. And and I I find it. You know academically, I find it kind of interesting. I also find it a little bit scary since you know we do serve.
at the pleasure of our boards. And it seems to me some of the folks that I know who have been victims of this are really excellent people. mean, they’ve done great jobs within their chamber, but I’m always interested to see what is the what’s under the surface. And I think board training is a big part of it.
Brandon Burton (20:01.72) Right.
Brandon Burton (20:22.744) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (20:26.039) Now we don’t do everything perfect. I would be the first person to tell you that we don’t. I I tried very hard to do all the right things, but. We have a couple of things I think work incredibly well. First of all, our communication is outstanding many, many, many years ago we started our board chair and I started having a weekly meeting and I know that sounds like simple kind of thing and it is.
Brandon Burton (20:55.725) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (20:55.959) Uh, you know, we just picked a time, put it on the calendar and we’d meet in my office or we meet virtually after COVID or during, you know, got used to doing that. Um, and sometimes we’d be talking about an issue that, that I saw on the horizon or something that was happening and, know, get their input and talk about it. And sometimes we would talk about RuPaul’s Drag Race. don’t know. I, you know, I mean, it was just a chance for us to touch base together and
Brandon Burton (21:03.768) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (21:26.185) It helped because not everything is serious, problems all the time, but it just gave us both a better sense of who we are and what we’re doing. And there’s never been a time when I take the chamber duty of care, duty of loyalty, duty of obedience, I take those very seriously and I believe I’ve instilled that in our board as well. And along those lines, I would never challenge
my board chair in a board meeting. I just wouldn’t. You know, he and I or she and I, as we’ve had in the past, you know, we talk about things before me. There aren’t surprises at our board meeting. We do a good job of managing it. So funny, he sent me an email recently that he’s on another board and he said, I don’t know, it might end at noon, it might end at 4 p.m. And I thought, my God, who’s running this meeting?
Brandon Burton (22:00.047) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (22:24.48) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (22:26.113) I mean, we do our chamber board, our foundation board, and we’re done in less than 90 minutes. So, you know, it’s well crafted, anyhow. But, you know, I think it’s important that we, you I support him. If I disagree with something, you know, we’re going to figure out how to get to the point where I can’t agree with him because I think that’s my issue or that I’ve convinced him otherwise.
Brandon Burton (22:34.146) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (22:55.223) that I think we often see in some of these other incidents where a board chair will go to a chamber, to a CEO, and say, we’re going to let you go. Now, does the rest of the board know that? Or is this something the board has decided to do on their own? none of us work, you know, the board chair is obviously the person that we deal with one-on-one, but we work for the board.
Brandon Burton (23:11.747) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (23:22.818) The board, yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (23:24.083) And so those should be discussions that we have to board.
Brandon Burton (23:27.566) Well, I’ve heard of board members too, you know, going to fire the chamber executive. Is this your decision? But as the executive, do you really want to stay there if that’s the hostility that’s happening? And so there’s obviously some dysfunction, which goes back to your point of communication and the board training. But sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (23:49.514) No, no, you’re absolutely right and probably kind of going back before that even is recruitment. And so something I learned from somebody that another nonprofit who had been CEO for like 30 years or something like that is that the key to longevity is to be very active in your board recruitment. I will meet with people that members of ours that I.
Brandon Burton (23:58.114) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (24:17.303) kept an eye on or I’ve told another board member who’s on the same committee, keep an eye on them, let me know and I’ll meet with them. Usually my conversation is something like, I cannot ask you to join the board. I can ask you to apply and then we go through the whole process and I try to give them probably more information than most would upfront. We go over all the financials.
Brandon Burton (24:42.765) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (24:43.863) We go over a lot of things because I don’t want them to waste their time applying and then later go. So so that’s how we start. And so there’s an understanding of what their responsibility is. And certainly, if I got the sense that there’s somebody who hates me and wants me to be gone, I would be suggesting to the board chair that maybe they not advance in the process. That hasn’t happened yet.
Brandon Burton (24:48.429) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (25:11.011) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (25:13.833) about every two years, we rotate board members or board chairs every two years. And when the new board chair comes in, I always tell them that when the board is ready for me to go, they want to go a different direction. Just tell me and I’ll pack up my toys and leave. And, know, that’s fine. I don’t want all the drama. Just, you know, and usually their response is, why are you leaving? It’s like, no.
Brandon Burton (25:32.618) Yes.
Brandon Burton (25:40.632) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (25:42.008) But I want you to realize I know that I serve at your pleasure. Yeah, the fact that I’ve been here 20 years is kind of surprising to me, but are almost 20 years. But yeah, I think there’s just a need for greater communication between chairs and CEOs and chairs and the rest of the board.
Brandon Burton (25:47.032) There’s a shelf life to these things, right?
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (26:09.847) You know the board chairs responsibilities aren’t just to run the meeting. You know you could you know get trained monkey to do that, but the board chairs job is to make everybody on the board successful. So if the board board members have goals that they’re supposed to meet responsibilities, it’s up to the board chair to be working with them to make sure that they are successful and that we’re all on the same page. We’re all rowing in the right direction. All that that kind of thing so.
I think that if you don’t have the proper recruitment, if you’re heaven forbid an organization that elects your board by popular ballot, I’m not sure I be CEO of an organization like that because you end up with the popular people who may not have the skills you need to run your organization. But mine is not the only way, although it should be probably.
Brandon Burton (26:56.834) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (27:03.436) Right.
Brandon Burton (27:08.59) That’s right. I wish you’d have an opinion about something, you know?
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (27:09.545) Yeah. I tell my husband that all the time. But yeah, you know, it’s it starts with the recruitment and the training and that communication with your board chair and and being just really good partners in the work that you’re doing. I think something that helps both executives and and boards.
is for the executive to have a very clearly written contract with the organization. One that anticipates possible mutiny from a board member or two and that provides some kind of financial support for the CEO should someone decide to go rogue and want to get rid of this person. For example, yes, if you know.
We can let you go without cause, but will pay you a year salary. Wow. That that’s going to that’s going to cause a little bit of pause for some board members go. Oh, do we want to do that? Or do we want to get rid of this board member who’s mucking things up? You know things like that. And also we have the issue of. Of boards that are trying. They’re they’re the well meaning people, but.
Brandon Burton (28:09.165) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (28:16.45) Maybe we don’t want to be so quick.
Brandon Burton (28:23.17) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (28:34.739) they get in the way of management. you know, there are certain things that the staff does, certain things that the board does. And when the board starts moving out of their lane and into the staff lane, especially of a staff of more than two of us, it can be very confusing for the staff. Who am I supposed to be listening to? And it undermines the CEO and those kinds of things. So
Brandon Burton (28:37.517) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (28:59.224) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (29:04.343) I think, and I’ve said the word communication so many times, I should be paid by the word. But I think communication with the board chair and a great training and understanding by everybody on the board. And when you have those situations where you have the rogue board member, again, it’s up to the board chair. And nobody likes confrontation.
It’s that’s the time they have to put on their big boy pants or big girl pants, either ones and. Address address the matter or you end up with somebody who’s made the CEOs life hell and you may lose that person voluntarily or not.
Brandon Burton (29:43.758) soon.
Brandon Burton (29:51.289) Yeah. So we’ve brought up the idea of board training multiple times now. Who should facilitate the board training? What have you seen? What would be some good piece of advice on who facilitates that?
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (30:06.743) I am a firm believer. Somebody told me this many years ago. I’m a firm believer in the fact that the that the expert is whoever came from furthest away. So. Yeah, yeah, and and that you know profit is never accepted in their own land. So the Texas Chamber of Commerce executives where we spoke last year does a board board chair.
Brandon Burton (30:17.516) That’s right. The person from out of town. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (30:32.632) Yeah.
Thank
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (30:35.479) training to talk about these issues and chairs and CEOs. And gosh, I forgot what I was going to say about that chairs and CEOs. yeah. And so you find people that are doing their own board training.
But even with us, we bring somebody in every now and then. And we go over all of our board stuff every January. I’m not sure how much the board appreciates it, but I always have that on the agenda. But we’ll go to that meeting. As hard as I’ve tried to make sure they know everything, we will go to that meeting and somebody will say something that I’ve been saying for years. And suddenly, my God, what a great idea. We should do that.
Brandon Burton (31:21.454) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (31:25.278) I’ve been saying that to you. And so, and that’s fine. As long as the message finally gets there, I’m okay. But it’s true. Exactly. So I think if you can have somebody else come in, and I know in North Texas, the chambers are great here about switching off with each other and find a different CEO to come in.
Brandon Burton (31:33.122) Yeah. Well, it’s like children never listen to their parents either. So it’s the same kind of principle.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (31:52.502) and do your board training. Or someone from a training organization or something. That’s always going to be vast. If you can remove yourself from the process, be part of the people being trained so that you’re hearing the same thing everybody else is hearing is ideal. But in a pinch, I guess you could do it yourself, but don’t expect the best results.
Brandon Burton (31:59.182) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (32:22.263) from that. And the reminder. No. Who are you? Oh yeah. But again, a lot of it has to do documentation as well, so most boards will have a job description for the board members. They may have a code of conduct which we have. They may have something describing their responsibilities. They’re given get their attendance, those kinds of things.
Brandon Burton (32:22.444) Yeah, because they’re not going to hear you. that’s right. Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (32:52.119) understanding of the legal responsibilities, the duty of care, loyalty and obedience. Any other important policies to organization, we have an anti harassment policy that we make sure is always in front of new board members and then part of our annual review of documents. So I would like to think everybody reads those every year, but I’m not stupid. we do.
Brandon Burton (33:16.024) Yeah
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (33:20.769) put them out there and we make sure that they know these are the documents that are there so they know they exist. And and they’re required to sign off on them. For some reason, when people sign things, they tend to pay attention to them a little bit more. Who knows?
Brandon Burton (33:25.976) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (33:36.781) Yeah.
Yeah, that’s interesting. So I think we’ve covered a lot here. A lot should, you know, that should give listeners stuff to kind of chew on and maybe rethink the approach that they take with their board. And especially when it comes to board training and how are we communicating these things openly and upfront. I like the part that you mentioned about the contract too, that you have with the Chamber.
If you can work in something in there about a separation clause and some kind of a severance, you know, payout that will help to keep the ship a little more steady, I think, when things might get heated, but you guys can come to level heads as you work through that.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (34:14.903) Mm-hmm.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (34:26.007) You know, it’s important if you go that route and I highly recommend that you, the CEO, hire your own attorney. I wouldn’t tell the board that you’ve hired an attorney because that just, you know, lawyering up sounds like really tough. But make sure that you have somebody reading the agreement on your side to give you some advice. And one the things that we’ve always had, and I had
Brandon Burton (34:42.028) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (34:53.227) great examples from wonderful North Texas leaders many years ago, but that cause for being let go is clearly defined. So these are things that are cause. Anything else is not, and that that’s an important part of it. I also think people need to take advantage. I wish they would of what’s available to them at whatever level, so we should all be budgeting.
for continuing education so that we can be part of our regional chamber executives group. I know in Texas we have a Gulf Coast Chamber of Execs, we the North Texas Chamber Execs, and I’m guessing somewhere in West Texas there’s something too, but I don’t know for sure. But, you know, so that local regional group
You’re statewide Texas Chamber of Executives. Most states have an executive association and then you know the the king of them all or queen. A CCE is is kind of the top of it and of course these are all separate and you have to be so produced for all of them, which is another thing I would work into a contract that that the Chamber pays for your executive. Dues in different organizations.
Brandon Burton (35:59.843) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (36:16.654) trainings and everything.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (36:19.703) But just the fact that it gives you an opportunity to network with some people, you know, there’s only one of you. So, you know, there aren’t many people that know what you’re going through or what you’re dealing with. But once you have that network, most people in the chamber industry that I’ve met, I should say not most, but all have been very welcoming.
Brandon Burton (36:28.419) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (36:46.849) happy to assist, share documentation, anything. And so I think those are the kinds of things that will help, as I said earlier, professionalize the industry. So that you may have been hired because you know how to put on an event that is important to the chamber. But your real work as a chamber is advocacy.
How do I learn about advocacy? Well, here’s a chamber that has a great advocacy committee and I’m going to learn from them, put my own committee together and stay at Austin, yada, yada. But I think those things and look for the training that’s available. Of course, IOM, think is a great preface before working on your CCE, which I highly recommend, not only because I’m curing commission and I’m supposed to say that.
Brandon Burton (37:18.264) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (37:43.256) but also, ACCE has some, training modules that you can do. So find out what you’re not good at. you know, if. Event production is something you’re not good at, but finances well, skip financing, you know, take the class on event production or membership or advocacy or whatever it is. but, I think this is going to sound terrible. So this is only seen by chamber executives, right?
Brandon Burton (37:51.139) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (38:13.175) Or members can watch this. The more you can do to position yourself as the subject matter expert in the industry, the better off you’ll be. So I have members who.
Brandon Burton (38:14.028) Right. No board members see this yet.
Brandon Burton (38:29.891) Yeah.
As Seth Godin says, be the linchpin for your organization.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (38:36.553) Absolutely yeah, I have members who wants an insurance agent and ones of corporate HR person and ones are realtor and they’re all experts in what they do. They don’t know how to run the chamber. And so if you don’t make yourself that expert and and. Help them see you as that expert. Then you’re doing yourself a disservice, but I I am.
thrilled that you board members will often defer to me and they’ll ask me well what’s what what do other chambers do? What’s in the industry and things like that? I’m fortunate I’ve been in this job for almost 20 years now and I try to remember that there are some advantages to that. The level of trust that my board has in me is incredibly high, which I would.
Brandon Burton (39:12.653) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (39:34.675) never do anything to hurt that trust. But when you’re new, you don’t always have that. And in starting with the education and getting to, again, make yourself that subject matter expert is key.
Brandon Burton (39:50.627) Yeah, very good. Well, Tony, as we start to wrap up, I wanted to ask for the listeners who are trying to take their organization up to the next level. What kind of tip or action item would you share with them as they strive towards that goal?
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (40:05.002) Hmm. Run, do not walk to the nearest exit. No, I’m just kidding. Yeah, I’ll tell you this is a challenge for all of us. Because we all want to elevate our organization and. It takes time having. Organic growth is difficult. Slow.
Brandon Burton (40:09.004) Hahaha!
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (40:32.79) But I think often the best. I I some some communities do very well at big membership campaigns and God bless them. I’m I’m thrilled that that that works for them. I don’t think for my community it would again because we’re targeting. LGBT and ally businesses, not everybody within you know the confines of a severe county so.
That doesn’t work, but it works great for other people. So that’s slow, very slow. Organic growth is good. Communication with your members is something that I’ll admit I let go of a little bit after hiring Lisa. Every now and then I bemoan the fact that that for years I could I could name every member.
Brandon Burton (41:22.242) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (41:30.134) We had, would see them. I know their name. I know their company. Now I’m lucky to remember my name most of the time, but you know that that kind of connection is always helpful. Following through on things that you tell your members you’re going to. You’re going to do for them. And there was another thing I was going to say about next level. Must have been a lie. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (41:57.657) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (41:59.991) You know, I think, I know what I was going to say. So I belong to an executive group, CEOs of LGBT organizations or CEOs who are themselves LGBT. We get together twice a month and we swear it’s not therapy. But nonetheless, yeah. But it gives us all a chance to talk about
Brandon Burton (42:22.382) It helps.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (42:29.362) employees and boards and things like that in a very safe and confidential environment. If you don’t have that, I suggest you get one of those. But the woman that facilitates for us asked us last year for a word that, you know, our word for the year, and I still don’t know what mine was, but then a new one for this year. And I picked two and I said, my words this year are focus and delegate.
Brandon Burton (42:38.403) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (42:59.19) And I’m very much trying to do that. Stay focused on the things that are important that I do. There’s a lot of things that we could do. Are they really important? Perry Cole once told me, so it was a long time ago in Albuquerque, not to let the immediate overshadow the important. So somebody may come to you and their hair is on fire for some reason.
Brandon Burton (43:16.717) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (43:23.299) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (43:29.142) you know, that’s fine for them, but you know, their emergency doesn’t necessarily have to be yours. So what’s immediate? What’s important? Focus on what’s important and then delegate. So I have two words this year. Focus and delegate. So one of the things that I can again, we’re very small to staff members, but there are board members who would be willing to do some things. So what board members could I ask to do some little thing or
Brandon Burton (43:43.585) I like that.
Brandon Burton (43:51.054) Thank
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (43:57.697) to serve on a city committee so that I don’t have to go to all of them. Those kinds of things. So focus and delegate and check with me in a year or so and I’ll let you know if it takes us to the next level or not.
Brandon Burton (44:04.32) you
Brandon Burton (44:12.014) I also like asking about the future of chambers and how you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (44:20.688) great question. And of course, I only say great questions so I can be thinking about a good answer. You know, if you had asked me this pre-COVID, I would say that we’re all trying to redefine our relevance and what it is we do. So my first chamber job in Albuquerque was in the
Brandon Burton (44:26.142) Right? That pause.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (44:51.06) late 70s, early 80s, I think. And we were just at the end of the period where people joined the chamber because it was the right thing to do. And so we get to that period and people aren’t joining because it’s the right thing to do anymore. And they’re not joining because it’s about supporting community. They’re doing it because they want to increase their sales. They want to have networking, those kinds of things.
And that was a major shift in chambers, and that’s why you see a lot of chambers that do a lot of networking programs and I we do them as well. I. I sometimes try to miss them, but but it’s enjoyable to see my member, so it’s like that’s OK. I’ll come and then put on my I love to dance, smile and talk to people. But but they get so focused on that they forget that.
the idea of a chamber of commerce back in the 1600s was to represent business to government. And so that advocacy piece has always been there, whether people have recognized it or not. You will still find chambers that say, we’re not political. Well, it’s not be political, but you have to be advocating for something. mean, you know, taxes or
Brandon Burton (45:56.568) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (46:12.225) Right.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (46:15.158) permit use or whatever, I don’t know, but there has to be things that are important to your members. If I can advocate on an issue that’s gonna affect 90 % of our members, that is a much better use of my time than a networking event that’s going to assist maybe 20 % of them. but pre-COVID, I would say, you know, people are still looking for that, whatever. COVID proved that we are relevant and that
Brandon Burton (46:32.226) Great.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (46:44.906) There were a lot of things that we did to connect small businesses that made a huge difference. I know in Texas, we were one of the chambers that distributed COVID tests to small businesses. There are arts organizations and our bars and restaurants. They kept us running out of them because they needed them for their continual testing. So that was a way that we were able to connect a service to the business community that
might not have been served before. And same thing with financial support from the federal government, making sure people understood what was out there, how to get the money, what’s involved. So all those advocating for a small business or providing them with support that they need in a broader sense really came to light during COVID and proved that chambers are relevant.
We may do things a little different like this, but we’re still about helping businesses grow, helping our communities thrive, and for ours, of course, advancing equality.
Brandon Burton (47:46.339) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (47:59.875) Yeah, very good. Well, Tony, this has been a great conversation and hopefully those listening have been jotting down some notes, at least getting some thoughts spinning about how they want to have some conversation with their board and be better at recruiting and looking out for themselves. But I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for anyone listening who might want to reach out and connect with you or learn more about your approach. Where would you point them and what would be the best way to connect?
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (48:29.172) Yeah, just yesterday told someone gave them my phone number and I said, you know, give me a call. I I answer sometimes, but. Yeah, my my direct dial number is 214-865-6516 and that comes to my desk and if my phone systems working properly to my cell phone at some point. I do return phone calls.
Brandon Burton (48:36.086) Yeah. I recognize the number, right?
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (48:58.07) And then my email address. I think it’s pretty darn easy to remember. It’s my name tony.vedda@lgbtqchamber.com. So and if you mess up and you put the Q, I’ll still get it. I got we have a lot of email things, but yeah, email is always great if.
If you’re in North Texas and need a connection to the North Texas Chamber of Executives, I’d be happy to facilitate that. If you want more information on the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives or the CCE program, I’m happy to provide that or connect with folks there. So give me a call, send me an email. Don’t hit me up on social media because I’m not often there. I’m on Facebook about once a month.
Brandon Burton (49:46.274) Yeah.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (49:49.77) Whether I need to be or not, that’s about it.
Brandon Burton (49:51.596) Yeah, yeah, very good. Well, we’ll be sure to get this in the show notes for this episode so people can find you. But again, Tony, thanks for setting aside some time and spending it with us here on Chamber Chat podcast. I appreciate it and appreciate your experiences and stories you had to share with us as well. Thank you.
Tony Vedda, CCE, IOM (50:09.153) Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Have a good day.
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Brandon Burton (00:01.1) Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the podcast, I’d like to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our guest for this episode is Shanon McKinley. Shanon is the executive director of the Story City Chamber Main Street Program, a role she’s proudly held since March 2021.
She began her journey with the organization in April of 2019 as assistant director, where she quickly distinguished herself through strong leadership, strategic vision, and deep commitment to community development. Since stepping into the executive director position, Shanon has focused on strengthening downtown vitalities, supporting local businesses, and fostering partnerships that drive sustainable growth in Story City. Her leadership reflects her passion for
place-based development, collaboration, and building meaningful connections between businesses, residents, and visitors. Dedicated to preserving the character of Story City while encouraging innovation and economic opportunity, Shanon continues to champion initiatives that enhance quality of life and ensure long-term success of the community she serves. Shanon, I’m excited to have you with us today 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 if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you little better.
Shanon McKinley (01:24.179) That is me.
Shanon McKinley (01:33.715) Awesome, well thank you so much first of all for having me. I am so excited. I had mentioned to Brandon that I’m usually on the other end of this, so I’m usually the one leading the podcast. So this is a little different for me. Something interesting about me is I am a central Iowa girl through and through. Lived in Story County my whole life and just am really passionate about Iowa as a whole and just making sure that Iowa is on the map.
Brandon Burton (02:03.646) Very good. I love it when there’s the hometown person, you know, that gets to lead the chamber and, know, it’s very authentic. So we’ll say that. Well, if you would tell us a little bit about the Story City Chamber and Main Street programs to give us an idea of size, staff, scope of work you’re involved with, budget to kind of set the stage for our discussion today.
Shanon McKinley (02:12.627) with facts.
Shanon McKinley (02:26.397) Yeah, absolutely. my organization is a little unique, not totally. lot of chambers in Iowa, also some of them are Main Street communities. There is actually 53 Main Street communities right now in Iowa. We have been one, we just celebrated our 25th anniversary of being a Main Street community here. So we are not only a chamber, a Main Street.
I also house our economic development in my office and we also do focus on tourism. We have a 1913 antique carousel here in town and that is something that we do have. So really excited that way. So I do wear a lot of hats in my role here in Story City. I am an office of one before COVID. Of course,
Brandon Burton (03:10.99) Good.
Shanon McKinley (03:20.787) we had a director and then an assistant director. With Raymond said I was the assistant director first and now I am the executive director since 2021. But our organization primarily focuses on volunteer-led, a volunteer-led organization where that you know everything that we do is
me working with volunteers. And that can lead to a bunch of different challenges. When you look at that, it’s volunteerism has definitely taken kind of a backseat to a lot of people’s life, but really focusing on that our community is important that way. As a budgetary, we primarily focus on investment drives is a primary role of our income.
Brandon Burton (04:01.166) you
Shanon McKinley (04:13.255) But then we also look at events that way. So we do host about 20 events a year. And some of those are no charge events and some of those of course are fundraising events.
Brandon Burton (04:26.078) Very good. That definitely helps to give perspective and you’ve got a lot cut out for you. You had mentioned you’re usually on the other side of the microphone for these podcasts. Is that a podcast you do at the chamber, before the chamber?
Shanon McKinley (04:30.951) Ja! Ja!
Shanon McKinley (04:35.923) Yes!
So we do a podcast, it’s called Mondays in Story, where we started, it’ll be two years in May, primarily just focusing to tell our story. We don’t have a good local newspaper anymore that covers things and just how the world has changed that people aren’t really paper people anymore. So just looking at another way to get our message out. we primarily, we have it on the YouTube channel, but we primarily put it on Facebook.
where we have guests or sometimes it’s just me and my co-host just talking back and forth but really it’s like us reading the newspaper. If you were going to pick up a newspaper and you were wanting to know what was going on in the week that’s really what we do focus on but then also bringing guests to tell their story about their businesses and what’s happening in the community. So we used to do our weekly and we have switched just to do every other week in 2026 just to do a better
quality and just a little more in depth than what we were doing before.
Brandon Burton (05:43.544) Yeah, no, that’s great. love that the Story City Chamber has a podcast to share the stories. I mean, it’s so fitting and it needs to be there. So that’s awesome. Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (05:51.688) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely everybody’s like, it’s totally in your comfort zone to do that. It is not. I am not a public speaker by nature or even a recorded public speaker. So it was a little bit out of the comfort zone, but is just really our community was embraced that and to hear and see them engaging in that. Mostly our high school kids really have like lopped on to
watching those episodes, which has been great. So we’re a whole different demographic than what I thought. It’s really the high school kids and the retirement kids that make sure that they’re logging on each day or each week, I think.
Brandon Burton (06:21.474) That is fantastic.
Brandon Burton (06:29.752) Well, that hopefully can help as you can kind of lean into that for workforce pipeline and development in the future as well. So that’s great. Great strategic placement. Well, for today, we’ll focus our conversation around the value in making connections and investing in our communities. And we’ll dive into this discussion as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Brandon Burton (06:58.798) All right, Shanon, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, today we’re talking about the value of creating connections and investments in our community. And I know that’s something that’s a top of mind and a passion of yours there at the chamber. A lot of times as we have these sort of topics, there’s maybe a few talking points that come to mind that you kind of get on your soapbox for and
Shanon McKinley (07:23.027) you
Brandon Burton (07:27.352) kind of preach to the community. But what are some of those things that come top of mind to you when you think of making connections and investing in your community?
Shanon McKinley (07:36.019) Yeah, definitely. So I think something that I always mention to my board of directors is that, you know, we are a population just over 3,300 residents in our community, but looking at our market snapshots and the traffic propose, that number, there’s about 1,300 people that leave our community every day to go to work, but we have 1,500 coming into our community.
Brandon Burton (08:00.29) Thank you.
Shanon McKinley (08:02.928) and really how to engage them in our community. They might not be a resident, they might be eventually. You know, one of our struggles in our community right now is housing, which is very common with a lot of those with lack of or affordable, whatever that may be. Ours is really the lack of. We don’t have the housing that we need either in rental or to buy. So really that we look at
When those people are coming to work, I want to make sure that they know about our community, what we’re doing, who our investors are. We have about 160 investors in our program. And with that being said, they’re not all story city businesses. Those could be nonprofits. Those could be businesses in our surrounding communities. We are a school district that is two towns. So really looking outside of that.
When we look at community, the community that our chamber serves is not just in the four walls of our zip code. Looking at that is what our community can offer to our neighboring community of lowland and how we can foster those partnerships in that community that we do serve. And so when we’re looking at things as a board of directors, I’m looking at like events,
Brandon Burton (09:06.894) Really.
Shanon McKinley (09:26.579) looking at networking opportunities and things like that of how can we build and foster a community of leadership, also a community like with our school, in our city. So our logo at the chamber is a bridge. And we really think of that bridge as we are a bridge between so many organizations and our community to the city, our community to the school,
Brandon Burton (09:27.662) Thank
Shanon McKinley (09:56.723) in our community that outside our community. So always looking at what we can do to lead those memberships, those sponsorships, those partnerships in our community.
Brandon Burton (10:08.206) Yeah, I love that. the chamber is the perfect position to have that bridge.
Shanon McKinley (10:16.593) Yeah, it really is. And it’s one of those common misconceptions. think people don’t really understand what a chamber is or what a main street is. You hear those words, but you’re like, what is that? And I really like to tell our students at our high school is that I am a chamber of champions. We’re chambering, we’re championing, we’re connecting. All those C words to get us all together. It’s really about community.
Brandon Burton (10:29.826) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (10:41.719) Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (10:46.227) and how we can all be engaged. It’s not an exclusive group. It’s about giving everybody to be part of the community.
Brandon Burton (10:58.21) That’s right. And community itself is such an interesting topic today. You figure over time what community is has evolved. And I feel like it’s going through another version of evolution as we speak. like you talked about the, that don’t live within the four walls of your zip code, you still see them as community. They’re coming into work and shop and play and do the things within Story City, but
Shanon McKinley (11:11.185) Yes.
Brandon Burton (11:23.246) what we can see is our, mean, there’s a digital community now, there’s a physical, you know, community. So all these different aspects of how to be a good community player and advocate are important for us to kind of have that area of focus. But it can also be, you know, something that, that sets you up as a trap or maybe mission drift and things like that, if you get too broad of a scope of community. what’s your, what’s your approach and how do you try to…
Shanon McKinley (11:28.699) Right.
Shanon McKinley (11:49.309) Right, right.
Brandon Burton (11:52.665) keep that reined in, also be inclusive of being built in. It seems like a fine line to straddle.
Shanon McKinley (11:59.334) Yeah, that is definitely a hard line. We were actually just talking, we had our annual celebration here earlier this year. you know, when we’re doing events and hosting things and trying to engage people, literally nothing that we did last year went exactly how we had it planned out or mapped out. I totally called 2025 the year of the pivot, probably even more than
2020? Yeah, you 2020, we really just had, you know, like, the rug was pulled out from underneath of us. And you just rolled with it. And you just you didn’t know what to expect. So it was like you’re always on eggshells. And then last year, we had all these things planned and all like it all mapped out. And whether or road closures or sickness or whatever, it was a full game of just
Brandon Burton (12:29.358) Yeah
Shanon McKinley (12:58.599) one thing after another. like, really, I think it’s crucial to always think about you need to be flexible. Like you can have the greatest plan ever. You can have the perfect sheet of this is what investment looks like. This is what an event’s gonna look like. This is what this, you know, what every relationship’s gonna look like or networking, and it’s not ever gonna be that way.
And so I would say to anybody that is thinking of doing anything in a nonprofit, a chamber world, a main street world, you gotta be flexible. You gotta be in a, today I might not be in my office and I need to do a call when I’m sitting in my car 30 miles from here talking to people in my community. Or it’s, I’m gonna have all these meetings but 30 other people are gonna come in and want things.
that maybe you weren’t on your agenda today. And so, which also makes my job so exciting and entertaining is because no two days look alike. And that’s okay because no two days in your community are ever going to look alike either. And so I really rely a lot on not only people in my community and my chamber members to help me navigate through that, but like there is a network of us chambers
Brandon Burton (14:09.831) Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (14:22.043) in the state of Iowa, outside of the state of Iowa, that you text your call, you’re like, have you ever dealt with it? How have you, you know, moved the needle on, you know, I have a main street that is very service heavy versus being very retail heavy. And so how do you do events or get people to come to a downtown that isn’t heavy in retail?
You know, I’m not going to get the shoppers, but I have a different foot traffic. And so how do you get them engaged to make sure that they do go to retail when they visit the bank or the insurance company or your pharmacy or the post office? You know, and so I mean, I do, literally have a bank on every corner of my downtown and that’s okay because there’s still foot traffic. So how do you, how do you get that engaged in that? And so
Really what I think like primarily a lot of our focus is in the chamber is like connecting them. There is a way to connect every aspect of your community, of your chamber to every road in town. You know, it’s building those relationships across the community. And then also with that is like having people that are willing to champion, advocate boldly,
Brandon Burton (15:34.158) you
Shanon McKinley (15:50.44) for those local businesses and our industry. We have a great industry also in our community. So like making sure that we are championing for everybody in whatever capacity that is. Some of them, it might be a very small need that they want and others might need us to do a huge lift for them. So just having that well-rounded of like what it is
Brandon Burton (16:14.371) Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (16:20.219) It’s not just about events, it’s about the impact of those events.
Brandon Burton (16:25.038) Yeah, that’s very well said. It’s much more about the impact, because if it’s not making the impact, it’s really not worth doing. So you have have a purpose and know what the impact is going to be. So I’m curious, as far as the making connections go, you have this line where you’ve got the chamber focused, but you also have Main Street responsibility. And Main Street is so important, I believe, in a community to be able to
Shanon McKinley (16:31.291) Yes, correct.
Yes.
Shanon McKinley (16:45.693) Yep. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (16:51.704) drive that vitality and maybe some of the roots of the community and things like that. But I can see, and I’ve heard it from other communities where maybe the chamber focuses too much on downtown and not enough on the greater business community. And so I know you have to be straddling some of these relationships is that the chamber at whole versus the main street. And how do you take that approach and how do you communicate?
the importance of both and how they are supportive in both directions.
Shanon McKinley (17:27.091) Right, right, and that’s a really, I would say no two weeks like I said, or every day doesn’t look the same. So one day I might be 80 % totally chamber focused with very little Main Street. And so really my world revolves around really scheduling those things. So knowing like when my Main Street businesses are open and when they’re gonna need me.
Brandon Burton (17:33.23) Thank
Shanon McKinley (17:53.85) versus when can I be focusing outside of that district? And there’s a lot of blurred lines for sure. Like I said, not everybody wants to see me on a daily basis, a weekly basis. Some of them, it’s once a year. And that’s really what you start to, I would say it’s one of the hardest things to learn really at first was going, my gosh, I have all these people or all these businesses and investors and I need to give them
to them equally. Well, that’s not what everybody wants, for sure, out of me. But then also not letting investors or businesses think too much that I can do more than I can handle. Also, being an officer one, sometimes that is definitely an overwhelming feeling. So a lot of it comes down to really just, I’m a paper calendar still girl through and through. And I will.
And it’s color coded, so like it’s hilarious for people to see my calendar, but I will literally put in my schedule of focus on Main Street things and, you know, building restoration and make sure I’m reaching out to people like that. And then on the flip side, then events and impact and chamber things, looking at that needle that way. And so really it’s just, you know, taking what you know,
Brandon Burton (19:08.3) Thanks for watching!
Shanon McKinley (19:20.931) and then applying that now. With that being said, anybody that works in chamber is also gonna know you can schedule yourself and it’s gonna look great on paper and then you’re gonna get a snowstorm or a duration is gonna come through or you know your school is gonna make it to a state event and it just changes everything. You know the calendar could be set and you’re like well that’s not gonna work now.
Brandon Burton (19:37.334) and bye.
Shanon McKinley (19:49.812) A prime example, it was wonderful this last November, the Friday after Thanksgiving, we do our annual tree lighting and we have a 40 foot plus tree that we light in the middle of our downtown. And it has been a tradition for over, last year was 111 years. And so you have it all set up and all of a sudden this beautiful snowstorm starts.
Brandon Burton (19:55.81) hours.
Shanon McKinley (20:17.359) right before your event’s gonna take off. And I have a sound system set up and all these people that have their roles and we’re hurrying up and we’re like, we gotta find a tent, we have to cover the speakers. my goodness, you can’t see the road barricades. We gotta get lights on them so people know the street’s closed. And you can have that all planned. And then weather happens. And then in that, you’re like, we have an event tomorrow and they’re saying we’re gonna get a foot of snow, so.
Brandon Burton (20:39.992) That’s right.
Shanon McKinley (20:46.451) when we pivot and not have an event and when are you going to reschedule it to? And moving all those pieces around. when, in the moment of it, the, I mean, everybody said, Shanon, it was like a hallmark movie. It was so perfect.
Brandon Burton (21:03.918) How did you plan it so well?
Shanon McKinley (21:06.387) And what they don’t know is that I literally was sweating bullets under my jacket going, oh my gosh, please nobody run the aerobaricade. Can everybody hear me on the mic system? Is everybody here that needs to be here? I can’t see across the street. And yes, the pictures say, paint a picture perfect of it. And it was. But in the heat of it, I was melting.
Brandon Burton (21:12.812) your stress levels through the roof.
Brandon Burton (21:32.846) Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (21:36.869) Because, you know, in this role as a chamber director and an event planner, you’re like, okay, but like, it was a lot of work to get it there, you know, and all of those fun things. But when you see the joy that it brings to everybody else, the stress and the gray hairs that my job causes me to get, it’s totally worth it. You know, I live streamed the event on Facebook, which of course we started during COVID.
Brandon Burton (22:06.978) Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (22:07.124) And it’s like another thing that you’re like, okay, well, we can’t gather. So I’m going to stand here by myself with one friend six feet away and live stream the tree lighting. You know, who would have ever thought that’s what we’re going to do. But when 23 countries and over 4,000 people viewed that Facebook live, I’m like, well, now we have to do that every year because we reached the masses. But I would have never thought about that.
Brandon Burton (22:15.361) man.
Brandon Burton (22:33.688) Yeah. Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (22:36.093) So really, it’s always thinking about the things you don’t think about. Everything that we do, you can’t plan out. And it’s OK. It’s OK not to plan out every detail of every event and kind of just wing it. So there are things that, honestly, I just wing. And that’s normal. It’s normal.
Brandon Burton (22:39.501) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (22:45.41) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (22:55.032) That’s right.
Brandon Burton (22:59.436) Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (23:05.203) to not be totally planned out with that.
Brandon Burton (23:09.058) Yeah. Well, that’s a great example of the live streaming, the tree lighting is growing the footprint of your community. Yes. Quite significantly. So when you, when you talk about building those relationships and the value of that within the community, it’s like, man, forget how many countries you said, but thousands of people, mean, they’re 23%. Yeah. So, I mean, how do you translate that to community and then, you know, how do you build those relationships? How do you help that?
Shanon McKinley (23:16.509) Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (23:27.312) You’re 23!
Brandon Burton (23:38.735) drive business in your community and just overall, know, thrive as a community based on that leverage. So when it happens in a way that you don’t really plan for, but then you learn some information and you pivot, like you said, 2025 and keep learning and adapting and adding these leverage points to your organization. It sounds like you’re adapting as you go along and winging it, like you said.
Shanon McKinley (23:44.295) Yeah. Right.
Shanon McKinley (23:53.128) Yes.
Shanon McKinley (24:04.948) Well, that’s the thing is, you know, the nail on the head was that technology can totally support our work. You know, we talk about AI and, you know, all of these technology resources that we have could be a negative. But if you make take a piece of them and let them become a tool in your tool belt, technology really is your friends.
It does a lot of things for us. And you can schedule those things out, which is also nice. So when you have the day where you’re snowed in or rained in and you can’t be out making those connections, there’s a lot of things that I do on the back end on those days is schedule those Facebook posts and making sure that you’re getting out to the community and out to people and getting them engaging and making that impact. yeah, technology is something
Brandon Burton (24:39.726) you
Brandon Burton (24:57.966) Thank you.
Shanon McKinley (25:01.348) we kind of forget about like, use those resources for sure.
Brandon Burton (25:05.838) Yeah, in fact, I’ve got a great calendar application that I need to share with you. kidding. That’s right. You’re going to do what’s going to work for you. So Shanon, I like asking all the guests that I have on the show on behalf of the listeners who are trying to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them as they strive towards that goal?
Shanon McKinley (25:10.579) It’s alright, right? It all calendars, it’s okay.
Shanon McKinley (25:33.747) You know, I really think we talked about it with strategy and building those relationships. I think both of those things are super important on not that everything needs to be a strategic move, but everybody that you have a relationship with is part of your strategy and making sure that you allow them to be part of what you do. Now, that can be an
Brandon Burton (25:39.566) Thanks.
Brandon Burton (25:44.302) you
Shanon McKinley (26:01.904) all kinds of different capacities. But knowing what they’re passionate about helps you to make your chamber and your event and your impact just that much stronger. And that might be the person who likes to own a stuff envelope for you, or just as important as the person who wants to help you write a grant or help you create a road. Everybody
Brandon Burton (26:15.118) Thank you.
And you know, the most important thing is that that’s not the only thing that we do. now. We’re not doing it on our own. That’s right.
Shanon McKinley (26:30.853) cause impact on what you do daily.
Brandon Burton (26:35.788) Yeah, absolutely. I’d to also see about how you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward.
Shanon McKinley (26:47.974) That’s a really good question. When I saw you saying that to me, was like, oh, I mean, you want me to predict that we’re not going to have another pandemic or another natural disaster. But I truly, truly believe in my heart that we need community now more than ever. People really need to feel part of where they live, where they work, where they play.
Brandon Burton (26:56.61) Pull out your crystal ball, yeah.
Shanon McKinley (27:16.391) And so I think the role of Chambers is only going to get more valuable because people don’t know the right avenues or where to get connected anymore. So really helping them navigate if it’s on your website or on social media or on a digital newsletter or actual old newspaper.
You know, whatever format is, we have to be diverse in engaging our timber into every element in the community. And so an example is my timber board has been helping volunteer at our local football games this past fall. And really why we do that is
Brandon Burton (27:56.867) Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (28:11.492) I have a different diversity of volunteers that the school has. You know, the school volunteers, you have a child that’s probably on the field or on the track. But we can go and we can serve a purpose that night and allow those parents to just be parents and not have to give up their time. And so building that relationship has been so huge in our community.
Now that people see us as the chamber, given to the school, and then the flip side is then those teachers and those coaches and whatever are getting to do their role better by us serving that small need for that night. And so just looking at it going, you know, that isn’t a really hard thing, but it also helps us then tell our story about what we do as an organization.
Brandon Burton (28:52.11) you
Bye.
Shanon McKinley (29:09.585) We had special shirts made for us to volunteer. And so they all knew that we’re not parents in that rural. We’re the tumor. And the tumor is serving our community in that capacity in that evening.
Brandon Burton (29:18.189) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (29:23.532) I think that’s such a great idea. it helps to build the sense of community when the chamber can be engaged in that way. And I know every community looks differently, but the example of the sporting events and everything locally, our daughter’s playing, it’s rec basketball that she’s playing. And our league says, you know, for each kid that you’ve got in the organization.
Shanon McKinley (29:36.275) Yeah, absolutely.
Brandon Burton (29:53.613) you need to provide two hours of service, either selling items at the snack bar or helping with the scoreboard or these different things. And what a different experience it would be if you had volunteers that came in and said, we’re going to do this. You can be parents and watch your kid play and be there for them. And not to say parents can’t step up and be part of that volunteer base, but it changes the whole outlook. So I think that’s such a great idea.
Shanon McKinley (30:07.091) Okay.
Shanon McKinley (30:14.835) You got it.
Right, but it also helps if you can volunteer in an event where your child’s not playing versus the event that they’re actually the participant in. I think that’s really, you yes, every community is different, but we can all give an hour or two. Same thing with not everything is about writing a check. You know, you can give an hour of your time. I think here in Iowa, it’s like,
Brandon Burton (30:22.829) Yes.
Shanon McKinley (30:42.611) 29 dollars, just over 29 dollars now is the value of a volunteer hour. That’s huge. Not everybody has 29 dollars in their pocket to hand to an organization because you give up one hour of time. And so all of them looking at that is I don’t always want to think that people think that I just want their, I want their check. I want their donation. You know, that’s not what I want. I would love to have a diverse organization of
Brandon Burton (30:49.496) Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (31:12.563) you can contribute financially or you can contribute of your time. They all have huge value in a nonprofit organization. Because being an officer one, sometimes it’s just the retired lady that comes in on Mondays and sits in my front desk for two to three hours. And it might be filing stuff or it might be writing thank yous. Those things all have huge value and impact, not only to me and my organization,
Brandon Burton (31:20.289) Yeah.
Shanon McKinley (31:42.195) but to the community outside my doors.
Brandon Burton (31:46.574) Very good. Well, Shanon, I want to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners. They might want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about your story city. Where would you point them? But what would be the best way for them to
Shanon McKinley (31:54.355) Yeah!
Shanon McKinley (31:59.495) Well, a great way always, as I tell everybody in my community too, is definitely check out our website. We just launched a new website just over a year and a half ago. And it is StoryCityGCC.org. And that is a great way. There is a contact me spot right on that website. But you can also check out our community calendar and a lot about our organization and what we do as a whole.
But always feel free that you can definitely call me too. And my number is 515-733-4214.
Brandon Burton (32:34.624) Very good. And we’ll get that in our show notes for this episode, make it easy to find you. But Shanon, thank you for spending time with us today and sharing your experience and perspective from there in Story City. And this has been a great and a fun conversation. So I appreciate it.
Shanon McKinley (32:37.715) higher effect. Yeah.
Absolutely.
Shanon McKinley (32:49.031) Yes, well I appreciate you having me. It’s totally fun to be on the other end of it too.
Brandon Burton (32:55.638) Right?
Shanon McKinley (33:03.155) Have a fun!
Shanon McKinley (33:07.055) Yeah, absolutely! Yeah, that was fun!
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Brandon Burton (00:01.078) Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my purpose and goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our guest for this episode is Bob Durkin. Bob is the president and CEO of the Greater Scranton Area Chamber of Commerce, a role that he’s held since 2013.
As CEO, Bob leads strategic planning, financial oversight, staffing, and programming for the chamber and its affiliated organizations. With decades of leadership experience across nonprofit economic development and regional government sectors, Bob previously served as president of the Northeast Regional Cancer Institute, a Northeastern Pennsylvania-wide nonprofit consortium.
supporting community and patient services, cancer research and healthcare collaboration. Prior to that, he was the founding executive director of the Lake Lackawanna Heritage Valley Authority, advancing regional community development initiatives. Bob’s longstanding commitment to economic and community advancement includes serving as vice president of the chamber from 1988 to 1993 and holding leadership roles across numerous boards and organizations.
A graduate of Penn State University, he also completed advanced studies in public administration and organizational management, including programs at the US Chamber of Commerce and the University of Delaware. A dedicated community advocate and mentor, Bob remains actively involved in regional initiatives from youth sports, continuing to champion growth, collaboration, opportunity throughout the Northeastern Pennsylvania region. Bob, 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 all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself and correct any mispermissions that I shared in your bio.
Bob Durkin (02:07.684) Well, being from Lackawanna County, where you we have a lot of different Native American names, including Lackawanna, where the where the rivers meet, by the way, is what Lackawanna means. Yeah, I’m a native of Scranton, the Scranton area, and remain and love Northeastern Pennsylvania. And of course we’re all chamber people, right? So, you know, even in the dead of winter where last week we were, you
Brandon Burton (02:22.062) Okay.
Bob Durkin (02:37.664) Arguably the thermometer said it was about zero degrees. Anybody that asked me about it, said, well, you know, no, it’s 75 and sunny in Scranton. My, my, my running joke about how grounded I am here is that the town I live in just outside of Scranton is called Oliphant. And it’s just about seven miles from Scranton and I, I’m on my fourth house in Scranton, in Oliphant. And I always say I’m the George Bailey.
Brandon Burton (02:46.958) You
Bob Durkin (03:06.422) of the of the area every time I think I’m getting out of this town. I buy another damn house so my my my personal the most important thing truly in my entire life that that stands out when people ask what’s you know what is unique about my world. Outside of the chamber world it’s that I’m I’m a proud parent of a special needs on my son Kevin who’s 33 has Down syndrome and so much of what.
Brandon Burton (03:11.694) There you go.
Brandon Burton (03:24.034) We need to focus on that. That was actually a good
Bob Durkin (03:36.26) I and my family have done in those 33 years is wrapped around Kevin and our relationship, not just to him, but to the Down Syndrome community where we helped create a Parents of Down Syndrome organization. And I’ve been on the boards of several different special needs organizations in our region. So it’s that that’s a really if there’s a signature element to me outside of my business work, it’s it’s Kevin and it’s Down Syndrome. So here it is.
Brandon Burton (04:03.916) Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. Well, I’d like to give you an opportunity to share a little bit about the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce. Give us an idea of the size, staff, scope of work to some degree. I know we’ll spend more time on that budget just to kind of set the stage for our discussion.
Bob Durkin (04:22.948) Sure. Well, as Brandon, as you and I have talked before this, and we’re going to be talking about in more detail coming up, the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce is a bit of an anomaly. You know, you’ve heard this before in the chamber world. If you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber. And we are certainly a signature aspect of that with multiple different divisions. We have actually eight different
Brandon Burton (04:41.067) One chamber.
Brandon Burton (04:45.706) I’m not going to go that.
Bob Durkin (04:51.527) 501s under the chamber umbrella. And again, we’ll dive into that a little bit later. This chamber, the chamber itself, we are 1400 members strong. We largely represent Lackawanna County, which is Scranton as the hub here in Northeastern Pennsylvania, but we often refer to the third, a third, a third. We have a third of our members in the city of Scranton, a third in Lackawanna County proper and a third outside Lackawanna County.
Brandon Burton (05:14.286) So, think that’s something that I’m not assuming that I’m going to say. So, I’m going to do a little bit of explaining the session, and then I’m going to try to explain it to you guys as well. So, I’m going to do a little bit explaining the session,
Bob Durkin (05:18.9) in mostly in the surrounding counties and regions. Our sister city is Woodsboro, which is right, you know, just to the south of us in Luzerne County. We are in addition to the chamber and the other affiliates, we really are the largest economic development organization in the region. Our budget, chamber budget, I’ll use round numbers, is about $4 million.
Our overall budget is a little over 8 million. As I said, roughly 1,400 members and staff of 26, all of whom work from chamber but are farmed out through management agreements to the various affiliates.
Brandon Burton (05:57.199) Okay, very good. That definitely helps to give perspective, especially as we get into this discussion today where we’ll dive into these affiliates and the approach and structure and when things make sense and all of that. But I did have one question that I think is important for listeners that are probably wondering.
is Dunder Mifflin Paper Company a member of your chamber?
Bob Durkin (06:32.866) Well, that was actually a very interesting question. And it’s one that you ask everywhere across the country. Not only is the the company that inspired Dunder Mifflin, Pen Paper, Pennsylvania Paper, that does exist. But beyond that, during the entire original filming and the what, eight years or nine years of it, every single episode of that included a member of our staff.
listening in and working with the development directors and producers to make sure that there was an authenticity to all of their references to Scranton proper. So when you hear, you’re an office fan, all the references to poor Richard’s pub or Cooper’s restaurant or Lake Scranton, they’re all real. And in fact, M-Taper, the very company that when you see on the opening credits, you’ll see a tower.
Brandon Burton (07:02.604) Do it.
Bob Durkin (07:29.622) of an older building that says, you know, that’s pen paper. I can see that from my office. When I open my, roll out my window, I can see it right there. So yeah, it’s fun to have that. have people probably every single week we get calls from people all over the country. We’re traveling through Scranton, want to know where can I find this or that? So we have materials on this. In fact, the other part of that was almost all the things you see on the desks of the office people came from us.
Brandon Burton (07:43.662) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (07:51.245) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (07:58.413) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (08:00.088) We literally in that time, our staff would reach out to our members and say, hey, give us some of your tchotchke or whatever materials. So when you look at that, next time you look at the office at the PAM behind our front desk, there’s the plaque of the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce right behind it.
Brandon Burton (08:13.612) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (08:17.046) That’s awesome. That is awesome. I want to rewatch the series now and look for all the Easter eggs that are hidden. And I’m sure Michael Scott got his world’s best boss mug from you, right?
Bob Durkin (08:18.776) Yeah. Yeah.
And by the way, not to belabor this, but all of those folks have been here, including Steve Carell. They’ve all been in discranton many times.
Brandon Burton (08:32.002) Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Very cool. Well, we will dive into this discussion about affiliate structures as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, Bob, we’re back. As we mentioned before the break, we’re going to talk about the uniqueness of what makes the Greater Scranton Chamber what it is with the structure of these different affiliate organizations. You mentioned when you were talking about the chamber,
how you have eight 501Cs underneath the structure of the chamber itself. And I would be curious, I’m sure listeners are curious, so first of all, I think it makes sense to talk about what these different affiliates are. And when it makes sense to, whether it’s spin up an affiliate or bring in an affiliate under the chamber umbrella,
Bob Durkin (09:05.124) .
Bob Durkin (09:16.974) Mm-hmm.
Brandon Burton (09:26.944) Maybe that’ll come up naturally as we talk about how these affiliates came to be and their purpose behind them. as you share about them, I’m gonna pull up the screen for those that are watching this on YouTube, they can see kind of the structure as you talk through it.
Bob Durkin (09:34.02) Thank you.
Okay, sure.
Bob Durkin (09:43.556) So, think of the chamber as the umbrella in this structure. And our chamber is, if I have the numbers right, I think we’re 156 years old. We were called the Board of Trade for the first third of our existence, almost. But then when the U.S. Chamber was created, we were actually one of the founding members of the U.S. Chamber.
Brandon Burton (09:52.886) It’s
with the US, that’s the way it is.
Bob Durkin (10:12.994) And that’s a little over a hundred years. So that’s when we became a chamber of commerce. When you look at this structure from the bear with me as I put my glasses on here from the far. So look at the chamber at the top. So everything flows from the chamber. All employees work for the chamber of commerce. And several of the affiliates are actually legally owned by the chamber. Some are not.
Brandon Burton (10:30.781) Thank you.
Bob Durkin (10:38.596) So again, from your far left, you’ll see boxes Slipco that’s a Scranton-Lackawanna industrial building company. That is it. We’re a certified economic development organization in Pennsylvania. So in the roughly 80 year existence of Slipco, which came about just post World War II, do economic development. It’s pure sense. We build industrial parks and office parks. We’ve done 15 of them across Lackawanna County. Historically, we’ve created
Brandon Burton (10:58.882) Thank
Brandon Burton (11:06.066) I’m certainly a big, sort of, spiritual leader of the movement of present. So, thank you for listening. I’m going ahead and turn off. Yes, sir.
Bob Durkin (11:06.99) tens of thousands of jobs in that context. So even today, with most of those parks being completely filled, we still own about 1500 acres of land. We have about 30 parcels that are prepared. If you turn that switch from chamber to economic development, you’ll understand what I mean by that. The Scranton plan is our economic development marketing division.
Brandon Burton (11:20.942) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (11:35.896) So it supports Slipco. The team literally is scattered all over the East coast or travels all over the country and sometimes internationally to try to promote the Scranton area. It’s one of those things that I always find this interesting when people, when Chambers have either visitors bureaus or marketing divisions and the people in the community say, well, why don’t you go out and tell people about your area? We do that all the time, literally every day.
Brandon Burton (11:43.34) I’m going to try to get little for it.
Brandon Burton (11:59.279) Thank you.
Bob Durkin (12:05.048) We’re either online or in some sort of media platform promoting the region or our staff are literally out selling the area to professionals, site selection professionals, commercial realtors and the like. Life, the Lackawanna Industrial Fund Enterprises has a kind of a cool history in Stratton and Lackawanna County in that like Slipco and the Stratton thing came about post World War II. And it actually was a funding school.
Brandon Burton (12:13.08) So that’s the of talk.
Brandon Burton (12:25.528) So was like, five times what I was getting for the change.
Bob Durkin (12:33.252) for small scale industrial properties all over the valley. So that if you, for those who’ve, especially in the Northeast, that would recognize that their little towns used to have dress factories and shoe factories and almost all of them owned locally, life at one time was the funding source for most of those throughout our region. It has morphed in more recent years to be sort of a service, sort of an in-house endowment. We have, you know, substantial
Brandon Burton (12:37.806) It’s the power of the natural energies.
Brandon Burton (12:47.084) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (13:02.382) Thanks
Bob Durkin (13:03.298) liquidity relative to Scranton. To put it in context, there’s about $7 million worth of liquidity in the fund. And so we use that internally now to support some of our activities. I’ll try to reference that later on as well. Skills in Scranton, the first blue box that you see there, that is our workforce development arm. And you can see I’ve attached on those the various 501 designations.
So that I’ll back up and say that this Scranton plan actually is simply a division of the chamber of commerce. Whereas a slip goes owned by the chamber life and then Scranton plan or separate 501 C four and C threes. So Scranton plan or I’m sorry, skills and Scranton rather is our workforce division. It’s a business education partnership where our team works with both secondary educational institutions and their end school districts in Lackawanna County.
And we also work with school districts in perimeter counties as well to do programs where we try to connect students with business and educators with business. Metro Action is our small business lending arm. For those who understand the small business lending world, at one point we were a CDFI, Community Development Finance Institute, which is a federal designation.
Brandon Burton (14:03.022) to give you the opportunity to participate in this event. Thank you.
Brandon Burton (14:19.116) Thank you.
Bob Durkin (14:27.364) closed off that relationship that we do revolving loan funds for small businesses, partnering with our banks mainly. Leadership Lackawanna is a traditional community leadership program, multiple programs for emerging executives, new to the C-suite executives, high school students. We six different programs under the Leadership Lackawanna fund. Next is our trust fund. It’s the Neighborhood Development Trust. It’s a small endowment.
about a half a million dollars that we use for small scale partnerships with other business associations, for example. So while the chamber is a large player in the region, many of our smaller communities, including Scranton, has their own business association. when Scranton Tomorrow, as that’s referred to, when they do mural programs around downtown or they have festivals or things like that, we use that fund to support them with five, $10,000 grants.
Brandon Burton (15:11.886) So we’re going to have a little bit a change in style, and we’ll to do a separate video.
Brandon Burton (15:22.99) Yeah. Okay.
Bob Durkin (15:25.486) When you go back down to the bottom and see the slip through utilities. So that’s how complicated we are. We, own the utility company. at one time we provided, we provided water to for 30 years, actually we provided water to one of our parks. we recently sold that to, the local water utility. it came to the point where there was a pipe, a major, mainline pipe burst in Scranton.
And we were at risk of having about 10 different businesses lose water for a week. And we were fortunate that was fixed. then as the next day, I called the head of the water company and said, Hey, you want to buy a water company? So we sold the water company, but we held on to the utility because as I referenced before, Slipco, our building company, we own properties throughout all these business parks. So it’s useful to have a small scale utility company in our back pocket in case we need that. Ignite, which
Brandon Burton (15:57.631) Brandon Burton (16:20.574) I’m to see what the sounds are going to
Bob Durkin (16:20.996) is a part of Slipco. And just because it’s not a separate 501 doesn’t mean it’s not important. On the contrary, it’s very important. We own two different buildings that are business incubators, one in Scranton and Lackawanna County runs along the Lackawanna River. It’s a long stretch of maybe 50 miles, 40, 50 miles. And so we have a property in Scranton that serves as an incubator.
Brandon Burton (16:47.854) I know that I’m going to be a star. It feels like a dream. I am one of the top eight on the world’s one of people who are going to be in the world’s top 10.
Bob Durkin (16:51.128) We have another one in what we call the mid Valley, which is halfway up the Valley. And we’re about to purchase the assets of another, a third business incubator up in the upper part of our Valley in the city of Carbondale. so we’ll have three under ignite. We’ll have three different buildings. And right now we have roughly 50 startup businesses of all sorts. most, many of them are sort of back office technology based businesses.
that we’re nurturing in a three to five year period under the Unite program. So you apply to be part of Unite. You’ve got to have good financial standing. You’ve got to have a business plan. You stay with us for three to five years. staff, hands on staff daily meet with these people, take advantage of the core of talent we have in the chamber. And they connect these startup businesses with everything from legal, financial, marketing.
Brandon Burton (17:21.634) night.
Bob Durkin (17:47.548) you name it, all the different aspects, of course, for business startup. And the advantage there is that it’s a two-way street. It helps the business startups, but it also helps our own businesses because we’re connecting many of them to these fledgling businesses that are ultimately, sometimes they don’t have the money upfront to pay for the, you know, those services. But over time, you make those connections and when the businesses are successful, and many have been, many have grown by the, our greatest success at one point was
Brandon Burton (18:11.758) Thank you.
Bob Durkin (18:17.372) a company that went from 13 people to 1800. Then others, yeah, others we’ve had, we’ve had a lot of the kind of the classic one guy working part-time. Ultimately he gets to be 80 people and then he, you know, he sells the business to a larger enterprise and it cashes out. We have had a number of those. So it’s really exciting. So all of this comes under our mission of attract, sustain and grow business.
Brandon Burton (18:17.486) Wow
Bob Durkin (18:46.39) Attract is sort of, can see the splint and plane of trying to market the region. Sustain is sort of almost everything, which is sustain existing and legacy businesses. And grow is the Ignite program, which is our entrepreneurship program. There you go. We’ve run out of time,
Brandon Burton (18:52.302) I love it. No, this is great. And having that structure to share, hopefully those that are listening have a chance to see it and I’ll put it in our show notes too, so you can see the layout of the structure. But I think you did a great job going through and explaining that.
Brandon Burton (00:00.942) All right, so I’ve got a couple of questions as we look at the structure there. You had mentioned that Scranton plans support Slipco with the marketing for the economic development, which I think goes to the overall question of when does it make sense to stand up a separate affiliate versus having it be just a part of Slipco and being part of that affiliate itself.
Bob Durkin (00:10.974) Mm-hmm.
Bob Durkin (00:25.312) Yeah, that is a great question. And I’ve been asked that a number of times. And you probably know this, a lot of chambers have looked at that either to look to separate or they’ve talked to in the right size scale communities. Should we put all these under one umbrella? I will tell you that the pros and cons, there are about 100, but the things that kind of stand out are that sometimes, particularly when you’re dealing with public policy or relationships with
elected organizations, elected officials or structures. When you are an economic development organization, you almost always have to be playing the game with the state and federal officials, particularly, but also locally say, okay, we want some public dollars into the investments. So when we’re developing a park and we have the newest park, the most, I should say the youngest of our 15 different parks is really 25 years old.
Brandon Burton (01:03.054) It’s always been with me. It’s always been with me. And it’s always been with me.
Bob Durkin (01:25.348) And so when you want to develop the infrastructure for these things, you have to have public dollars in it. And it’s difficult if you’re trying to be the chamber speaking on behalf of the business community on a public policy issue. Let’s say you’re at odds with your elected officials on, you know, unemployment compensation bill or, you know, a childcare bill or something along those lines.
And then you say, well, we’re at odds with you. We’re taking a public position against that. And then the next day I say, hey, can you get us a million dollars to help us with the plumbing problem, you know, an infrastructure problem in one of our parks? So it’s, that, makes it hard. And we’ve been in that space. And to this day, I’m pleased to say we’ve never compromised in what our leadership has told us to do or asked us to do relative to standing up for the business community from a, from the chamber side.
so it hasn’t hurt us, but I can see how it could, if you didn’t play the game properly. So the way we do this, by the way, is that we maintain really strong ongoing regular relationships with all of the key elected officials so that they understand that there are going be times we’ll disagree with them and they say, fine, we’ll disagree on this point, but we’re not going to, it’s not going to hurt the overall investment of the, in the community. But if you don’t.
Brandon Burton (02:46.388) I’ll you the next one.
Bob Durkin (02:50.057) play that game very delicately, that can be a problem. The other part of that is from a staffing standpoint, and I think I may have mentioned that all of our employees work for the Chamber of Commerce and ultimately are farmed out in a sense to the various affiliates. Well, that sounds like a very simple thing on paper. But what you also have is I have people on the team, the economic development team, who they see themselves as Slipco employees. They’re doing economic development and that’s their space.
Brandon Burton (02:53.006) Thanks.
Brandon Burton (03:00.621) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (03:18.892) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (03:19.775) Then you have the chamber people who were doing all of the, you know, 50 different events and programs and educational efforts and blah, blah, and suddenly when it comes together and we try to keep it together, um, there are times where we butt heads. Um, communications, for example, is a very good example of that. So communications for our organization rests with the chamber, but, know, with all the activities of marketing and go with the development side, the development people are like, Hey,
Right? Like tomorrow, I need to do A, B, and C. I’ve got to get a flyer out. I’ve got to postings on, you know, different websites and social media platforms. And the chamber people are saying like, well, no, we’ve got the annual dinner coming up and we have this. So there’s a lot of head-butting there. And so we try to treat that in a very cavalier way, in a sense of saying like, hey, let’s folks, we know we’re going to run into this. So when we do, when that day happens,
Brandon Burton (04:06.135) and
Bob Durkin (04:18.239) Let it out and then we’ll, know, if need be, bring it to me, but I’m lucky enough to have some really talented people running the various divisions in our executive leadership team. Uh, and they seem to handle it pretty well, but there are plenty of times. In fact, I tell you when this is over, I have to deal with some emails that came across my, my screen this morning where I’m going to have to do just that. I’m going to have to sit down with a couple of people and say, I know your priority is here and so is yours. Let’s talk it out.
Brandon Burton (04:20.366) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (04:45.326) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (04:47.039) So it’s no different really in a sense that whenever you have a complicated organization, there are always going to be different people. Your staff to their credit wants theirs to be the best. we are really lucky. I’m blessed, Brandon, with talented people across all these different divisions.
Brandon Burton (05:05.42) Yeah, it sounds like you are to be able to keep it all working and coming together in a unified direction.
Bob Durkin (05:12.063) Yeah, well, I started this job 13 years ago. had a head of hair like Geraldo Rivera. And now it’s here. You see what happens. Boy, is that a dated reference, huh? I might have said like what, know, somebody from the early 1900s for all that.
Brandon Burton (05:17.774) For those that are watching, I love it.
Brandon Burton (05:31.983) Right. The 1900s, man. So you had mentioned the Lackawanna Industrial Fund Enterprise, how there’s a significant amount of liquidity in there, but then you also have the Neighborhood Development Trust Fund. can you talk about the… I’m anticipating that there’s very different purposes for those funds and how they’re deployed. So yeah, share with us about that.
Bob Durkin (05:54.72) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure you know from talking to other chambers that they know the wave of creating foundations, supportive foundations for the chambers is really strong right now. And in essence, we are blessed to have several resources that sort of predate that even that movement on the local or the current chamber wave. So with life,
Brandon Burton (06:07.192) Yes.
Bob Durkin (06:24.671) Again, in its heyday, it was this source of capital for local manufacturers. But once that changed and really NAFTA really put an end to all of that, where we had once had literally a hundred different small manufacturing operations in the Valley, and literally all of them are gone now. And so basically, my predecessors started to look at the funds, the life funds as it were, and said, well, how can we use those in the greatest way?
Brandon Burton (06:30.894) Who was that?
Bob Durkin (06:54.653) most useful way and it really has come down to, well, let me back up for a second say this, the good and the bad of having all of these affiliates in the chamber world. So some of them, especially the three key 501C3s, and for us that would be MetroAction, our lending arm, Skills and Scranton, Workforce Development, and Leadership Lackawanna. Well, these are entities that could otherwise stand on their own.
Brandon Burton (07:06.478) So, I’m just going to this progressive movement, and not only be a positive movement, but a positive movement.
Brandon Burton (07:19.758) or if you have a group of people that are scared of trauma, you can put them in the front of your face and you’ll be fine.
Bob Durkin (07:24.671) They’re second 501c3s. They have their own boards. They could otherwise be out in the world of a nonprofit world raising their own funds. But because they come under the Chamber of Derelo, then the community knows that. Let’s say some of our strongest supporters, banks or larger businesses, always look at it together.
Brandon Burton (07:36.846) Right. that because these months have been too long, we can say at the cost of that the states will have rather more balanced response than they should have for businesses.
Bob Durkin (07:50.144) And so when we go to them and say, you, you here’s your chamber membership and here’s the sponsorship we want for the annual dinner or for this event or that event. And then, then we say, Oh, by the way, leadership like Juana is going to come back to you and say, we want you to sponsor this. And they say, but you’re the chamber. You’re all part of the chamber. So the result is that some of the smaller 501 C3s that are under our umbrella have their hands tied. Um, I can’t, you know, if they came to me and then said, well, we’re having our workforce summit through under skills and Scranton.
going to go to the biggest supporter of the chamber, bank X or company X. And we say, no, don’t do that. We’ve already tapped them out on these other things that we’re working on. So because of that, those smaller ones need support. that’s where life often comes in. Every year, and again, it’s out of scale, unless you know all the budget stuff, it may not make sense, but life contributes about $200,000 a year to the chamber. Part of that is to pay for
Brandon Burton (08:23.182) you
Bye!
Brandon Burton (08:32.056) So, that was a good, not a bad, beautiful, so thank
Brandon Burton (08:44.259) you
Bob Durkin (08:49.951) the building that we are in because life owns our building. That’s just complicated side note. But about $100,000 from life then, think of it as a foundation, as an internal foundation. So $100,000 a year goes to our operating fund, not to support the chamber per se, but to support those nonprofit, small nonprofits under the chamber. Because we’re telling them, don’t ask for more money from somebody else, we’ll simply support it.
Brandon Burton (08:53.966) Okay.
Brandon Burton (09:00.546) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (09:11.598) We have a lot of people who are not interested in the internet. So if we can a lot of money from the internet, it would job for me.
Bob Durkin (09:17.471) So we use life as our ballast, our financial foundation. say, if there’s a loss, we simply go to life and life will take care of the loss.
Brandon Burton (09:28.384) I like that. That’s great. A great structure to have there and to be able to just keep things cohesive as an organization. I noticed that you have life set up as a 501C4 versus a trust fund as a C3. What’s the, lot of people listening, they’re going to be familiar with the C3 and the C6, but talk to us a little bit about the C4 and why that is categorized as C4.
Bob Durkin (09:46.176) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, again, C4s are economic development organizations and that’s really just a legacy issue. So when life, the Spranton plan and Slipco were created post-World War II, the two of the three were set up as C4s because life was a lending enterprise at the time. It’s an interesting question to ask because we’re in the midst of a strategic plan right now.
Brandon Burton (09:58.466) Okay.
Brandon Burton (10:02.99) you
you
Bob Durkin (10:15.871) And the question some of our board members are asking is exactly that. Should we switch that? Should we turn it into a C3, make it a pure foundation? And we may go down that road. I will tell you the reason that I like it in its current structure is our hands are not tied by some of the IRS rules that would apply to a foundation, depending on whether it’s a public trust or a private trust where the assets
Brandon Burton (10:37.23) So the basic thing I want to put in place for the pilot test, we’re going to use the differential of two cases. That’s the big thing we need to do to the So you’re going send it from the main figure you offer, and you’re going to turn it into an axis. And that’s the most important part of the pilot part of process. And it’s going to be done in next couple And I’m doing the pilot test, and you’ll be able to have a better look.
Bob Durkin (10:44.061) have to be maintained at a certain level. I happen to sit on a major foundation board and the challenge we have there is we have a fiduciary responsibility to maintain the corpus and so you can only spend so much money. Well, by having it in our current state the way that we have it set up with life, hypothetically with, you know, $7 million or whatever we have there, if we wanted to spend $5 million, we could. We don’t have a fiduciary responsibility to maintain the corpus.
in its current structure. But since we don’t foresee that need, we’re going to, for our strategic planning process, we’re going to review that and determine if it makes more sense to turn those assets into a foundation on a C3 at all. So it’s a good question. It’s a really good question because it fits what a lot of people are talking about in the chamber world right
Brandon Burton (11:27.381) Yeah,
Right. With the foundation structures. so I feel like we’ve, we’ve touched on a lot of the, upside, the reasoning, why you have these different affiliates broken out and the way it’s organized, the way it is. I can see for those listening, they’re like, man, that’s a lot of, a lot of work to keep these different balls juggling. mean, if we’re being honest, chambers are juggling different balls or plates or whatever you want to say you’re juggling at any time, but what are.
maybe some of the downsides to having these different affiliates broken out like this. And you talked a little bit about the conflict that might arise and different goals kind of headbutt against each other, but what else might you see or warn against?
Bob Durkin (12:07.711) Yes.
Bob Durkin (12:12.349) Yeah, yeah, I mean, there’s an inherent element of creating silos, you know, where people just feel like my program area is the best, mine’s the most important. And so from a management standpoint, I’m always sensitive to that. And it’s no different in a sense that when you’re managing multiple people and personalities, you always have to say, you know,
Brandon Burton (12:20.407) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (12:39.975) By the way, if anybody says, it says, well, I treat everybody the same, you know, was it, I’m trying to think of things to talk about Vince Lombardi. And one of his players said, he treats us all the same. He treats us all like dogs. it’s just like, whether it’s an organizational relationship or a personal relationship with staff, have to recognize people’s strengths, weaknesses, and the nature of their personalities. So I’m from my, my seat, I’m always sort of balancing that.
Brandon Burton (12:51.692) Hehehehehe
Bob Durkin (13:09.769) who needs to be coddled, who needs to be yelled at, who needs to be hands held, who needs the freedom to do things on their own. it’s a challenge. I like to think that I, and really I’d say our management team does a good job of that, but on a regular basis, maybe a weekly basis, we run into some sort of challenges along those lines in terms of the balance. From the community standpoint, from the outside looking in,
Brandon Burton (13:09.965) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (13:38.592) I do like that people recognize that this organization has so many tools that are in our tool chest. And that is both good and bad because you know the old rule, like if you’re, know, the reward for good work is more work. And so, for example, in the vernacular of the chamber world, our program of work,
Brandon Burton (13:54.319) Remember, we’re here to help. There are always more people who need your help.
Bob Durkin (14:07.103) Then we have the strategic plan and then we have our annual program of work. And, and I, I said this to the board and the executive committee, which really, you know, is our driving, you know, management component. I’ve said this over the last couple of years to them. said, know, we do the program of work and for us, that’s a July to June program year. So in like May or June, we approve next year’s program of work. By the time we are six months into that, I can tell you.
Brandon Burton (14:13.762) This is some water that we have use as a dip through dry lay to make…
Brandon Burton (14:28.92) So, we’ll try our best to see if we can do it.
Bob Durkin (14:35.923) The work of the organization, there’s a third of the work that we do, sometimes more, that isn’t even on the program work. And it’s because the community recognizes the value of our team. And so when there’s an issue, and right now, for example, we have an issue with hospitals. I mean, a lot of our brethren across the country are dealing with this, particularly in communities of the size of Scranton. We have three hospitals and two of them were on the verge of being shut down.
Brandon Burton (14:43.266) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (15:03.165) because the parent company was walking away. was a private enterprise. Well, so last year I probably spent easily a third of my time working on with a group of community leaders to keep those hospitals open, including a substantial financial contribution to make this work. That was never even on our program of work. You know? And so, so the good, again, the good and the bad, we’re proud of the fact that the people turned to us to be among the leaders to try to save the hospitals.
Brandon Burton (15:16.782) Right.
Bob Durkin (15:33.272) and, then again, what do you do with the rest of the work plan? And, you know, and there’s, could, I could point out probably every year in the last four or five years, particularly since COVID, well, COVID’s probably the best example. When COVID hit, we became the enterprise to coordinate. were part of the emergency management network for all of Northeastern Pennsylvania, not just our county or our chamber, but all the surrounding counties and their chambers. We became.
Brandon Burton (15:37.418) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (15:47.351) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (16:02.471) the central source for, you know, holding up a lot of things like, know, when the SBA was coming on with the PPP and all the other, you know, both health and business elements that were being played out. We were central to that for about a six county area. I know, you know, in partnership with our local, our friends in the other chambers, but we’re still the biggest and, you know, we had greater capacity. so the good again,
Brandon Burton (16:11.064) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (16:31.807) Sorry if I’m all over the map on this, but it’s a good and bad of being the big dog. Everybody wants you to do something, including every elected official. And we’re happy to do it where we can. We’re proud of it and we’re proud of our success. But there’s only so much we can do. Exactly. Yeah.
Brandon Burton (16:32.238) there.
Brandon Burton (16:40.706) Yeah.
Thank you very much.
Brandon Burton (16:47.404) And I get that and sometimes you have to say no because it doesn’t fit within the mission and whatever. But at the same time, if you say no to helping a major employer who’s about to walk away, that’s not a good look for the chamber either. So you got to adjust. Yeah.
Bob Durkin (16:56.969) That’s right. No, no. You know, the local, air, the regional airport needs our help. The, we’re in the process of trying to get to reinstate the passenger transportation from Scranton to New York City, which for us, that’s about it. That’s about a two hour. It’s a, you know, two, we’re about two hours from New York, two hours from Philly in Northeastern Pennsylvania. And so who’s in the middle of the Amtrak proposal, but the chamber. And that wasn’t on our books three years ago, but it is now.
Brandon Burton (17:26.062) Yeah, yeah. Well, in interest of your time, I think we need to start wrapping up, but it’s been a great discussion. I wanted to ask on behalf of listeners who want to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them as they strive towards that goal?
Bob Durkin (17:27.039) So, yeah.
Bob Durkin (17:32.703) Okay. Okay.
Bob Durkin (17:46.782) Well, again, I mentioned before, and I’m proud of my professional association and personal association with the team at ACCE. I think that it’s among the best assets. When I came back into the chamber world, and as you read my bio, I was vice president of this chamber back 35 years ago, left for 20 years to do other things, and then came back 13 years ago. And that’s where I discovered ACCE.
I would say anybody who has any interest in figuring out, you want to expand your programs or do you want to contract them? The best asset, the best resource that I know of is ACC. And that’s, and it’s both, you know, their leadership in Sherry and Kelly and others, but also is equally important is the networking. You know, we’re part of the major cities council of ACC. I’m very active with that.
Brandon Burton (18:28.206) Yeah
Brandon Burton (18:40.014) think this now is in control. Have a nice day.
Bob Durkin (18:44.901) and so whenever I have an issue on these types of things, I now have on my contact list, I used to say Rolodex because I’m an old man, but, you know, my contact list, I can pick up the phone or I can shoot an email or whatever for a handful of really smart, talented, and eager friends and colleagues, because there’s always someone out there who’s done what you’ve done. And, I’m happy to be that resource for anybody who may be listening and seeing our structure.
Brandon Burton (18:46.03) you
Brandon Burton (18:51.182) that’s right.
Bob Durkin (19:14.055) and wanting to know if they should follow this course, I’ll, I’ll tell them the good and the bad. That’s, that’s what’s, you know, that’s what’s so great about chamber world, right? You know, people, people sometimes say, well, all you chamber people are all type A personalities and whatever else. Actually, no, we’re not. We are just like anything else. We’re a mix. You know, we’ve got both extroverts and introverts, and we’ve got people who are task people, and we people who are, you know, want to be talking, you know, a bag, the big
Brandon Burton (19:19.619) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (19:25.981) So thank you.
Bob Durkin (19:42.91) hairy audacious goals and some want to make sure that you’re blocking and tackling. I’m mixing my metaphors here, right? I’ll use the blocking and tackling because I see you’ve got a football in the 49ers helmet behind you. But that’s what’s great about the chamber world, right? If you really, I always say this, if you know if someone is meant to be in this world, because we all do act the same way, we can be the spokesperson, or we can be the worker bee, you know?
Brandon Burton (19:44.11) That’s right.
Brandon Burton (19:53.9) That’s right.
Brandon Burton (20:11.022) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (20:12.159) We’re a hybrid that can do whatever you need for the moment.
Brandon Burton (20:16.918) Yeah, exactly. So I’m sure you’ll bring ACC into this response as well. But I like asking everyone I have on the show about the future. So how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?
Bob Durkin (20:31.507) Yeah, I think that both versions of the Horizons project, the original and the most recent one, I think have very, very strong elements that portend where we’re going. But then like everything else, as I referenced before, we do our annual work plan, we do our strategic plan, we do our annual work plan, and then okay, throw it out the window because something else happens. And AI, of course, stands out.
Brandon Burton (20:59.438) See next time.
Bob Durkin (21:01.019) And for us, the way, AI slash data centers have become, you know, the discussion of the day. and, and they, they threatened to change a lot of what we have thought about how we as a chamber operate and how we as community based organizations connect with the community and in what way we do. So, I think that using the data data center issue as an example, because right now we have.
Brandon Burton (21:21.454) Thank you.
Bob Durkin (21:29.919) Probably six different organizations and ourselves included as a developer talking about and dealing with the idea of creating data centers in the community. And, uh, there’s pros and cons to this thing and the community doesn’t know what to do. So we have to step in and we have, we have edu, we’ve, we’ve brought in people to educate elected officials. We have taken people from literally a bus ride from Scranton to Northern Virginia, which is data center alley to a Loudoun County, Virginia.
Brandon Burton (21:35.566) I’m on it.
Bob Durkin (21:59.434) to learn about this. So we have to play that center role in terms of the future and how AI is going to impact us and our communities. And I’d say the same thing applies on the political spectrum. have to, know, Mick Fleming, the late Mick Fleming always said, you know, we’re the same center in the political arena. And today that’s a tough place to find yourself, but we have to be that same center.
Brandon Burton (22:01.614) So, think that’s the center of the whole thing, the state of the world, the universe, the universe. And it’s actually on the end of my life, where it’s the reaction, where it’s the reaction, it’s probably the reaction.
Brandon Burton (22:22.99) So that’s the sense of the energy that we use.
Bob Durkin (22:28.051) in the political arena, we have to say enough of these extreme positions and let’s recognize what’s best for the community. And that’s always, you know, compromise and moderate moderation.
Brandon Burton (22:41.091) Yeah. Am I seeing a possible data center in the future as an affiliate for the Scranton Chamber?
Bob Durkin (22:49.247) Well, not as, yeah, I mean, we hope as members, they darn well better be. Yeah, it’s this, this is really a, we are a test kitchen, as it were for for this right now, because we happen to be, we’re a valley. And the main power lines for the PJM grid that serves Northeastern United States comes and runs right across the top of our valley.
Brandon Burton (22:53.204) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (23:18.705) And so we’re a very popular spot for data center development. But we’re also a settled residential area. In Northern Virginia, for example, it was agricultural space. so open space that they filled in with these big buildings, it doesn’t work quite as well when you’re trying to build these facilities next to neighborhoods or in areas that are not industrial.
Brandon Burton (23:43.49) Yeah
Bob Durkin (23:44.786) It’s it’s it’s it’s a lesson for the country. If anybody’s interested in I’m more than happy to share with our current experiences. But I’ll go back, Brandon, you asked the question earlier about how do you balance that chamber versus development side? Well, that’s that’s one of those nexus areas where we’re having a challenge because on the one side, on development side, we’re saying yeah, job creation for for the trades and revenue return to the communities. Not a lot of big jobs in the buildings themselves, but
Brandon Burton (24:00.739) Yeah.
Bob Durkin (24:14.399) you get it on the front end and the back end. And then the chamber side is saying, well, it’s all about our community. And the community is going crazy saying they don’t want data centers. So it’s balance.
Brandon Burton (24:23.586) Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Well, Bob, this has been great. I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who do want to reach out and learn more about your structure or anything you’ve covered today. Where would you point them and what would be the best way for them to connect with you?
Bob Durkin (24:39.155) Sure. Well, the obvious starting point is our website, www.scrantonchamber.com. Our phone number is 570-342-7711. I’m extension 118. You can find me on our website and through those other contacts. We’ve got a great team. If I can’t talk to you directly, I’ll find someone on our team to be able to help you with any questions you have.
And you can also find me at any of the major ACC events. We’re always going to be at the national conference and I’m always also going to be at the major cities as well. So happy to be a resource for any of my friends and colleagues.
Brandon Burton (25:14.924) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (25:22.318) Very good. Well, we’ll share that in our show notes for this episode. again, I appreciate you spending time with us and sharing the structure and how you guys are approaching things there in Scranton, the greater Scranton area. It’s a great example and something that we can learn a lot from and how we structure and look to the future as well. So I appreciate it.
Bob Durkin (25:31.614) Okay.
Bob Durkin (25:48.52) Right, so it’s been great to chat with you.
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Brandon Burton (00:00.721) Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and here on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Our guest for this episode is Charles Wood. Charles serves as the president and CEO of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, where he previously led efforts as vice president of economic development.
With more than 25 years of experience in economic development, Charles has built a career centered on driving job creation, business recruitment, and regional growth. Before joining the Chattanooga Chamber in 2012, Charles held economic development leadership roles with Chambers of Commerce in Pensacola, Mobile, Alabama, and worked in local government in College Station, Texas.
Charles Wood (00:41.473) . .
Brandon Burton (00:53.881) Over the course of his career, he’s led marketing, recruitment, and expansion initiatives that resulted in thousands of new jobs and major corporate investments from companies such as Hewlett Packard, Mellon Financial, and Volkswagen. Charles holds a master’s degree in economic development from the University of Southern Mississippi, completed the Economic Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma, and earned the prestigious certified economic developer designation from the International Economic Development Council.
Charles Wood (01:12.249) . you
Brandon Burton (01:24.021) Charles, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat podcast. I’d like to give you an opportunity to say hello 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.
Charles Wood (01:38.088) Sure. And great to be here, Brandon. You know, I’ve kind of, I’ve been involved in the chamber world for a long time now at this point, mostly on the economic development side, not running the organization, but excited to be here. You know, I’d say I love Chattanooga, right? All chamber execs love whatever town they’re in at the moment.
Brandon Burton (01:57.713) Hey.
Charles Wood (01:58.797) But if I have a second home, it’s New Orleans and I love the food and the people and the culture. so I spend a little bit of time cooking Cajun food whenever I can. And so we’re, you know, it’s almost Fat Tuesday. So at least based on the timing for this recording and myself and our VP of membership and then someone who’s on our marketing team, we actually did a, we do a
a lunch for the full staff once a month. And so we cooked this month. So last week I did gumbo. And then our VP of marketing did red beans and rice. then our head, our marketing person did red beans and rice. And our other team member did jambalaya. So we did a full kind of Cajun luncheon, which was a ton of fun for me. So we kind of try and, I try and bring that up every year, you know, during kind of
Mardi Gras and carnival season. it’s a lot of fun. Chattanooga’s a long way away from New Orleans, but so we’re, but love doing it and excited that ACC actually is gonna be in New Orleans this summer. So, yeah.
Brandon Burton (03:06.612) That’s right. So do those other staff members have ties to New Orleans or?
Charles Wood (03:12.589) Our VP of membership does, he’s from New Orleans, proper person in marketing, I think spent some time in South Louisiana, but I don’t think he’s from there.
Brandon Burton (03:18.32) Okay.
Brandon Burton (03:24.506) Yeah, but enough to pick up some of the culture and cuisine. that’s good. That’s awesome. Well, if you would tell us a little bit about the Chattanooga area chamber to help give us an idea of the size of the chamber, the organization, the area of work, number of staff, budget, all of that to kind of set the stage for our discussion.
Charles Wood (03:28.33) Yeah, exactly.
Charles Wood (03:46.23) Sure, and we’re a pretty big organization as chambers go for a community our size. So our metro area is a little under 600,000 people, but we have a budget of close to 10 million and a team of about 40. That includes about 10 people who are on our Chattanooga 2.0 team, which is a team that’s focused on cradle to career education and workforce.
pretty big arm of what we do. And they do some incredible work. Last year, we officially launched a college and career savings program for every kindergartner, middle schooler in Hamilton County schools. So that’s a pretty cool program that’s come out of the 2.0 team. We run a 128,000 square foot small business incubator with 30 to 50 companies in it at any one time.
And that lives under our economic development program. And then we run leadership Chattanooga as well. So a lot of communities have a leadership program. Ours lives under the Chamber Foundation. And then, certainly all of the other kinds of things that go along with the Chamber. So we’ve got about 1,750 members for the organization. So membership size, not too bad from an organizational standpoint.
Brandon Burton (04:50.864) Mm-hmm.
Brandon Burton (05:10.673) And.
Charles Wood (05:11.531) And then, you know, lot of funding role we have, we’re technically two entities. We’re a 501C6 membership organization, and then have a foundation, 501C3, where our economic development and our talent initiatives all live.
Brandon Burton (05:26.493) Very good. Now that definitely helps to set the stage and get us prepared for our discussion today. And today we’ll be diving into the idea of constantly looking to evolve and modernize as a chamber and as an industry. So we’ll dive into that topic as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Brandon Burton (05:48.894) All right, Charles, we’re back, as I mentioned before the break. really, as you and I talked before we hit record, we were talking about the lens that you entered the chamber space, that it’s been very much through the economic development side of things. And now you’ve got this more responsibility in your current position. And I think there’s a lot of value in that perspective. And in the back and forth, you talked about how it
Charles Wood (05:55.147) . .
Brandon Burton (06:17.839) it’s helped you to kind of develop this lens to constantly be evolving and modernizing as a chamber. So if you’d like to expand on that and just give us an idea of what that means to you and areas where you’ve seen opportunity to do that.
Charles Wood (06:33.396) Absolutely. And so we have a two part mission. The first is champion our member businesses. And the second is really focus on building a strong regional economy. But the way I kind of communicate the organization is really around our purpose, which is to build a thriving Chattanooga. And so you do that by kind of executing on the mission.
But the Chattanooga Chamber was founded in 1887. We’re one of, I think, 40 chambers of commerce that are on the wall when you walk into the U.S. Chamber in Washington, D.C., that kind of founded the U.S. Chamber. So we’ve been around for a long time. We’ll be celebrating our 140th anniversary pretty soon. I think I didn’t really think about that when I was first hired here.
Brandon Burton (07:06.557) Thank you.
Charles Wood (07:24.45) and we were at an event that we held, we had somebody come in from the US Chamber and they shared that. And kind of the weight of running an organization that’s been around that long, especially in a time of real change, right? At a national and international level, it’s a pretty big weight. And I think a lot of folks who probably watch this podcast, they’ve either heard of or read the book.
Brandon Burton (07:36.262) Yeah.
Charles Wood (07:52.874) that’s called Bowling Alone, right? And it’s a depressing book, honestly. It’s around the decline of social capital in America. And if you think about organizations like Chambers, right, that bring people together that are, you’re focused around kind of building social capital for a community and whether that’s churches or groups like Rotary or Chambers of Commerce.
There’s a lot of headwinds in our world today. And so as we kind of think about the organization and we think about Chattanooga, a lot of my focus has been around how do you work to evolve the organization to make sure that it’s going to be resilient and it’s gonna be, I think, a really relevant organization over the next decade or two decades out.
Brandon Burton (08:25.341) Thank
Brandon Burton (08:33.553) I guess.
Brandon Burton (08:39.389) Thank
Brandon Burton (08:45.821) and going to have to work on this. So there’s no harm in us working on this.
Charles Wood (08:47.882) And so we’ve spent a lot of time kind of thinking about that, looking at systems and programs and looking at how we change those to make sure we stay true to the mission and the purpose, but also are not shy about working through the fact that we’ve got to continually evolve.
Brandon Burton (08:56.925) and influence our research on the climate of the planet.
Brandon Burton (09:10.109) And I think that’s so important and to your sentiment about the weight of leading an organization that has such a rich history is you don’t want to be the one that screws it up, right? But at the same time, there is change that has to
Charles Wood (09:21.66) That’s exactly right. Yeah, that’s…
Brandon Burton (09:31.134) You can’t do the things the same way they were in 1847. And as we see the fast pace of change in today’s market, today’s world, got to be abreast of those changes and be ready for it and look into the future and not just react to what’s being presented to you. And I know a lot of chambers will do their Chamber 2030 or 2035 focus, looking five or 10 years out in the future.
which I think is great. I think that’s, it’s great to have that strategic focus. But I had mentioned before, I had heard an interview with, with Elon Musk, you know, this man is literally creating the future in front of us with this, you know, self-driving cars and taking people to Mars and creating robots to, you know, clean your, your kitchen and cook for you and everything.
Charles Wood (10:14.163) But.
Brandon Burton (10:25.185) And he talks about what he can see in the next year or two, but he talks three to five years out. He’s like, I have no idea what that future looks like because things are moving so quickly. So to that point, I think we have to be adaptable and keep looking to what does the future look like now, instead of what did it look like five years ago? Anyway, not really a question there, but just more of an observation.
Charles Wood (10:32.568) Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Wood (10:51.374) Yeah, and we, you know, we do operate on a five year strategy. We’ve, we’ve done, we’re kind of in the middle of our second one that we’ve done. And that’s really helpful. We’ve got kind of four, four pillars in that strategy. One is around economic growth. One is talent. One is innovation. And then the fourth is champion our members. And so, but you know, you’ve also got to think way beyond that, right, as you go. So I think that’s a
Brandon Burton (10:56.594) Good.
Charles Wood (11:19.324) That’s a critical part of the calculus that you have to have when you’re working in this industry and you’re trying to influence the outcome of your community over a long period of time.
Brandon Burton (11:33.095) Right, yeah. So I’m curious from your background in economic development as you approach these different, I’m going to say chamber topics for lack of a better term right now.
I see and we talked before the recording every chamber. Hopefully every chamber sees Themselves having some role in economic development whether they have that formal responsibility Or if they’re a supporting cast to you know, economic development corporation within their community But when it’s all under the same roof How do you see? Okay, this is a this is a chamber direction. This is economic development
because there’s so many things that can kind of blur the lines. And I know there’s your mission and all that, but how do you delineate where the focus goes?
Charles Wood (12:21.432) But.
Charles Wood (12:29.534) Yeah, I think one of the things I’ve enjoyed the most about kind of coming into the CEO role is playing a bigger role in influencing some of our more traditional membership kind of, you know, programs so that they have a strategic impact on our economic development work. And so we’re…
We have four big signature events that we do every year. One is a holiday party. That one is just a great time. It’s like our house party. There’s no speeches. I haven’t dinkered with that. But we have our economic outlook event, which we’ll have next week actually. we have an economist that comes up from the Atlanta Fed, which of course this is something chambers do all the time. But we’ve added basically a fireside chat.
Brandon Burton (13:02.736) it.
Charles Wood (13:20.891) this year that will be between the incoming CEO for our utility company, which is a whole lot more than a utility. They run all our fiber here as well with a consulting firm that’s doing a competitiveness analysis for us on Chattanooga and looking at how, you know, what processes, what incentives, what policies we can look at to make the community more competitive long-term in terms of economic development. And so,
We’ve added that component into that event very much in a way to try and educate and influence how our members, our elected officials are thinking about what does Chattanooga look like? Not just like what’s the economic outlook look like for the next year, but how do we influence what our economy looks like over the next decade? And so we’ve implemented that into that program. run a…
a program around diversity that we do every June. Last year, a big part of that program was centered around artificial intelligence and how we prepare our members, in particular diverse businesses, to leverage AI, take advantage of it and not get run over by it, right? And so it had always been more of a celebration of kind of diverse businesses, which is great.
but we really wanted to present some tools and kind of provide tools to our diverse businesses as they’re thinking about what the future looks like. using our events to influence that economic development lens is a big focus for us as we kind of think about what does the organization look like in the future? So that’s just a couple of examples of ways we’ve…
We’ve tried to take more traditional chamber of commerce kind of focus and then add an economic development kind of bent to that. And we’ve changed some of our other programming around to do similar things as well. we have what’s a pretty unique structure with area councils. These are almost operate like volunteer led chambers of commerce that cover a certain geography in the community.
Brandon Burton (15:43.119) Okay.
Charles Wood (15:44.382) And we used to have 12. One of those was not geographically based. The other 11 were. And we pared that down, which was challenging. I used the description of sacred cows make the best hamburger, right? So we were making hamburger out of sacred cows. And we kind of.
Brandon Burton (15:59.998) Yeah.
Yeah.
Charles Wood (16:10.273) required several of those to merge down and kind of, and so we, grew their footprint, but it allowed us to free up staff time. And then that staff time now we’re deploying. So one is we created an owners only council, which is very curated. So we don’t let anybody in. There’s no salespeople in it. Like it is just a peer network for business owners.
which has been pretty successful. And then we plan on launching probably one or two industry specific councils so that those councils will be almost like a resource for our economic development team. And then we also took on management of an outside entity called the Chattanooga Regional Manufacturers Association. So,
Brandon Burton (16:43.877) love that.
Charles Wood (17:03.429) If you met Bea in St. Paul, we took a page out of her book of kind of entering into a memorandum of understanding where we’re the management kind of association management partner for that manufacturers association, which has also got a lot of history. It was founded in 1902. And so we have a chamber staff person that’s managing that association.
Brandon Burton (17:09.359) Yeah.
Charles Wood (17:28.512) One of our economic development staff is heavily engaged on that from a workforce and economic development perspective, and so we freed up kind of capacity by effectively eliminating some programs so we could add some things back in that have, you know, I think that will create a lot more value from an economic development standpoint.
Brandon Burton (17:47.996) Yeah, those are great examples. I love the idea of all the programming having a strategic purpose being tied into that points back to economic development. And I think that’s something that could be replicated for any size chamber, wherever they are, to just say, you know, whatever the current programming is, what can we do to elevate it and take it to the next level and give it a purpose that points back to our mission and what we’re doing and really help to drive
more purpose in the community. And it goes back to that constant evolving and modernizing things. So you had mentioned earlier that the staff and everybody has, for the most part, adapted very well to change that’s been going on. And even as you’re talking about these committees that cover geography, you phrased it in a way that you expanded their foot.
Charles Wood (18:18.91) Yep, absolutely.
Charles Wood (18:31.044) You You
Brandon Burton (18:45.273) So instead of eliminating, expanding, instead of eliminating, I like that. Just the way things are phrased. A positive outlook on it. But what are some of these other changes that have been implemented, that have been received well, that are helping with that goal of evolving?
Charles Wood (19:06.348) Yeah, I think, and I will say like change is hard, right? And so make no mistake, you know, we’ve had some team members that have been here for a long time and it is, yeah, for them it’s much more challenging. You know, when we bring on new team members, know, this is all new to them and so it’s just normal. But it is pretty challenging. You know, another, know, we’ve been…
Brandon Burton (19:10.109) Sure is.
Brandon Burton (19:27.762) Yeah.
Charles Wood (19:33.7) Working really hard to leverage our leadership programs has been another initiative around that. And so we run a program called Leadership Chattanooga. It just celebrated its 40th anniversary. And that program has really been interesting. It used to be much more centered around building a network, learning a little more about the community, that kind of thing. But the curriculum, it’s an eight month program.
Brandon Burton (19:49.213) you
Charles Wood (20:03.549) And over the last few years, the curriculum has transitioned to align with our strategic plan. So I mentioned those four big pillars for us. So we actually have a session that’s focused around economic mobility. We have a program centered around talent. We have a program centered around entrepreneurship and innovation. And so we’re doing our best to of steep each class.
Brandon Burton (20:05.563) We’re going to have wait for
Brandon Burton (20:13.821) I’m not a big fan of the social service that we have. I’m not a big fan of the service. I’m not a big of the social I don’t know what else we can do to help most vulnerable people.
Charles Wood (20:33.348) in what that strategy looks like. So that frankly, when they exit, they become our champions. They become a champion for that work. And so by transitioning it into kind of overlapping with our strategic plan, that’s been a really big help. And then the second thing we’ve done is kind of tie a little bit of it to our government relations effort.
Brandon Burton (20:43.345) Yeah.
Charles Wood (21:00.589) So one of the questions now that we ask when folks are exiting, when they graduate that program is, are you considering, would you consider running for office in the future? And so, right, because in a perfect world, as a business organization, you wanna see your local elected leaders and even your national elected leaders come from a business environment.
Brandon Burton (21:12.891) Okay.
Brandon Burton (21:18.653) Thank
Brandon Burton (21:27.388) Yeah.
Charles Wood (21:28.841) And so for us, that’s a strategic opportunity. Last year, our young professionals group hosted a, so you think you want to run for office kind of session, did some training around that to kind of get folks ready if they were interested in it. And so I think, as we think about, how do you take
How do you embed your economic enrollment strategy into your leadership programs? And then how do you leverage your leadership programs to drive kind of that opportunity around potential future elected officials? That’s a long-term play. It will take certainly more than five years to do, but the goal there is that when folks do run for office, they get elected, then we become a resource for them when they’re in office.
Brandon Burton (21:54.077) Thank
Brandon Burton (21:57.982) and I’m to do some of that. And I’m going to some of that I’ve been working for the past minutes. So, I’m going go ahead and turn this off. See you. Bye.
Charles Wood (22:18.954) and that they’re coming into office with a good understanding of a lot of the priorities that we have.
Brandon Burton (22:22.077) Yeah, hopefully it creates an ally in those public offices. So as you guys ask that question as they graduate out of the program, what kind of response do get? Is it more of planting a seed or are you getting responses that are like, yeah, or no way? I don’t know.
Charles Wood (22:39.458) It’s a, it’s a, mean, most say no, know, most say we’re not, I’m not gonna do that. And it’s, I would say it’s harder now, right, to I think convince people that are in a business background to run for office than it’s probably ever been. Because, you know, we’re just, the country as a whole is so divided politically, it’s challenging. But we, last year we had city elections, we had a recent,
Brandon Burton (22:44.23) Yeah.
Charles Wood (23:08.942) a graduate from Leadership Chattanooga that came in as a city council member. He’s now chairing the Economic Development Committee for the Chattanooga City Council, which is great. And then we have county elections this year and we have one Leadership Chattanooga graduate who is running for a school board seat. So we’ll see if they end up in that. And so I think over time, right, the hope is that you have more and more folks that are willing to take that leap.
Brandon Burton (23:38.012) Yeah, that’s awesome. I love that. And just, think, asking the question, it does kind of help plant that seed. And as opportunities come up, they can fall back on the experience they had in leadership Chattanooga and say, know what? I could be a candidate, and I could help see through some positive change and things that would help the business environment. So I love that you guys are asking that question and doing the programming for the young professionals. That’s awesome.
Charles Wood (24:00.795) Yeah.
Brandon Burton (24:06.141) I haven’t heard of other chambers doing that. I’m sure they do, but I haven’t heard it yet.
Charles Wood (24:06.61) Yeah.
Charles Wood (24:10.146) I would imagine they do. It’s just, to me, it’s a matter of being really intentional. You know, I mean, you just, you’ve gotta be, hopefully you’re thinking several years out and you’re being really intentional, you know, with each program to think about how that program can then impact the community beyond what happens at the chamber, right?
Brandon Burton (24:31.611) Right, yeah, I love that. Well, I always like to ask for those who are listening who obviously, maybe not so obviously, but they have a desire to take their organization up to the next level. I’d to see what kind of tip or action item you might suggest as they strive towards accomplishing that goal.
Charles Wood (24:54.913) Yeah, think, you know, to me, one thing is, is don’t be afraid to change. You know, I think that as an association, we’re all effectively chambers are all association organizations. You can’t get too stuck in kind of what you’ve always done. It creates a lot of risk. so,
I think as we’re in the middle of a nominating process right now, and I would say, be thoughtful around who’s coming onto your board, that they’re comfortable with change and taking some risks. I read an article a little while back that was basically titled, Staying in Your Lane is Overrated. And it used Amazon as an example. And basically,
The idea was Amazon was a bookstore, right? For those of us old enough to remember, and they built this e-commerce website. And what happened over time is they had to build out all of this technology infrastructure to be able to sustain that business, right? And that infrastructure is what created AWS. And so they went from being an e-commerce organization to being an incredible technology company.
Brandon Burton (25:52.423) Great.
Brandon Burton (26:11.196) Yeah.
Charles Wood (26:18.584) And it was all because they didn’t stay in their lane. And so I think that to me was a really interesting kind of message, I think, to take from what is now, of course, one of the largest companies on the planet, but think about how a company that’s built this great business is still innovating. They’re still looking at how they create, right?
Brandon Burton (26:40.701) Yeah, I think that’s a good example of looking to where things are going in the future and say, yeah, as a bookseller, you know, they’re not the big online retailer yet, but they see that’s where the future is going. And they build up the infrastructure starting with selling books and then adding more things. And then they see where things are going, you know, more, you know, in a digital landscape. then, know, AWS get, I say, get spun up, but it’s more than that.
right? But they’re seeing where the future is going and they’re laying that the roads, they’re paving roads to that future. And as Chambers, we can do the same thing and we can help the businesses that are within our organization see that future and pave their roads. And that’s what it’s all about to be evolving and look into the future. So I love that response. Which leads me into my next question as we look to the future of Chambers.
Charles Wood (27:11.065) Yep.
Charles Wood (27:34.079) I think that, and I’m gonna plug a friend of mine’s book for anybody who’s met Amy Holloway, but she’s got a book coming out around trust and trust building. And I mentioned kind of this dynamic, the political dynamic, right? That we’re kind of facing as a country and even globally.
Brandon Burton (27:39.709) How do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?
Charles Wood (28:04.018) And I think we have a role to play around how we help build trust in our communities. I think if we can do nothing else over the next decade, I think thinking about how we work with our local government partners and the private sector to build trust. the business community continues to be one of the, think, most trusted kind of…
Brandon Burton (28:24.125) Thank you.
Charles Wood (28:31.295) kind of groups that’s out there. And I think we need to make sure we’re thinking about how we help build trust in our communities, certainly across the country as chambers.
Brandon Burton (28:43.461) Yeah, that’s so valuable. These people don’t know what to trust anymore. Even from scrolling through social media, you never know what I’m reading. Is this real or is this fake news or AI thing or whatever? So being that source of truth and trust is so important in today’s age. I love that.
Charles Wood (28:57.193) That’s right.
Brandon Burton (29:06.653) Well, Charles, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information or anywhere you might point people who might want to learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Chattanooga. Where would you point them and what would be the best way to…
Charles Wood (29:19.02) Sure, absolutely. So certainly my email, is cwood at chattanoogachamber.com. I’ll let y’all figure out how to spell Chattanooga. And then of course our website, which is chattanoogachamber.com is another good spot that’ll get you there. And then I’m on LinkedIn. I’m on a bunch of other social media platforms, but I don’t pay any attention to those, but I am on LinkedIn and reasonably active. So that’s another great way to reach me.
Brandon Burton (29:46.041) That’s great. We’ll get all of that in our show notes to make it easy to find you and connect. But I really appreciate you setting aside some time and sharing some of your experience and insights with us here on Chamber Chat Podcast. You provided a lot of value for us today, so I appreciate it.
Charles Wood (30:02.216) Thanks so much, Brandon. Appreciate it.
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