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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

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You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE chamber, the year finalist series. And as our guest for this episode, we have Juliet Abdel and Bob Ross with the Greater Topeka Partnership. Juliet serves as the president of the Greater Topeka Chamber, making history as the first woman to lead the organization since its founding in 1933 she’s recognized among the top 1% of chamber executives nationwide, and contributes her expertise to various leadership and advisory boards, including the ACCE and Leadership Program of the Rockies. Juliet’s commitment to community service is evident through her involvement with organizations like the American Heart Association’s Go Red program and women of heart, as well as her service on the US Chamber board of directors. She holds a Master’s Degree in International Studies and has authored publications on female empowerment and entrepreneurship. Juliet strategic leadership has earned statewide and national recognition as she is multilingual, speaking English, Arabic and Turkish. Bob is the Chief Marketing Officer for the greater Topeka partnership, and he plays a key role in promoting economic growth and community development in Topeka and shiny County. A Topeka native Bob has extensive experience in merchandise allocation and planning, having spent over 15 years at Payless shoe source, including leading international operations in Israel, Peru, Thailand, Vietnam and Australia. Bob returned to Topeka in 2019 and now contributes his expertise to advancing the initiatives of the Greater Topeka Partnership, working alongside Juliet to drive growth and success for the region. But Bob Juliet, welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. We’re excited to have you on the show today. Congratulations to you guys, and your team has been selected as a chamber of the year finalist. It’s very exciting, but I wanted to give you both a chance to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are out there listening, and if you would humor us and share something interesting about yourself, so we can all get to know you both a little bit better. Juliet, you want to go first

Juliet Abdel 3:26
Sure. Thank you so much, Brandon for having us both on here. You’ve done an exceptionally a great job about summarizing our achievements, and it’s so well, and I’m just, you know, gawking at myself without even, you know, blinking an eye. But no super exciting time for us, of course, and to see our organization gets to this level and and to have this attention on a lot of the initiatives and programs that we have going on. So you know, you’ve already led with a lot of amazing things. So one interesting thing about myself is I’m branded as the self care boss, because I always continue to advocate for self care and holistic wellness by focusing on mental, emotional and physical well being. So in my personal life, I do a lot of speaking engagements. I lead Love Yourself boot camps. I am a published author, international radio show host, and that is what holds me personally accountable to my own personal goals in life, and having that balance as much as I can have in a crazy, busy world that we live in, I

Brandon Burton 4:27
love that. That’s awesome. Bob, how about yourself?

Bob Ross 4:31
Well, Julie, it’s a tough act to follow, but I will say, you know, probably a distinguishing factor of me, as I’m a proud dad of five kids that keep me very, very, very busy, and my per capita income very, very low, as I am constantly navigating their dreams. But it’s also part of the reason why I’m so passionate about this work, because I do believe what chambers can do is they really set the table for future generations, and so leaving the private sector after. For 20 years, it allowed me to discover an industry which is about, you know, investing in that future generation by creating a better community, you know, for my kids. And I think that that’s, you know, exciting work. And I think that often the chamber industry is not fully understood. But when people do work and discover it. They realize it’s, you know, really such an important part of the mission of, you know, handing off a better generation to the one that comes behind us. So, so, yeah, that’s a little about

Brandon Burton 5:32
me. That’s great not to put you on the spot, Bob. But what’s the range of the

Bob Ross 5:36
kids now? They are my youngest. She is 15. My oldest is 23 and so, yeah, so I got three in college, which is why I constantly feel broke. 24/7 is that I often tell people, it’s like, you think when they’re 18, that you are good. No, they just become more expensive after they’re 18. And but, yeah, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Like I said, they definitely keep me on my toes. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 6:00
that’s great. Um, well, Juliet, why don’t you tell us a little bit about the greater Topeka partnership. Just to give us an idea of size, staff, scope of work, you guys are involved with budget, just kind of set the stage.

Juliet Abdel 6:13
Sure. I’m going to give a 3000 foot perspective. I think Bob said it so well when people don’t understand what our industry is and how much of a hidden gem it is. Let’s even further add to that, these layers of differences between one community to the next and how Chambers of Commerce is operate. Our community is super unique because we have this collaborative structure that’s Brandon as the greater Topeka partnership. And what that essentially means is we have four organizations that have come together, that touch Economic Community Development, all agreeing to this economic vitality and pursuing this hope, happiness and wealth for Topeka and the surrounding region. And we do that through cross collaboration, through working together to advance initiatives and projects forward, and of course, through sharing resources, staff and even office space. So when we’re looking at the entire partnership, that’s upward of 40 employees that work here, about a $13 million budget that’s mixed between public and private sector, the individual entities that make us up, of course, represent collectively, the 1000 plus members that we have in the surrounding community, and that’s businesses, it’s nonprofits, it’s key stakeholders that you can think of and attribute to our population in that in our service areas, about 178,000 so the four organizations that came together, of course, were the Chamber of Commerce, which I lead, as you shared, that is A group that’s focused on government affairs, regulatory support, public policy efforts, connecting businesses to resources and, of course, to their elected officials. Go to pica, who will spend some time on as it relates to this specific effort, handles all of our economic development for Topeka and Shawnee County, focusing on business retention expansion, support, through incentives, through workforce development, childcare, and through different events and trainings that are designed to equip those businesses with ultimate success. Visit Topeka is focused on attracting people to our area and activating our residents and ensuring that people are aware of the things that that they can visibly go out and see, things they can do, where to stay, shop and dine and essentially invest in a community, if they’re coming from outside and if they’re internally here, then grow to appreciate the things that make us truly unique. And the fourth being downtown Topeka, which is focused on ensuring that our heartbeat for the community continues to thrive and continues to be available to those merchants that make up your traditional Main Street corridor. And so they focus on things like safety, Beautification and grants, and again, being that resource for those businesses that are in the area. So four powerful organizations that convene and collaborate and partner under the name of the greater Topeka partnership. We’re still separate organizations, separate budgets, bylaws. We just have this very incestuous relationship that I find my best to explain. I

Brandon Burton 9:13
think you did a fantastic job explaining it, and I love how you guys can take advantage of that overlap to be able to share some staff and some responsibilities, but still keep things separate. I also really like with visit Topeka, you talked about activating residents. I’m like that is such a great term to activate residents so well for the majority of our conversation today, what we want to do is focus on the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application that are being highlighted, and we will dive into those with much greater detail as soon as I get back from this quick break.

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Brandon Burton 12:40
All right, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’re going to cover the two program synopsis that were included in your chamber of the year application. Lindsay, it’s my understanding you had a significant, pretty significant role in the application and pulling everything together. So I’d like to hand the microphone over to you and have you highlight, I know there’s two different programs, one about an airport, one about move to Jackson. Do you want to highlight move to Jackson for us first, and what that program, what the origins were, kind of the background and and how things have evolved to what it is today.

Brandon Burton 12:36
All right, we are back, as I mentioned before the break, we’re diving into the two programs from your chamber of the year application, Bob, I want to hand the microphone over to you and have you highlight the first program, which I believe you called choose Topeka, 2.0 you want to tell us what that’s all about.

Bob Ross 12:55
Absolutely choose Topeka began in 2019 as a program through our economic development organization, go Topeka, and you have to understand the funding model for go Topeka, we enjoy a percentage of a half cent sales tax, which generates about $5 million a year, and funding that can be used to attract businesses through traditional business attraction efforts. It’s used to invest in our small businesses to encourage growth within our community, but uniquely, we began to look at how we can deploy those dollars to enhance and attract talent. And with Topeka, it’s a unique community that, you know, I often tell people, up until 1980 this community was growing at about a 20% decennial rate, but through the 90s and 2000s our growth really stalled to really be pretty much low single digits to flat as we started moving into 2020, and choose. Topeka was a program that was initiated to reintroduce our community, not just to the state of Kansas, but to the region and across the world. And part of that was driven by the fact that Topeka is a community over the last 10 years, has radically chose to reinvest in itself, with over $500 million put into our downtown with new business growth, and we’ve done the work to rebuild our community. Now we wanted essentially people to essentially rediscover it, because as late as 2020, over 40% of our workforce chose to work in Topeka but live outside the community. So the Choose program was developed with one core component, which is offering people up to $15,000 to relocate to Topeka and Shawnee County if they were to work for one of our local employers during the pandemic, we layered in a remote work incentive, which became very popular. But then in 2023 we relaunched the program as choose Topeka 2.0 we sunset. The remote worker incentive. But decided to look at, what does Topeka need to do to compete for talent and raise awareness as our community as a place to work, live and play, and what advantages could we offer that conversation? And choose Topeka 2.0 layered in a $5,000 relocation grant to those that formerly lived in our community, $5,000 to those who are transitioning veterans, because we have nearby Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth, as well as our own local Air National Guard and Air Force contingent here in Topeka. But then we also started to consider what other ways could we attract the workforce we need in our community? And we began to look at just the strengths our community had to offer. And we noticed immediately, Topeka has a very strong and proud Hispanic heritage. Often say there were three communities or three groups that originally founded the city back in the 19th century. They were abolitionists, freed slaves and Mexican immigrants that came to build the railroad. To build the railroad, and so for over 100 years, our Mexican community, you know, has thrived for 92 years. We have a vibrant Fiesta, and we really have a lot of Latino excellence within our city. So we decided, You know what, let’s capitalize on that, knowing that there are 100,000 Spanish speakers in the Kansas City Metro, which is 45 minutes to our east, and there’s over 300,000 Spanish speakers across the state of Kansas, how do we begin to reach out to them and let them know if you’re legally eligible to work and Topeka and Shawnee County, we want you that this is a community that’s Very welcoming that we have jobs here we are growing. And how do we begin to speak and engage with them about the programs, like our incentive programs and other assets, which makes peak a really dynamic place to live. And so what we did was is we essentially started producing all of our collateral in Spanish, including 110 page tourism and relocation guide. And then we began to also court our national media, because we enjoy a great relationship with a New Jersey based PR firm, and we began to really just talk about this intentionality with Spanish language, and that really captured a lot of interest. We were able to welcome Telemundo into our community. And October of 2023 we were able to get the Wall Street Journal here. And there was a disruptive element to a community that identified Hispanic migration is a solution to a problem, not a problem. We also worked with local nonprofits, and there’s a group called top city promise, which began to actively work with refugee groups that were legally eligible to work in the United States following the onset of the Ukraine war. And through that program, although they’re not eligible for the incentive per se, we were able to essentially come alongside them and see what we can do to connect them to employers. And that particular program brought over 200 Ukrainian refugees who had work eligibility through the United for Ukraine program, we were able to get them job placement at a 90% rate, serving important workforce needs within our community. And I will say, after our Telemundo appearance, that particular moment went viral across Spanish language, Tiktok garnering billions of views across the Spanish speaking world, and really drove a highly motivated population to find a way to Topeka. I mean, we had, within days, people showing up at our door saying, you know, knocking on our door, asking for information about how they can relocate their business to Topeka. We had one gentleman, his son and his grandfather, who have a business in New Jersey, who said they heard about Topeka is a great place for Hispanics, and they wanted to see what they could do, and so we had to rapidly spin up our Spanish speaking staff to be able to engage these communities also address some misconceptions about the program, and, you know, really kind of harness that momentum. It has proven to be incredibly successful, to the point where the Brookings Report released data at the spring of this year, which showed that 99% of Topeka is growth over the last year, was from foreign born groups, and that’s a tremendous movement, because when you do live in Kansas, you’re in a community which is fantastic, but we’re often considered flyover country. So you know, trying to get a mobilized workforce from around the country that is considering where they want to live, getting on their radar was the first hurdle. So we tried to activate every vehicle at our disposal. And so I think between the incentives and our foreign language outreach, we were able to really make a dent and reverse a trend some additional metrics showing how the progress has. Worked. You know that decline in population or stagnation has been reversed to the point in 2023 we led the state of Kansas in population growth. We now boast one of the top 10 housing markets in the United States, and in the fall of 2023 we ended up rising up to be the number one housing market in the United States, according to the Wall Street Journal and realtor.com so this, this intentionality focused with, you know, a pretty bold use of funding really helped push us forward we’re now. One of our biggest concerns is, how do we keep up with the housing demand? Because Topeka was not quite ready for the shift in momentum that we enjoyed. That was

Brandon Burton 20:40
going to be one of my questions. There’s going to be these the fallout from such growth so quickly. And I love how you said you took what may be considered a problem in some communities and really seeing it as a strength, as an asset and an asset. But when you have that kind of rapid growth overnight, that that creates other problems, right? But absolutely, but problems we’re all happy to deal with because it means progress. So I can imagine, when there’s in most communities, there’s a pretty large segment of the community that has a certain level of comfort with how things are, and then they see a disruption like this that comes in, even though it’s a good thing that are going to be kind of that squeaky wheel in a community. I’m curious, where was there any attention that needed to be paid to the policy side of this to make sure that everything Bob talked about making sure people are legally able to work in the community? Juliet, what what was the approach from the policy standpoint? Yeah,

Juliet Abdel 21:43
that’s such a great question, and it’s, it’s always one of those where explaining the structure really explains how we approach everything, because we know that things naturally happen as initiatives are are brought forward. So there are three things that I just want to quickly unpack and all of these amazing comments that Bob threw out there. One is, of course, from a policy perspective, we’re here for our business community and make sure that that it is favorable for their continued growth and for them to continue to thrive in the space that they’re in. And we know a crucial component to that is things, not only in the space of economic development, but to really pare that down even further. That touches workforce development. It touches housing and it touches cost of living, and that’s all of those marry into this economic prosperity piece that we spoke to earlier. So this initiative was one, as Bob was sharing earlier. You know, it really was focused and came out of our Go economic development arm, but it touched a number of different sectors in our community, as he shared, right the military component transitional soldiers that touches our chamber, because we have a military Relations Council that’s purely designed to build this defense ecosystem to support with workforce development opportunities for those that have served. I mean, Kansas has over seven different installations across the state, and we have, of course, our Kansas Air National Guard that’s here, are 1/90 refueling wing, and then Forbes field. So it naturally had that overlap that’s there. The component of the housing piece is super interesting, because I don’t know what community isn’t feeling a strain on housing. We just have had such a boom in all places possible. And so to that, you know, to that end, we’ve always continued to advocate that we need to come up with simpler and easier solutions for those that are looking to do business in our community, to find it easy to enter our market. And what are those things that we can do to make it more of an opportune environment for someone to invest in building new homes or building homes that are the missing middle we have a number of our businesses that support a diversity of housing. So it’s not just one type of housing. It is all of them that we are looking to try and continue to see come live, the single family homes, the condos, affordable housing, and the whole gamut. Because it’s people become economically more mobile. They they also transition into different types of rentals or home ownership. And then the component of you know this perception is everyone’s reality sometimes. So semantics are really important in this conversation. That’s why we specifically worded it as legally eligible individuals that are here because we know that all types of residents contribute to our pipelines, but we also rely on a significant number of workers that come from outside of the US to feed into our different industries. And so our continued approach has been we need immigration reform that makes sense, while we understand that we want to protect our nation and our interests and and keep as much focus on the process as possible, and really having a great structure. There is a backlog on worker visa permits. There are times where individuals are here and they’re here working, but it’s been delayed in their process to continue to. Send out, and that creates uncertainty. And anytime there’s uncertainty, it causes disruption in our businesses and their ability to kind of forecast moving forward as well. So I know that touches a few different things, but I wanted to throw it out there, because as Bob was sharing, I was like, Oh, this is another piece we we overlap, and that that relationship that we have helps us in making sure the messaging is appropriate, and we’re thinking of all the things that we can

Brandon Burton 25:25
possible. Yeah, I like to think of it as job security at the chamber. You know, you guys create a great program that drives, you know, workforce development and economic development, but it creates other things that you need to address now, you know, like we talked about with housing and and things like that, immigration reform, things that that need to be addressed and and keeps the the relevancy for what the chamber does. But let’s, I love that program. Let’s shift gears and and turn the focus on the second program. Bob, if you want to highlight what the second program is, you guys submitted on your application?

Bob Ross 26:01
Yeah, absolutely. You know, at Topeka, like many communities around the country, you know, back in the 1980s this city invested in the development of a real destination Mall. It was a million square foot piece of retail real estate. Vanna White came to cut the ribbon on it. It really embodied everything that the 80s and 90s and early 2000s represented in terms of mall traffic and became a real draw across the state, like most malls across the country, towards the 2000 10s and going through the pandemic, that piece of real estate in our community, which anchors a billion dollar commercial corridor for us really started to see distress. You know, shopping patterns were changing. That million square foot piece of retail real estate began to decline to the point where we only had about 25% occupancy in it, and we had a more predatory real estate developer purchase the mall post pandemic, without really the intention of developing the asset for long term success. So our community recognized it as a potential real challenge, not just to you know, our continued ability to attack or attract and retain talent, but also to really project ourselves as a destination across the region. And we were fortunate that in 2023 one of our major employers, advisors Excel, saw the potential in that real estate to make it a development project which could enhance their own growth plans, but also give back to the community that gave them success. So advisors Excel is one of the largest financial marketing firms and wealth management groups in the country. They have over 1000 employees, and they are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, and their rapid growth has led to increasing demand for how do they keep up with the ability to work from work and provide office space for all their staff within Topeka, their founders identified the mall is a solution to this challenge, and they purchased that mall with the intention of redeveloping it into 400,000 square feet of office space as well as 600,000 square feet mixed use dining restaurant lifestyle space. Because as also, offices and employers across the country are figuring out how to incentivize workers to be back in the office and be happy about it. They really saw the ability of creating this new mixed use campus as a way of really rewarding their employees for being back in the office space, contributing to that sense of corporate culture, but providing the amenities that they need. So now how the partnership features in this particular conversation, we began to think of ways that we could enhance this effort and draw awareness for this retail redevelopment project, and what our team decided to do was to look at how we do our annual meeting and re imagine that is a way of being a part of this catalytic announcement of a new future for Westridge Mall. So we took our annual meeting, we moved it into the mall, and we really created a 1980s themed mall party, and brought in a popular 1980s pop star, Tiffany, known for her mall tour during that era, to really headline our event. And everyone came and themed attire. You know, you had stonewashed jeans and people tight rolling their jeans and neon T shirts. And we also worked with our local businesses to essentially re skin the food court so that it would look like a 1980s food court. And this really proved to be an exciting event for our community. It normally annual meetings tend to be kind of closed off events where people buy their tables and we still. Had that element involved in ours, but since it was held in the food court, the programming and the experience was also open to the public for the first time. So you did buy tables as normal, but the public was invited to kind of stand outside of the event zone and enjoy the the concert, hear about the community’s progress, and it really proved to be an exciting way of kind of jump starting that mall project and raising awareness for it on a national scale. As our as advisors Excel and their team looks to reintroduce that property to national retailers and bringing businesses back. So I always like to use it as a way of encouraging chambers of commerce across the country to get creative with their programming and see how even existing things that they’re doing can be leveraged, leveraged or reimagined, to provide added value to their businesses and economic development

Brandon Burton 30:56
projects. That’s awesome. I’m having all these flashbacks in my mind of the 80s and what the malls look like in their hat. So I’m curious, did you guys serve hot dog on the stick and Orange Julius?

Bob Ross 31:06
We did. We absolutely had an we did. We had an Orange Julius sought. We also set up a GTP shots the instead of glamor shots, where people could get a feather boa and get their their pictures. So we brought in a DeLorean from Back to the Future. We really created a pretty exciting event, especially for those that grew up in the 80s and 90s. It it re awoken people how much they loved having the mall space, and got people excited about the project, because we know it’s going to be a couple of years before this mall gets rebuilt and redeveloped. So it got people really engaged and looking for ways to be a part of the momentum. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 31:43
So Is there plans to continue? You talked about enhancing the efforts that this mixed use development space looks like as a chamber. Do you guys have continued plans to try to continue drawing a focus there and keep that excitement up for the development

Bob Ross 31:59
Absolutely. Yeah, the partnership. We’re fortunate, because we do, you know, share assets across all four entities. And so we actually do leverage our ability for graphic design, for marketing, to be able to support our key economic development projects as a way of enhancing how go to pica. Can invest in projects without investing dollars. So we work very closely with the team of advisors Excel and the mall management team creating collateral which allows them to sell the community and to help them to tell the story of whites. Peak is a great place for retail and restaurant to invest in. And we also work very closely with those retail site selectors as they visit, by meeting those teams, and once again, just talking up why coming back to this mall and coming back to this community at this time is a great opportunity, because retail and dining isn’t always a focus for economic development groups like go Topeka, but We see these kind of passive ways to engage that are not necessarily dollar incentive driven, is an important way of contributing to that ecosystem, because if you don’t have great retail and dining, it’s hard to get the people to move and it’s hard to get the businesses to relocate. So we’ve gotten very engaged and just actually led a tour last week of them all, and spoke about what this project means for our community.

Brandon Burton 33:24
That’s awesome. I love it. And the idea of using your annual meeting as that delivery system to highlight the development in the community, I think is such a great idea. And I’ve seen other chambers utilize their annual meeting for similar purposes, and probably not to this scale, but, but it’s a great, great tool to utilize. As we begin to wrap things up, I wanted to to ask you both for chambers listening who want to take their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you both have to offer and trying to accomplish that goal.

Juliet Abdel 34:00
You know, I always say the sky is the limit in our industry. We are we’re so unique and fortunate that we can get creative and we can be nimble and agile and and and our hands being involved in so many parts of our community allow us to do that and really to have champions that surround those efforts. So don’t be afraid to kind of be bold and look at look and seek those opportunities. And then the other part of it is for us to continue to be relevant. It’s super necessary for us to take those bold opportunities and not continue to do what we’ve always done, because what was working decades ago, or, you know, years ago, isn’t what works today, and if we continue to do the same things over and over again, then we start losing our relevancy. And so to be and continue to be relevant, we have to have a pulse for what’s in the community, and be brave enough to take those bold, bold actions to guide and steer those conversations

Brandon Burton 34:59
Absolutely. Great, Bob, what thoughts might you have to share?

Bob Ross 35:02
Yeah, I would just say, just I speak to a lot of chambers across the country about the idea of what the partnership model represents, and I think there is incredible value in getting those kind of community stakeholder organizations in each city together, even if they’re not a part of a formal partnership, to really align on shared mission and value. So getting your main street, your tourism, your eco Devo, your chamber of commerce around the table, figuring out your strategy and working together to advance with one voice. What I found that hurt Topeka during those years in which population stagnated, you had each of these different verticals, all kind of marching to their own drum, all kind of fighting for their own turf. And we hit a point in our community’s growth where we needed to come together, and our business leaders pushed for it, and so that created the partnership, where it forced every entity to give up a certain amount of authority and autonomy, but allowed each one to now activate more powerfully because they’re not operating alone. They’re able to share costs, they’re able to share vision, and so even if a chamber is not able to create a partnership model, just be very intentional about seeking out and working with those stakeholders in your community so that you don’t have to do this alone, and that everyone is working together off the same script. And I think when you can do that, and you’re all singing along to the same song, your entire community is going to thrive as a result.

Brandon Burton 36:29
Yeah, absolutely. Juliet, I’ll focus this question to you, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward.

Juliet Abdel 36:41
You know, I think what we’re seeing now already is this review of membership and investment in our organizations, and the older concept of, you know, you join and you get as much as you put into it, it’s becoming increasingly less likely to be the case because, because more and more people are occupied running their business day in and day out, and so the ability for us to become more of an extension of their team, continue to pivot and do things for them ahead of when it impacts them, and provide them solutions to them ahead of time. I think that’s where we’re seeing most success in our industry is continuing to be relevant, continuing to be forward thinking, and continuing to know that it’s not this join you have to come to every single thing, but it’s invest instead, into what opportunities around you that continue to ensure that you thrive, and that that would probably be where I feel the direction is, you know, There’s a I’ll point to, and this is because here’s my board plugin for ACC. I’ll point to the horizon initiative that was just released. And if you’re not privy to this, the study that was conducted was after, you know, over a decade from the last time that we had a study, and the idea was to try and look at what does the future of chambers look like, and how do we continue to operate? But some of the contents of that study really focused on being catalytic, convening and champion your community, and in operating in all of those spaces simultaneously as an organization that continues to breathe life into into the populations that we serve. So if you haven’t already done so, pick that horizon up, because it has some really good nuggets of the things that you can be doing and things to watch out for and really start to incorporate into the future.

Brandon Burton 38:31
Yeah, for anybody who’s is just living under a rock and doesn’t know horizon, look at the original one from 10 years ago, and look at 2.0 and you’ll, you’ll kind of be blown away to to read the the first horizon initiative and and to realize how spot on it really was, and if we look at that forward with the 2.0 I anticipate similar accuracy. So, so before we let you go. I wanted to give you both an opportunity to share any contact information for people who may want to reach out and learn more about the programs that have been highlighted, or just in general, how you guys are doing things there in Topeka, what would be the best way for individuals to reach out and connect with you both?

Juliet Abdel 39:16
So I will, I’ll start, and then I’ll throw it at you, Bob, but GreaterTopekaPartnership.com has all the information about all these organizations and the functions of what we do and how we operate, also has links to the any external affiliate entities that we have underneath us, as our social media does as well. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and several other platforms. I will say personally, you can find me on LinkedIn, Juliet Abdel and I always am open to new friends and more friends, and that is the way that we continue to support one another, is by continuing to grow our network, sharing those best practices and seeing seeing when we need that support, if there’s others that can help lend that. So you can find me on LinkedIn. You can also find me on Instagram at Ms. Juliet Abdel, or on Facebook, and happy to connect with you on any of those platforms.

Brandon Burton 40:05
Perfect, Bob. How about yourself? Where can people find you or reach out to you?

Bob Ross 40:09
Absolutely. I encourage anyone they can reach out to me directly at bob.ross@topekapartnership.com as Juliet said, you’re welcome to also reach out over LinkedIn. You know, we’re just happy to use our experience to help other chambers really kind of solve problems. And we’ve had to solve a lot of problems ourselves over the last, you know, seven and 10 years. So anything we can do to kind of, you know, share from that with our our peers is always a welcome conversation to have. So I encourage anyone to reach out, and we’re happy to have a conversation.

Brandon Burton 40:39
Very good. We’ll be sure to get all that in our show notes for this episode as well, to make it easy to connect. But wanted to thank you both for spending time with us today on chamber chat podcast, for highlighting these programs and and really the great impact you guys are making there in the Topeka area, and continue to make those, those big, bold moves and continue impacting your communities. You guys are doing a great job, and I wish you guys Best of luck this chamber of

Bob Ross 41:06
the year. Thank you. Thank you.

Brandon Burton 41:09
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Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

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You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE chamber of the year finalist series. And our guests for this episode are Kyle Spurgeon and Lindsay Dawkins moon, representing the greater Jackson chamber. Kyle is the president and CEO of the greater Jackson chamber. Under his leadership, the chamber was named 2024 Tennessee chamber of the year, and is one of only 174 accredited chambers in the US with prior experience at Jackson Energy Authority and at the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, Kyle has been instrumental in facilitating over $8 billion in capital investment. He serves on several statewide boards and was appointed to the Tennessee Board of Regents in 2023 Kyle lives with his wife, Melissa, their five children and two grandchildren and a spoiled dog. Lindsay is the Chief of Staff at the Greater Jackson chamber, where she leads the efforts in the forward Jackson investment, campaign, marketing and board relations, joining the chamber in 2022 Lindsay is a 2013 graduate of leadership Jackson. And outside of her professional life, she enjoys working out, traveling and supporting the Atlanta Braves, but Lindsay and Kyle, I’m excited to have you guys with us today on Chamber Chat Podcast, and I guess Kyle to have you back on the show, this is a good reason to be back as a Chamber of the Year Finalists. But congratulations. Want to give you guys a chance to say hello to all the listeners out there, and if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can get to know you a little

Kyle Spurgeon 2:47
better. Well, Brandon, thank you for the invitation to be back. And I hate to start something and correct something you said, but I need to make it perfectly clear that my wife and I do not live with five kids and two grandkids and a dog. We are empty nesters. Okay, they’re the two grandkids. We love them, but we can send them back.

Brandon Burton 3:09
I had all sorts of questions about that, so thank you.

Kyle Spurgeon 3:14
So that dog is uberly spoiled. So absolutely, yeah, we excited to be back on here and excited to be named a chamber of the year finalist. That’s such great recognition for our chamber, but for our team here and all of our investors, that’s where the credit goes, because they allow us to do something that I know I love to do every day, and the judging from the smile that Lindsay has on her face about 95% of the time, I think, I think she likes it too.

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 3:49
That’s great. I agree it for nine We’ll even say 98% of the time. You know, there’s always a few, few days, but it’s great and excited that we are a finalist. And I think it just speaks to like Kyle said, what our staff does, what our board does, what our community really is a part of. And so that’s always fun. I’ll give my fun little fun fact, I was actually talking to a friend about this. I always like to say, I’ve been to the Amazon before, and got to spend a few days roughing it in the Amazon. So not too many people that I’ve known have been able to do that, but that’s an interesting little trip a couple of years ago.

Brandon Burton 4:33
I bet that sounds like quite the experience. That’s awesome. Well, Kyle, would you tell us a little bit more about the greater Jackson chamber, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion. Give us an idea of the size of the chamber staff, the scope of work you guys are involved with budget and that sort of things, just to prepare us. Yeah, and

Kyle Spurgeon 4:55
I think you said something when you started this podcast about chamber champions. Uh, that’s something I think you can describe our team, that we’re champions for West Tennessee, specifically Jackson, Madison County. Our chamber, we have 1065 plus or minus members. Budget just over $2 million we serve. And I use this a lot. We’re kind of the capital of rural West Tennessee, where the largest city between Memphis and Nashville, right on Interstate 40. And there’s a lot of growth occurring here. You may be aware that blue oval city, which is Ford’s $5.6 billion project announced three years ago, they’ll be operational in 2027 so we’re seeing tremendous growth in this part of the country. And one of the things I brag about, and I wish I had come up with this, but it was a previous chairman 10 to 12 years ago, and it still holds true, is this chamber has a seat at the table at every major conversation that’s going on in this community, and that is either through a staff member, a board member, an executive committee member, whatever that is. So we are ingrained in this community and throughout West Tennessee, we’ve got great brand identity, and that’s something we protect very hard in what we’re doing through our program of work, how we’re influencing growth in this area. One of the things about Jackson, Jackson is we are extremely selective in that if you look at our economic development program, not every company that wants to locate in this area may be a fit for Jackson. So we’re we’re attracting companies high capex projects, lower employment count, two to three to 400 and then higher wage. That’s the type of stuff that we’re after. And then this chamber, we also do leadership programs, interact with our small businesses. We lead in many different ways. Just started a new effort this year that Lindsay led the State Games of Tennessee. The inaugural event was held over the past three weekends, and that was a huge success. And so we the recognition to be named a finalist for chamber of the year. I think really validates a lot of the work that we’re doing in Jackson and West Tennessee.

Brandon Burton 7:17
Absolutely, I would say. So that’s it’s a testament to the big strides you guys are making in the community and, and I love how you talked about being having a seat at all of the tables, all the discussions that are going on in the community, and, and I like how you pointed out that it’s not necessarily you that has to be at all the things, right? You’ve got board members, ambassadors, you know, people sitting on different committees and so forth that are out there with the seat at the table, and I think that’s a huge lesson for chambers listening to leverage those volunteers and committee members and board members to really get out there in the community and make that impact. Thank you for

Kyle Spurgeon 7:58
that. Yeah, I think in my role as the president, CEO, and I’ve been in this spot for 15 years. I don’t have to know everything. I don’t have to know the answer to everything. My main job is being able to connect and facilitate so people can get those answers and we can push things forward. And with that, yes, we’ve, I’ve been very fortunate through my career here in the team has changed over time, but we’ve always had good people here, and we attract good people and their hearts in the right place. And, you know, in the chamber world, there’s no room for narcissist, right? And they spread that love around. It’s not about, you know, we all get credit at different times for different things, but your success is built around the team,

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 8:40
absolutely. And I think Brandon, to add to that of you know, he talked about, we have a seat at the table. Sometimes that the lead seat, but sometimes that is just a seat at the table and helping and being in a supportive role. And so I think of being part of that team, but knowing our place on the team and knowing what is best for the community. Because, yeah, sometimes we do have to champion things and be in some of the projects that we’ll talk about that some of them, we have more supportive role, and some we are leading it. But I think that that’s a big thing of talking about our team, that we it’s not that we need credit for it. We really do want the best for Jackson, Madison County in the region. Yeah. So

Brandon Burton 9:25
important to understand your role, to have the seat, but understand the role, and to not take on more than the chamber can handle either, but be involved with it all. So thank you for that distinction. So in these chamber of the year finalist episodes, I like to spend the majority of our time highlighting the two programs of work that were submitted in your chamber of the year application. So we’re going to dive into those as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Brandon Burton 12:40
All right, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’re going to cover the two program synopsis that were included in your chamber of the year application. Lindsay, it’s my understanding you had a significant, pretty significant role in the application and pulling everything together. So I’d like to hand the microphone over to you and have you highlight, I know there’s two different programs, one about an airport, one about move to Jackson. Do you want to highlight move to Jackson for us first, and what that program, what the origins were, kind of the background and and how things have evolved to what it is today.

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 13:20
Yeah. So you know, when we think about the region, and what has taken place over the past several years is industries are moving here. Kyle mentioned Blue Oval city, and the development that has happened a little west from us, that people are moving here, but they have a choice, and so it’s, where are they going to live? Where are they going to raise their family? Where are they going to spend their dollars? And so Jackson is a great place to live and work and play and raise a family. And we know that we’re we’re champions of it. We believe it, but we need to tell others and also help our industries filling those employment gaps that they have. And so our move to Jackson campaign is that initiative to help bring people to our area to live and to be able to work and raise a family. And so we started this about a year and a half ago as a thought of, once again, in direct response to Blue Oval city of we need something, an active campaign to help attract people, because we have our visit Jackson, which is for tourism, but moving to Jackson is different From being a tourist and so different focus, exactly, and so we kind of spearheaded this project and creating a website that people could go and find a I like to call it a one stop shop of all things Jackson. You’re going to get a brief overview of everything from quality of life to. Health care to education to housing to job opportunities. And then we’re going to send you kind of where to go and find deep information of but on the surface level, you can find everything about Jackson on this site. And then from there, of being able to actually do some direct impact, direct targeting for folks. And so we we want to obviously target Blue Oval city. And so we have lots of geo fencing around that area to kind of send those messages of, Hey, Jackson. We have jobs available. We have good quality of life. We have excellent education and different options. And then, once again, just things to do. So different messages that we are sending to different folks. Louisville City is one of them. And then we also are targeting our healthcare workers, because we have a partnership with West Tennessee healthcare that nursing is also an area that we need more nursing, nurses in our area. And so we’re able to geo fence these schools, the universities that they actually recruit from. So always like to say, we’re those creeper people that you know you you get those messages, and you’re like, how did they know? Or how did they Right, right? And so some other different ways that we’re doing this is, it’s called War notices. So when businesses industries, if they’re closing, they have to report to the state of how many people they’re laying off, if it’s temporary, if it’s furloughed, and dates that go with it. So we actually look at states all surrounding us, and states that we know people are moving from, and we keep up with their war notices. And so we geofence those industries that are closing, okay, we’re particular to and what we do. And we’re, we have certain targets that our industries need. And so we’re, we’re pretty specific in who we’re kind of after. And

Brandon Burton 17:16
so is there a certain radius that you target with the geo fencing in those communities? Like, would you go, I don’t know, 10 hours away in a car drive, or how close do you try to keep it to Jackson? So

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 17:29
we have a 200 mile radius, okay, that we do. And then just from hearing from realtors and other research that we know there might be some other states, maybe outside of that 200 mile radius, but we know that people are coming from that area, or jobs that are similar, that people would potentially be moving from that and so we’re doing that, and then we also from we do a wage and benefit survey, where we partner with Union University, and they do this interview and different metrics with our industries, but they also have these employment codes that can say, Here’s engineering, here’s mechanical engineering, and it’s based on codes, and we know how many people within our current existing industries of what they need? Kind of, okay, we need 50 mechanical engineers in our area, so we’re actually taking those codes and we can put that into our data that we’re doing for geo fencing, LinkedIn, Facebook, all of that stuff as well. Like I said, it’s one of those really creepy things that you like. How can you even do some of this stuff? But our main focus, though, is being strategic. Of thinking about like, okay, plant closings that are similar to us, yeah, or jobs that are people are already here looking for. This is what we need, because we want to support our existing industries in the work that they’re doing, and they’re the jobs that they need. And so that’s what these marketing efforts are are doing, and, yeah, helping refill the people that they need, and then just we’re getting random people from just outside, because our cost of living is lower, our housing cost lower than a lot of other places. And so they’re being attracted to our area, yeah.

Brandon Burton 19:35
So I think of you know, a lot of chambers traditionally have done and still do like relocation packets, right? Yep, and I see move to Jackson as almost being a virtual relocation packet that connects all those dots for somebody looking to relocate to a community, to your community. I’m curious more on the geo fencing, because being strategic and. Yeah, I think a lot of listeners, they may know or they’ve heard of geo fencing, and I don’t expect you to give a full tutorial on how to do it, but how could somebody get started in learning about geo fencing and kind of get the groundwork of how that works?

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 20:15
I think my best advice is, I will tell you I’m not an expert in this at all it is. It is very nuanced and detailed. It can be as basic as you want it, but then as detailed as you

Brandon Burton 20:30
can tail it in the better, it’ll work exactly.

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 20:33
And so we kind of looked at early on, okay, do we want to take this on ourselves, or do we want to actually bring in a partner? And our best case was, let’s bring somebody in, and this is all they do. Smart and so we have a chamber member that their business is this, that that’s what they do, and they have actually worked with a couple relocation places in different parts of the country. They worked at a place in Pennsylvania where they were it was an entity there trying to get people who have lived there, grew up there, they moved and they were trying to get them to come back. So different targeting campaigns for them and so just having their experience, to me, is the best case. Not saying that people can’t do it on their own, but if you have somebody that is skilled in that area, I would, I would go with them, because you’ll get your bang for your buck.

Brandon Burton 21:38
Yeah. Kyle, do you have anything you want to add to the move to Jackson campaign? Or did Lindsay, yeah, cover it all.

Kyle Spurgeon 21:47
It’s so Lindsay talked about, you know, the external part of that, where we’re going out, the inward piece is it’s really been helpful. It’s a tool for us, for especially our real estate folks and our HR managers that if I’m in a meeting or someone from our economic development team, hey, we are struggling. We’re trying to get some folks to move here, whatever. We don’t have enough resources. We point them to that website. And one of the things we’ve done, of course, in the chamber business, we are, we are very protective of our members this website, although it’s done, by the way, by the chamber and funded through our investors, there are folks on there, and we may point folks or that look at the site to non Chamber members. Now, of course, we’re trying to get them to join, but if you’re looking at moving here, as good as our chamber is not 100% of the business is the law, yeah. So it’s become a real tool for us. And you know, you mentioned looking at what chambers do, the relocation packages, yeah, let’s be very honest, that is inefficient. You’ve got somebody pulling together all these magazines and maps and different things and loading them up into a piece and sending it out. And that’s not, in our opinion, the best way to do it. Send them to your website. You look at it on your phone, look at it on your computer, whatever. That is much more efficient, and it’s easy for us to give other people the opportunity to utilize that site? Yeah,

Brandon Burton 23:24
makes a lot of sense. Well, let’s shift gears to the second program, or the other program that was on the application regarding the airport Lindsay. Do you want to kick off with that program was,

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 23:39
yeah. Yeah. So this one, I love our move to Jackson, and I get to work directly with that, and it impacts a lot of people, but our airport is a very tangible thing that people can see within our community, and has made, I’m going to say, a big strides in continuing, making a big impact in Jackson, but not just there the region. And so we’ll, I’ll talk a little bit about it. I’ll let Kyle talk more details of it. He was involved a little bit more than I was in the back end of it, but so we were able to help. And this is where I go back to if we lead or if we support, and you know, we kind of led move to Jackson campaign and the airport was we, we led at times and supported at times. I felt like we were a little bit of both in in our role. And so for the longest time, and I will say I was one that flew it a couple of times that did not have the greatest experience of we had his fed, what eight to 10 people on it that went to Atlanta. Sometimes it would make it there. Sometimes it would get canceled. I had one of those. Ships where it got delayed and delayed and ended up missing a connecting flight. And so I was a big proponent of us getting an upgraded air carrier. And so we were able to help facilitate getting a 50 seat jet service. And part of the Essential Air Service was the department of transportation here in Jackson. And when you talk about having an eight to 10 seater that sometimes made it to Atlanta, was late a lot of times. And then we go to a 50 seat jet that is on time over 95% of the time. That’s a huge difference of what this works does for our community and the region, of giving them an opportunity. And Denver air connection not only goes to Atlanta, but it also goes to Chicago. And so we have opened another door of travel, and not just domestic travel, but international travel, because you think of both Chicago and Atlanta hubs for international connections. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 26:14
that’s that’s a great backdrop, I think, to kind of set the stage for the airport and why the need was there, Kyle, can you tell us more about what the Chamber’s involvement was like? Lindsay said, sometimes taking the lead, sometimes in support that that seems like a hard balance to keep in place, but you guys have pulled it off. So tell us what the involvement was and how that worked.

Kyle Spurgeon 26:37
Yeah. And I’ll say, you know, there’s a saying. I think there used to be a lot of T shirts you could buy. It’s either lead, follow or get the heck out of the way. Yeah, we seldom get the heck out of the way. He just Lindsey described this exactly right. There were portions of this that we led. There’s other parts where, yeah, our expertise is not airports. So we were a partner, but all throughout it, we are a part of that effort. And yeah, we did. I think the last time Jackson had jet service was back in the late 1990s and your listeners, unless you’re driving, don’t do this if you’re driving, but pull up a map and look at where Jackson is, right on Interstate 40, as I said before, between Memphis and Nashville. And when you’re traveling somewhere, you go to a website, and you know, if you’re going to New York City, if you’re going to Chicago, Atlanta, your choice is really or fly out of Nashville or Memphis, which are both great airports. We are blessed to be two hours from Nashville and an hour and 10 minutes from the Memphis airport. So those are choices, but we didn’t have the type of service that a capital city, as we’ve described earlier, in a region like ours really needs to continue to grow. And the demands were there to continue service to Atlanta. We consistently heard, hey, just get us to Chicago now. We have that with Denver air connection. They’ve been a great partner to this community. We have TSA service in place, and TSA and you think about this, if you’re going, if the flight is booked solid, it means you’re going to be the 50th person on the plane.

Brandon Burton 28:22
DS DFW is my airport by it. So having only 50 people online is a dream. You know,

Kyle Spurgeon 28:28
I’d love that. And we have a lot of companies with headquarters, or folks that live in Chicago, in Atlanta, they can now fly directly here, and everything is there, rental car service, parking, and, gosh, it may go up to five to 10 bucks a day, but right now, parking at our Jackson Regional Airport is free. Wow. What this will do for us? It’ll make us Tennessee’s sixth primary airport. And on the number side of that and the dollar side, it means we’re going to qualify for another $850,000 in FAA funding, which for a small regional airport, that is a lot of money. Some other things about Denver air connection. They have code share agreements with Delta united and American Airlines, I think they either recently did or let it, or adding Alaskan Alaska Airlines to that. So it is a I was just on the phone with a friend Sunday, who had flown to Chicago and was coming back. And it’s, it’s been a fantastic upgrade for our community, and it puts us more on the map, as far as a place that’s recognized as a destination. Because, you know, if you’re a town the size of Jackson, our county is 100,000 over 60,000 in the city, people expect reliable commercial air service. We now have that. And. And our hope is that, because now, you know, folks are never happy. It’s like, Alright, you got Chicago and Atlanta. When are we going to

Brandon Burton 30:08
Dallas? Right? That was my next question. You gotta be coming to Dallas next. Right?

Kyle Spurgeon 30:14
My answer is, utilize what we’ve got. And I’m sure Denver air connection will consider other routes. But right now, we’re being very successful. The plane’s not always full, as with any plane, but you see 3040, 45 people on those jets majority of the time.

Brandon Burton 30:32
That’s great. Hey, that’s such a huge impact in the community. And I can imagine as blue oval city, you know, gets up and running to in a couple of years here like that, need for the airport is going to be that much more. And I’m sure those flights will be full pretty much every time. And

Kyle Spurgeon 30:50
you look at Blue Oval city, it’s about 25 minutes from the airport, and blue oval cities at exit 42 between Jackson and Memphis, it is easier to get to Jackson Regional Airport than it is the Memphis airport. Now, naturally, Memphis has got more flights and choices, but if flying to Chicago or Atlanta or connecting through one of those destinations is your preference from that site is much easier to fly to Jackson.

Brandon Burton 31:20
Yeah, huge upgrade. So that’s awesome. Well, as we begin to wrap things up here, I wanted to pose a question to both of you. We’ll get a two for one here. But for those listening who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you suggest in them trying to accomplish that goal?

Kyle Spurgeon 31:46
Lindsay, you want to go first? Or

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 31:48
that’s a really good question, and it’s hard to narrow it down to just one thing, because there’s so many different things that could be. I mean, I mean, I think when I think of the greater Jackson chamber, I think of our team that we’ve built, and if you have a good, cohesive team, it makes all the difference. And not saying that other chambers have bad teams or anything like that, but making sure that you’ve built a good team, that it kind of like Kyle said, he doesn’t have to be at everything, because he’s built a team that can do the job and get the job done, and are passionate people in their areas, skilled in their areas, and are doing great work within the community. So building a good team. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 32:43
I think that’s great.

Kyle Spurgeon 32:44
Yeah, you’ve made my answer easy and Brandon, I’m not going to take the easy way out, although it sounds like it. I’m going to expand on the team piece, okay, because you have to have that good internal team in place, calling internal the chamber. External wise, we have a great team just specifically on the economic development side, city of Jackson, Madison County. We are the quarterback of all economic development activity. Jackson Energy Authority. Here is a member of that team, Mandy White, who is our Chief Economic Development Officer. She leads those efforts, and it’s very selfless everyone on that team. No one cares who gets credit. But we all show up. We know what our role is, and we pursue those projects. And I will tell you the number of projects once they visit Jackson, our closure rate is extremely high with those because they see a team, and they see a team that works together extremely well. And do if we offer a package to an industrial client, or we make a statement at a meeting, they see that on the back end, we do that. We take care of it. We take care of our existing industries. We take care of our small businesses. Here, we run those great leadership programs, but it’s not one individual, it’s not one person, it is that entire team, and it starts with the Chamber team, but we wouldn’t be successful without that community team out there allowing us to do our work. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 34:17
I love that answer, so that’s perfect. I like being able to have that vision, get all the staff on board, have that broaden out to the community at large. Of here’s the direction that our community can go and catch that vision and get everybody on the same page with it, and the chamber is perfectly aligned to be the driver of that. I love that answer, but I like Go ahead. Yeah, I want

Kyle Spurgeon 34:41
to, if we’ve got one minute, I want to brag on our team here, something absolutely I mentioned to you few weeks ago. We started with the inaugural State Games of Tennessee. Lindsay. You’re not going to negotiate with her on anything, but I’ll tell you, she’s a tough negoti. We had a crew come in that managed all the AV for our opening ceremonies to get the rate a little bit less expensive. Lindsay volunteered our entire team to help set up a stage. Now, this wasn’t any stage. It came with a with a full crew, and they were they said, here’s what you gotta do. This what the stage looks like. So as CEO, I said, and watched when our team got directions on what to do, but those directions were not specific to Lindsay, you do this. Kyle, you do that. Logan, you do this. We all fell into place. And the next thing I know, it’s like an assembly line. But no one was told where to go. And I sit back, and I’ve shared this story a lot, it just it made me extremely proud to run an organization to where no one said, Hey, I gotta do this, or you do that. The job got done. It got done very efficiently, and everyone fell into place and did it the way they should, and didn’t worry about themselves. They worried about the team, and we got it done. That’s

Brandon Burton 36:05
a great example, and you got to save a few bucks on it, too. So great job. Lindsay

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 36:11
and and our, our tech company, said that we were the best to work with. So that’s awesome.

Brandon Burton 36:19
So I like asking everyone I have on the show about the future of chambers. So how did, how did the two of you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward may

Kyle Spurgeon 36:30
start this time. Lindsay, I’ll let

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 36:32
you go first. Then, yeah,

Kyle Spurgeon 36:34
I see chambers in that are run well and have the support in a community continuing to broaden their influence. And you know, we talked earlier about those tables, we set more tables too, and we invite other folks to that table. And when you organize your effort, and you lead a team with your chamber, and then that community team, it enables your chamber and your community to grow more and more efficiently. So what I see is that those chambers that have the vision are able to set in an increasing role the vision for the entire community, because we’re conveners and facilitators, and when you do that, right, you’re going to be able to influence that change and make suggestions and get more buy in that’s going to lead to success for your community. So I see us becoming even more influential than we are now.

Brandon Burton 37:36
Yeah, you upgrade your airports by doing that. So that’s right, that’s right. Lindsay, what’s your thought on the future of chambers?

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 37:44
Yeah, I think, you know, I’ve only been in the chamber business for a few years, but being in, you know, prior experience of organizations that were part of chambers and involved in them, I think it’s just, it’s becoming so much more you have the, I’m going to say, membership side, and you have to take care of those members, but that is just a very small piece of what the chamber and what their future kind of looks like. And I think kind of piggybacking on Kyle of being more change makers and leading that change within the community, but also obviously staying within the vision and mission of the chamber, and also changing within the times of the community as well. Because I think one of our biggest things is we see what’s happening at the moment or in the future, and it changes. Airport wasn’t necessarily a big topic many years ago, but recently it is. There’s projects that we’re working on right now that I would say 10 years ago really wasn’t important to our community, but it’s important right now, and we get to be the people that lead those conversations, and and so I think it’s just being able to change within the times within your community, and being a little you’re still serving your members, but that’s not all you’re doing. It is really being that change maker for your area.

Kyle Spurgeon 39:16
Yeah, Brandon, I want to add you, don’t you forget. I want to add one more thing, sure, what Lindsay just said, because we talk about team, and I want to brag on our team here again, if you lead a chamber, part of your personality had better be you’re the idea person. And I’ve been here 15 years, and I look back, you know, when I travel, whether it’s for chamber or personal whatever, you send emails or texts back, because you learn something in another community. You learn something at a conference. There is no way that a chamber can take all the ideas that the CEO generates. So you’d better surround yourself with folks, and in my case, like Lindsay and Mandy and others that are here, they can help you filter those ideas. Because if not, yeah, we’ve all got a mission statement and a vision, but there’s so much that we can do, but you must be strategic in figuring out where you need to spend your time. So folks that sit in my tight chair as the president and CEO surround yourself with those people who are not afraid to tell you, No, gosh, Kyle, that’s a great idea, but we got to focus on this, and that’s what’s going to make you successful. Yeah?

Brandon Burton 40:26
And keep that book of ideas, because it may come in handy in the future, but right now, let’s stay the course,

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 40:32
right? Yeah, that’s, that’s what I tell him. It’s a, it’s a, maybe no right now, but later, it is going to be a really good one, right? Yeah,

Brandon Burton 40:41
that’s great. So this has been fun having you both on the podcast. I want to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Jackson. What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect, and where would you point them?

Kyle Spurgeon 41:00
When do you go for I mean, I’m going to give my direct email.

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 41:04
Yeah, I think that that’s the best way our I mean, our website is JacksonTN.com, but the easiest way to reach out to us is email. Mine is ldawkins@jacksontn.com.

Kyle Spurgeon 41:18
that is kspurgeon@jacksontn.com.

Brandon Burton 41:24
that’s perfect, and we’ll get it. Get both your emails and website and our show notes for this episode to make it easy to find. But um, again, thank you for spending time with us today, on on Chamber Chat Podcast, for really setting a high bar on on what chamber should be doing, the impact that we can be making in our communities. And I wish you guys and your team Best of luck as Chamber of the Year.

Lindsay Dawkins Moon 41:47
Thank you. Brandon.

Brandon Burton 41:50
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