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Tag: Chamber of the Year

2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Greater Memphis Chamber with Ted Townsend

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

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

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Our guest for this episode is Ted Townsend. Ted is the President and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber, a position he’s held since 2022 he has a wealth of experience and leadership roles across private, public and non profit sectors. Prior to his current role, Ted served as the Chamber’s Chief Economic Development Officer, leading the chamber to its best year for economic development in 2021 he also served as the first ever Chief Economic Development and Government Relations Officer at the University of Memphis and as Deputy Commissioner and COO for the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. Ted co founded and served as COO of our Genesis pharmaceuticals before his transition to the chamber. But Ted, I wanted to welcome you to Chamber Chat Podcast and give you a big congratulations to you and your team for being selected as a Chamber of the Year Finalist. I’d love 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 know you better.

Ted Townsend 2:17
Yeah, happy to and thank you for the invitation to be on the podcast. The Chamber community is one that’s close knit and very strong, and while there is an underlying competitive nature to the economic development aspect of chamber work, we are a community, and we all partner together and root each other on so I’m grateful to have an opportunity to provide some of what is going on in the greater Memphis area. I think for me, number one, I’m a recovering member of the the secret order of the cheering Elvi. And being in Memphis, you know, we’re home to Elvis Presley, and so I was a member of that group, and we would go to, like, the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital marathon and cheer on the runners. And yes, we were in our white polyester jumpsuits and our Elvis classes. I eventually had to retire from that because, you know, polyester is pretty hot and and so that’s something interesting, but I think it speaks to the spirit of Memphis and how we always cheer each other on. And the same spirit is brought to the chamber community, where I often have a chance to meet with peers and other members that are in chamber organizations. And we always love the collegial spirit that that is there. So, so that is something interesting. In terms of my background, I thought very carefully about that my team was telling me, you know, you may not want to talk about the cheering Elvi, but I think it’s fine.

Brandon Burton 3:53
Yeah, that’s great. I love getting those little tidbits. And yeah, and I will say that that’s, you know, a big reason why this podcast even exists is sharing that information and to really kind of be that incubator for that R and D research that’s happening, that ripping off and duplicating research. So, yeah, well, tell us a little bit about the Greater Memphis chamber to kind of give us a perspective of the size, the scope of work you guys are involved with. Obviously, there’s economic development staff budget, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion.

Ted Townsend 4:27
Yeah. So our chamber is a Regional Chamber, given the geography of Memphis, we are right in the southwest corner of the state of Tennessee, but I look across the Mississippi River, literally from this office, and I can see Arkansas, and we’re just north of the state line with Mississippi, so we serve our metropolitan statistical area, which is nine counties and three states. So we have to work regionally and and we help champion all of our chamber partners. Within that footprint our organization, we’re actually one of the oldest chambers in the United States of America, still operating. We’re 187 years old now, formed in 1838 and we were actually one of the charter members that formed the US Chamber of Commerce. So a lot of people don’t realize how old our organization is, and a constant that it has been in driving the business agenda forward for Memphis and now the region, we have a team of 55 professional Chamber members who are dedicated and spirited and driving our economy and workforce and community development. It really spans the breadth of, you know, the Chamber disciplines, both traditional and those that are innovative, from entrepreneurship and government advocacy, you name it, we do it. You know, we focus on really supporting the businesses that are here and creating those conditions that are necessary for growth. But we don’t lose sight on the fact that we serve the broader citizenry of this region. Yes, the businesses, but those businesses only exist when they employ the great people of our area. So we want to make sure that we have everyone equipped with the skills that are necessary to participate and a very great, growing and vibrant economy. Now, we have a budget of about 14 and a half million per year. We are 100% privately funded from the business community. We have multiple levels of membership, and our highest level is what we call the chairman circle, which was formed about 12 years ago now and and that now encompasses 225 of the top business businesses and business leaders in our community. So we’re proud of the fact that we’re 100% funded by the the private sector, because that gives us freedom to operate and and fidelity to make sure that we are ensuring that the business agenda is is a priority. So we interface, obviously, at the local, state, federal levels, with all of our partners and and, you know, we we entrust the responsibility of being a go to to this team, and they take that role very seriously. We have a lot of fun in the work that we do, but we also understand that that the importance of this organization, given how long it’s been around, is a driving force to really challenging any status quo and making sure that we are always oriented to a a forward leaning, uh, posture of progress and prosperity. Yeah, that

Brandon Burton 7:56
having that freedom, you know, being funded by by members. And, you know, private capital is very freeing, like you said, especially when it comes to advocacy and to not absolutely think too carefully responses or approaches. So that’s right, that’s great. Well, that definitely helps to set the stage for our discussion today, and great on these chamber of the year finalist episodes. I like to spend the majority of our time really diving into the details of the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. So as soon as we get back from a quick break, we’ll dive into those details and learn about those

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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 11:23
all right, Ted, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’ll dive into the two programs that were submitted on your application. I don’t know if you have a preference on which program you want to address first, if it makes any difference on the order, but I’ll let you choose which one you’d like to highlight first? Yeah, so I think

Ted Townsend 11:43
we’ll go in order of what we put in the application. And it happens also be alphabetic too, so it’s kind of nice, but America’s river crossing was the first program that we submitted for consideration to earn chamber of the year. And why we focused on that, because it really did speak to several elements of Horizon, 2035 and our strategic plan of prosper Memphis. 2030 it represented the Chamber’s efforts, really, over the last two decades, to focus on Memphis as America’s distribution center. Obviously, we are seen as a global logistics leader, home to FedEx Corporation headquarters and the largest hub in their network globally. But we also have a high concentration of all of the modalities of transportation. We call them the four Rs, with our Mississippi River, of course, our rail, we have the third highest concentration of rail in the country, and with all five class one railroads with major operations here the third R is the roadways. We have the third busiest trucking corridor in the United States of America, with interstates, 5540 69 and the future 22 really connecting coast to coast and north to south, with Memphis, pretty much in the epicenter of that. And then the last R is our runway. Obviously, I mentioned FedEx and the global hub that they have there, but the connectivity of that really brings in proximity the global market to Memphis within either, you know, 7072 hours or 96% of the world’s market can get into Memphis in just a few days time. So we’re really proud of that legacy, and our infrastructure is a critical component of that. A few years ago, when the interstate 40 bridge had a crack in it, it really shut down all commerce, both in the both along the the roadway itself, but also river barge traffic had to cease for a while, and it was down about six weeks, so the redundancy of our river crossings became of Paramount priority. However, the Chamber has a transportation committee, and we have for 20 years been advocating for additional crossings of the Mississippi River and the replacement of bridges. So we supported the state of Tennessee’s effort to pass legislation called the transportation Modernization Act, which then yielded a an allocation of state funds, $3 billion and out of all of the the needs of infrastructure across the state of Tennessee, and we’ve got 95 counties that all have amazing infrastructure needs, but the state prioritized the the Americas river crossing, as we coined it, and we were honored to to play that role as a chamber and helping the state pass this legislation and. And the enabling funding that we go into major projects along those same lines, the federal government had a bridge replacement program as part of the the infrastructure package of legislation that was passed, which was bipartisan and and with that program we applied with in partnership with the state of Tennessee and the state of Arkansas for the replacement of our interstate 55 bridge. So we did national advocacy in Washington, DC, in partnership with the state. They requested us to do that the first application, we did not play a role in in writing any of the narrative, and it did not score very well. So the state turned back to us and our long history of advocating for this, and asked us to help bolster the the application. So we built narrative. We had our Greater Memphis economic research group that’s embedded inside the Greater Memphis chamber provide some additional data and analysis, and we resubmitted that application, and we were thrilled to be awarded the largest infrastructure grant in the state of Tennessee’s history, $400 million from the Department of Transportation via the Federal Highway Administration, and that is matched with 250 million from the state of Tennessee and 250 million from the state of Arkansas. So it’s a nearly billion dollar bridge replacement, which will really be a signature bridge across the Mississippi River and redefine our skyline downtown in Memphis, so it represents every element of public policy and convening and driving and prioritizing and yet also providing the data and The support and and really humanizing the narrative of why this is important and why Memphis should be granted this, this major award, and for it to be the largest in the state’s history, is not lost on us. This is a 70 year old bridge, not seismically retrofitted. It is a challenge to get across that thing. Now, given the fact that we are the third busiest trucking corridor, so this allows for greater safety, it allows for greater capacity, and it solidifies our position as America’s distribution center, moving forward into the decades ahead of us, I

Brandon Burton 17:34
can see the huge need for it. With you guys being central hub and all the yes incomings and outgoings. It makes total sense. So you said this is a this is part of the stretch of I 55 is that correct?

Ted Townsend 17:47
Yes, it is interstate 55 which connects Chicago with New Orleans, pretty much Memphis being equidistant to each Yeah.

Brandon Burton 17:54
So as I’m thinking about the bridge, when do you know when the original bridge was built. And I guess I’m asking the question, because I’m sure there’s technology advancements. You mentioned, the seismic retrofitting and stuff like that. But what, absolutely, you know technology? Yes, are there?

Ted Townsend 18:12
Yeah, well, it was over 70 years ago, so the lanes are much more narrow than what we typically would see in a new interstate or bridge build present day. So this new bridge will have added capacity, added lanes, and present a much safer environment for for for motorists and and trucks that are crossing. But also, you know, it adds to that, that volume and capacity, as well, the state just completed an interchange on the Tennessee side of the bridge. So coupled with that, it’s, it’s going to allow for much more traffic and logistics to flow through here. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 18:57
that’s, that’s amazing. I know, you know, Dunkin Donuts, as they’re saying, of America runs on Dunkin but you guys probably say America runs through Memphis, right?

Ted Townsend 19:08
We actually can say that. Yeah, we have the highest concentration of logistics companies in the country here in Memphis because of those modalities of transportation. And yes, it doesn’t hurt that FedEx, who employs 500,000 people around the globe, is headquartered here. They have over 30,000 employees here in Memphis, and they’ve been operating for the last five decades here as their base of operations and their headquarters. So yeah, we feel that is true, and that really became very evident during the pandemic when we saw the global supply chain challenges that were well documented. Memphis was actually a solution point for the movement and the continuance of movement of goods around the. Country and FedEx certainly played a pivotal role in the distribution of the vaccines. So we, you know, we like to imagine, you know, Memphis is placing, and, you know, being responsible for the world’s recovery from, you know, an unprecedented global pandemic.

Brandon Burton 20:17
Yeah, well, as far as it comes to chambers making a big impact in their communities and their region. This is, you know, one, obviously putting you on the national stage. So, yes, great, great work with that one. And great. What’s the timeline for when the bridge, when they start working on it, or complete? Yeah, we

Ted Townsend 20:35
we anticipate the beginning of construction in 2026 and the completion of the bridge in 2030 again, that’s a fluid timeline, you know, given materials and construction, but they’re going to be building it right beside the current bridge. And when that is completely finished, they will bring down the the original and and we’re off and running. But you know, it’s, it’s a cable suspension bridge. It’s going to be absolutely beautiful. There are renderings that I’ve seen, and assuming there are no changes in that, it’s going to be a stunning piece to our skyline. So we’re excited for that, and the fact that we get to see it in our lifetime, four years from now is really not that far for a major, billion dollar bridge to be built across a mighty Mississippi River. Yeah, it’s

Brandon Burton 21:28
great to get the background story too. So as any of us listening, you know, drive across the bridge, you know, in 2030 onward, we’ll answer the story of how that bridge came to be exactly the role your chamber had in that well, let’s, let’s shift gears to the second program that was submitted on your application. If you’d like to introduce that one to us.

Ted Townsend 21:49
Yeah, happy to do so, the digital delta. And you know, I love to talk about this program, because it is one of those things where a chamber can put together all of those strategic plans and hope for the outcomes, and you hope that you’re around to see those outcomes. But in our case, the digital delta is a component of prosper Memphis 2030 and we’re already seeing the manifest yield of these strategies that we’ve been working on for the last five years. So the digital Delta, I will say this much if I were to say Silicon Valley, pretty much in any audience. You know, geographically, where I’m talking about and what I’m talking about, and so coming out of the the 2008 recession, going into even 2018 2019 Memphis really took 10 years to recover from that and and we were looking at ways to catalyze exponential economic growth. So we were actually one of three cities selected by the Brookings Institution to go through their inclusive economic indicators lab, along with Indianapolis and Orlando. That took about 18 months, but what we came out of that was with basically a database and dashboard of economic indicators that measure the strength or the lack thereof, of the Memphis economy. We took that and we compared ourselves with nine other peer cities that were similar in population and and business diversity. And so you have a cohort of 10. And as you can imagine, Memphis didn’t fare very well. We were pretty much in the bottom quartile of those cities that we were measuring ourselves against. And there was one economic indicator where we were actually number one, and that was the percentage of Information Technology positions held by African Americans. Hey, mind you, Memphis has the largest African American population in the United States of America. That had been Detroit. We have overtaken Detroit and remain with the highest population. And that is a source of pride. We see diversity as as our superpower, and seeing that indicator was not necessarily a surprise to us as measured against our peer cities, but at the same time that we were coming into this analysis and measurement, the McKinsey report came out along with a Wall Street Journal article that told basically tech companies that if you want to diversify your workforces, you need to move to where that talent is, and predominantly that talent is located in the southeast section of the United States. But the job growth was really coastal, so we. Took that, that methodology, if you will, or that clarion call of action, and started marketing the fact that we have this high concentration of black tech talent to tech companies. I went to Microsoft and toured their headquarters and and they said, you know, Ted, this is amazing. We wish we had known this two years ago, before we committed to building in Atlanta, and I was able to show them that actually, you know, Atlanta is number two to Memphis. So that was a false victory. But nonetheless, we realized we had a lot of great momentum and justification for major tech operations to invest in our region. I met with Mr. Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, who just sadly, recently passed away, and I showed him these data. And you know, he he held up the page that showed the chart with Memphis leading in black tech talent over 53 other major markets in the US, I mean, every big city. And he said, You know, there’s not much that surprises me at this point in my career. He said that this is shocking, and I know that FedEx has played a role in this, because the world is still catching up to the fact that FedEx is a technology company that happens to move packages around the planet, and that was a moment that galvanized our approach. And in fact, he and his son, Richard Smith, who is is a an executive with FedEx, coined the phrase digital delta, so we trademarked it, and we began using that as a marketing platform with the basis of data to say you could move a location here, Google, Microsoft, you name it. Fast forward to last year, and we had the opportunity of marketing Memphis to x ai, the startup AI, company of Elon Musk, and we were able to win that project and and beat out 50 other markets that they had been considering because of the fact that we could move at the the speed they wanted. We had the power that they needed, and we had the people and and so that now represents the largest investment in the state of Tennessee’s history. So you can see, we love to live in the superlatives, largest Infrastructure Grant, largest private sector investment in the state’s history. And now Memphis suddenly is thrust into the lexicon of great global tech hubs, because we are home to the world’s largest and most powerful supercomputer, which is x ai that powers grok their interface. So so now we have shifted our focus to the supply chain of AI Artificial Intelligence, both upstream and downstream. What does it take to create AI, it creates tangible things. I mean, you have to have servers, you have to have graphics processing units or chips. You have to have cooling systems and and all of these, these things that that energy that go into the creation of artificial intelligence. So and given the fact that Memphis is such a great logistics hub, it makes sense to now have Memphis focus on becoming a high tech manufacturing hub where you have proximity of these AI products that go into the end users. So we not only announced x ai last year, they’ve they’ve doubled down. They invested $12 billion dollars, and their first phase, they have committed to expanding their footprint from 200,000 GPUs or Nvidia chips, to now a million Nvidia chips. So the supercomputer is just getting more powerful right here in Memphis. So when you think about the computational power that it will take to put humans on the surface of Mars that will be originated from Memphis, Tennessee, and it still gives me goosebumps, and it’s that validation of what is the digital Delta. When you launch something like that, you you know, obviously get a lot of questions, and it’s new, and it’s a moniker that many people weren’t familiar with. They would ask questions, well, does that mean electric vehicles or robotics or AI? And the answer is yes, all of it, tech is ubiquitous now with business. And yes, we’re home to Ford Motor Company’s largest electric vehicle assembly plant and and so yes, we have the, you know, FedEx is largest hub, which has a tremendous amount of automation and robotics. And yes, we’re home to the world’s largest supercomputer. So now you have this concentration of investment that that reflects what the digital delta is. And we’ve even got the governor. Of the state of Mississippi using digital Delta in a Politico

Ted Townsend 30:05
interview that he just had. And, and, and they, they’ve had major announcements that reflect how they are growing in the AI space and in Arkansas right across the river. And I point this way because I’m looking literally out my window at Arkansas across the river, they announced Google is coming in to West Memphis, Arkansas, and that’s a $10 billion investment in a large data center campus. So suddenly, there’s validation of the PROSPER Memphis 2030, vision that was embodied in the digital Delta marketing effort. And we’re going to continue to add to the constellation of these great tech companies like Nvidia and Dell and super micro, who have all committed to coming to Memphis and having significant operations. And that x ai investment garnered us deal of the year last year from business facilities magazine, and we were the only chamber to be recognized. Mostly it was state led organizations and the great projects that they were able to announce in the platinum, gold, silver level, we won the bronze, but it was a Greater Memphis chamber that was recognized. And coming from my background at the state, when we won the state of the year and economic development. A lot of the deals of the year that that culminated with that, I wanted to bring that to my hometown, and I’m incredibly proud of this team and the effort that they put forward to not only get America’s river crossing funded and and soon to be built, but then the digital Delta really taking taking hold and and becoming our our identity. It’s a transformational moment, and it’s not something that we hope will take hold decades from now. It’s it’s already been realized, and that’s incredibly rewarding. Brandon, yeah, that is

Brandon Burton 31:59
great. What a a great accomplishment with the win of x ai, but also the continued inflows. That’s right, you know, the thought hit me that there’s, there’s enough people out there that think AI is going to take all of our jobs. But curious with x ai about how many jobs are being created in the Memphis area with this

Ted Townsend 32:21
facility, that’s a great question, because that was what we got as well. Well, this is just another data center. No, actually, it’s not data centers store data, but this is a computational learning cluster. So they have about 300 full time employees right now. 82% of those are Memphians, and they pay at Palo Alto rates, so everyone in that facility is making six figures now, and they don’t require four year degrees necessarily. So we have seen that as a tremendous opportunity where we can specialize accelerated skills training, provide people with certifications and credentials that can go to work in the world’s largest supercomputer and earn these incredible wages that are family sustaining, and that’s what that’s what chambers do. That’s the essence of of why we were created, and the work that we do. And and it’s so incredibly rewarding to be able to see that Memphians are feeling the impact of this. And, yes, this is a an attractor for in migration of talent here. And given the fact that they’re going to be exponentially growing the supercomputer, you know, we anticipate even more jobs. I mean, this is, you know, they, they’ve suddenly become our second largest taxpayer in Memphis, only behind FedEx, who has been operating again for five decades, right? So that that is really what is driving our economy. And just last year, our GDP eclipsed 100 billion for the first time in our history. And that does not even include X AI’s investment. So when we have done the projections, right when we’ve done the projections, what we see is that we’re going to have the one of the highest growing economies in the nation’s history in a two year period, really placing us only second behind Austin Texas, and we know what, What a juggernaut Austin Texas is for for economic growth. So we’re so excited about what the future represents. And the digital Delta now becomes one of those calling cards for our region and and it’s it’s justified, and we have proven the efficacy of what Mr. Smith envisioned for the Memphis region and and it’s, it’s bittersweet, but it’s a tremendous legacy. And he has so many legacies. But you know, knowing that the Chamber did got to partner with him on the rollout of digital delta is an incredible honor. And. And one that we’re going to continue to honor him and his contributions to our economy.

Brandon Burton 35:04
Yeah, I love that. Tie in with with the Smiths. And isn’t it amazing? Yeah, it’s

Ted Townsend 35:09
providence. I think, you know, I love to think of it that way. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 35:14
I love it. Well, obviously, two huge, impactful programs that you guys are driving there, the greater Memphis chamber. As we begin to wrap up, I wanted to ask for those listening who want to take their chamber up to the next level. What kind of tip or action item would you suggest in their efforts to do that?

Ted Townsend 35:35
Yeah, for me, you know, I don’t want to over simplify this, because the work that we do is highly complex and it’s multifaceted, but I think the underlying current is you have to listen to the business community. You have to understand with multiple touch points and an intentional engagement, what is paramount to them? What does the business community expect and need? And in times of both distress and in times of major accomplishments, because each represent new challenges and opportunities for growth. And so I take pride in the fact that we are open and we are asking for engagement and opportunities to learn what the business community needs. I would say, get out there. You know, get get active and be present and be an active listener. And most importantly, you have to act on it, and you have to show that the feedback that they are giving you is not ending up in a loop of noise, but is being thoughtfully and appropriately enacted and and that’s what has really spelled success for us. When you think about just America’s river crossing, we would not have been in a position to help win that if we had not been listening and advocating for 20 years. Yeah, and you have all of this variability in political cycles and administrations change, and that’s at every level, local, state, federal, but the one constant is always a chamber, because they’re the go to. And in our case, we’ve been around for a long time, but I think that’s true for every chamber in the community that they represent. It is, you know, you are equipped to act because you’ve been listening to what they need and and that’s a special thing that it sounds very simple, but I, you know, I engage with as many of our members as I can, and an annual basis, I want to sit with them. I want to hear we have mid mornings with Ted and we have breakfasts with a lot of TED Talks.

Brandon Burton 38:14
I thought a plan on that with this episode. I had to do it. I had to

Ted Townsend 38:17
put it in there. I hope that doesn’t hurt our scoring. But But Ted also listens, and we have a team that listens. And so I would just recommend that have as many interfaces as you possibly can, can schedule and don’t get caught up in the pageantry of events, because those are wonderful. And we celebrate every ribbon cutting, because it represents a business stream realized here in our community. But we have to do even more, and we have to show up and continually offer that support.

Brandon Burton 38:52
Yeah, I love that response, and in fact, it kind of leads into the next question I was going to ask about, and you guys are very future looking, future leaning, I would say, so as you look to the future, how do you see chambers of commerce and their purpose going

Ted Townsend 39:08
forward? Yeah, well, you know, again, I go back to challenging that status quo. When I came in as Chief Economic Development Officer, you know, having the success at the state level. I wanted that here. So we wanted to implement similar structures and strategies to to garner that kind of success. And it’s creating that culture of winning and and creating that culture you wake up every day expecting to win, and that is not in a boastful way. That is just an orientation that that I expected myself and and that has, you know, it’s really, I think, inspired the team here to understand that we can dream as big as we dare, and if we don’t, who will for Memphis. So, so we. Want to always apply innovative approaches. We love to be first in space. We love to live in the superlatives, being the best, the most, the first. And it’s not for our recognition. It is not necessarily to win, you know, the trophies, or, in this case, chamber of the year. We want that badly, but it’s because it’s the work, it’s the body of work, and it’s the impact on our community that ultimately provides that outcome and result that we expect. We expect prosper Memphis, 2030 to to see the goals hit where we will be because of Brookings research, we will be in the top quartile of those cities that we measure ourselves against. And when that happens, prosperity is shared. And if we leave anyone behind in this moment, we have failed. We hate poverty, and Memphis has long suffered from having pockets of just devastating poverty in our communities, and I will not rest, and this team at the Greater Memphis chamber won’t rest until we normalize and equalize economic prosperity for our citizenry so that we don’t have census tracts that have suffered generationally, but now you know, South Memphis is home to x ai, and those neighborhoods are getting investment, direct investment from the tax revenues that are coming in. The mayor is passing an ordinance to directionally put 25% of the net new revenues into the 38109, zip code, which has been a zip code, has seen this investment and and so many barriers for so many generations, that to me, Brandon is what a chamber is to do and to be about. And we’re gonna we’re gonna find new goals, and we’re gonna crush those as well, because we don’t rest in complacency, because our community deserves so much more.

Brandon Burton 42:08
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, Ted, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and and learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Memphis and do their own R and D. Where would you turn them? Absolutely the best way for them to reach out.

Ted Townsend 42:24
Well, first I will say this because I’ve been the beneficiary of many of my colleagues in in the chamber work who have offered their best practices freely. And we’re an open book. This is not a time nor place to be proprietary. So we want to share everything that we have been through to help others. So the best way, I mean, my email is ttownsend@memphischamber.com you know, I always invite my mobile numbers on my business card. So that’s how open I want to be with, with our our peers and partners and community. Our website is Memphis chamber.com and we have a marketing website called MemphisMoves.com of course, we’re on all of the the platforms with social media, but MemphisChamber.com MemphisMoves.com, and then certainly my email are the best ways for us to get connected. And if there’s any research or examples of the industry reports that we put out there, or the economic impact studies that our Economic Research Group has done, most of those are on our website. And if anyone needs any assistance in that, we’re more than happy to to partner with them.

Brandon Burton 43:45
Yeah, that’s fantastic. We will get your contact information the websites or show notes to make it easy for people to find you and reach out and connect. But Ted, this has been great having you on the show. Thank you. Guys are making huge impact. It’s been fun to learn about these programs and to put a bigger spotlight on Memphis. So I wish you and your team Best of luck as chamber of the year.

Ted Townsend 44:10
We’re crossing everything that we’ve got. Can’t wait for a few weeks from now, and it’s all announced.

Brandon Burton 44:17
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2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Grand Rapids Chamber with Rick Baker

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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 guest for this episode is Rick Baker, representing the Grand Rapids Chamber. Rick is a seasoned Chamber of Commerce professional with a career spanning over three decades, beginning in 1988 as the director of finance and membership at the Rochester Area Chamber in Minnesota. Rick went on to lead chambers in Newton, Iowa and in the Iowa, Illinois Quad Cities home to major corporations like Maytag and John Deere. Since April of 2011 Rick has served as president and CEO of the Grand Rapids chamber. His passion for supporting the business community was shaped by his upbringing in a family of business owners. Rick holds a degree from the upper Iowa University and earned his IOM certification from the University of Colorado, Boulder Rick, we’re excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. And first of all, I want to say congratulations to you and your team is being selected as a 2025 chamber of the year finalist. But I wanted to give you a chance to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Rick Baker 2:24
Oh, well, you know, thank you for having me, and I love that you said seasoned. I think that’s a nice way of seeing the old guy. It’s been a, you know, it’s been an awesome career. Otherwise I wouldn’t still be here, right? And we’re honored to be a finalist for the chamber of the year, and our colleagues from Topeka and Memphis run some amazing chambers of commerce as well. So just being a finalist and with them is quite an honor. So that’s something interesting about myself. You know? What people might not know about me is I’m also a licensed Merchant Marine Captain, and so I can drive some pretty big, pretty big yachts and boats on mostly on Lake Michigan.

Brandon Burton 3:13
Very cool. So little fun fact, I didn’t know this until just recently. You know, we’re in this world right now where tariffs are such a hot topic, and I’d seen in your bio that you were part of the Coast Guard, and I didn’t realize the Coast Guard was initially set up to collect tariffs from imports coming into the United States. So when you say Merchant Marine, that makes even more sense to me. Now I don’t know where I missed that in in my schooling, my education, but I found that interesting. Yeah, yeah. Well, tell us a little bit about the the Grand Rapids chamber, just to set the stage for our conversation today. You know, give us an idea of the size staff, scope of work, things you guys are involved with, budget, just kind of prepare us for our discussion. Yeah.

Rick Baker 4:02
So we are on a growth trajectory as a Chamber of Commerce. We’ve been very intentional about having our eyes set on a 10 year plan, and we’re 2028. Is that we will have reached that 10 year mark when we started our journey. We are currently, this current year, we’re about $6 million in annual revenue. We have 4445 staff people on our team. So we have a great group of people on our team that deliver some high quality programming and high quality interactions with our members. And one of our values is, you know, member experience

Brandon Burton 4:44
Absolutely. So as far as the organization goes, Are you guys strictly chamber? Do you have that it’s the tourism aspect or economic development, or what is the scope of work look

Rick Baker 4:56
like? Yeah, we are strictly chamber. We are. Master organizations, which, like in many cities, we were the chamber, actually started the economic development organization and the tourism bureau, but spun them out into separate organizations. The three of us work very well together. We have very specific lane of work that we do in our communities. I serve on both of those boards for both those organizations, but they are independent and separate organizations. So we are strictly Chamber of Commerce. We’re 137 years old this year, and very true to our original mission of being, you know, relentless advocates for our business community.

Brandon Burton 5:36
Awesome, very cool. Well, that that definitely helps us with the setting the stage, and as I do with these chamber of the year finalist episodes, I like to spend the majority of our discussion time on the two projects that you guys submitted on your chamber of the year application. I think there’s a lot to be learned from those projects, as you’re obviously making an impact in your community to be noticed on a national stage. So we’ll dive in much deeper on those two programs as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Brandon Burton 9:49
All right, Rick, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break today, we’re diving in on the two programs that you guys submitted on your chamber of the year application. I don’t know if. You have a preference on which one we cover first, but I’ll, I’ll let you decide with which which program you want to dive into.

Rick Baker 10:06
Sure. Let’s talk a little bit about the first one is our office space itself, which sounds maybe a little bit funny. We started a journey back in 2018 that kind of referenced in my earlier marks on a 10 year journey of reinventing ourselves as an organization, and part of that had to do with moving to a new office. Our previous office space was very traditional. It was like where the employees came to work. It wasn’t a great opportunity for our members to engage with us. And so as we thought about our reinvention and rebranding of us as an organization, it felt like a great opportunity for us to rethink how we work, and I asked our design team that we hired, can our office space actually be a benefit of chamber membership versus an overhead cost for our organization. And so what we designed and what we have now is very much of a collaborative work environment. We have a work cafe on the first floor. It’s a coffee shop on the first floor. Our members drop in and work, and they come in between meetings, and it’s pop in, you know, beer from one of our local breweries in the refrigerator for late afternoon if somebody feels like they would like to have a beer. And then on this second floor, we have an a series of meeting rooms, and we had such high utilization that, like, two years ago, then we did an expansion and 5000 square foot expansion, and added additional meeting rooms, and we’ve seen our utilization triple. A lot of businesses. We are literally now the center, the hub of business activity for our business community, which was our goal to have our the leadership teams of our major corporations and our small businesses, mid sized businesses, coming in and using our space for their strategic planning. Nothing fills my bucket more than seeing the leadership team of one of our companies, whether it’s our largest corporation or down to, you know, smaller company, their team in their white boarding like, where are they going? Where’s their future? Is it we’re better placed to do that than at your chamber of commerce?

Brandon Burton 12:28
That’s awesome. Yeah, I’ve not heard of this type of a model with the office space before. Is this something that you’d seen somewhere? Is it just, you know, one of those ideas that come to you when you’re in the shower? Or how did this come to be?

Rick Baker 12:44
I get my best ideas when I’m driving. I call it windshield time, you know, brainstorming. And I think sometimes my staff gets a little nervous when they know I’m going to be in the car for very long, because I always come back with great ideas, right, right? But, you know, I mean, co working space in is not something that’s unusual for a lot of communities, but for a chamber, I think you know, making your office be the the co working space for your community is maybe unusual or unique. And I think you know, teaming up with our architectural design team, and you know them knowing what our our vision was for our space, that it be something that our members could benefit from. You know, they really helped us through a process to identify what could that look like. Now, they also made, made us aware, very much aware. And I think this is probably very typical of a lot of chambers, as they studied us in our old space and watched how our employees worked. You know, everyone had their own office. Everyone had their cubicle that was assigned to them. And, you know, in the in the design language, they were like, this, real estate, you’re tying up real estate, but half of but you’re only there half the time, yeah. And so you’ve got all of this real estate tied up, and your employees are coming and going, and so that allowed us to rethink how we worked as well as we now, no one, including me, has an office that’s assigned to me. There are spaces that I can go and work and be in an office environment, but it’s not assigned to me. I don’t have pictures up, I don’t have things that you know that designate that this belongs to Rick. So it allows us to have more of our space focused on our members and less tied up in real estate that’s being used half the time.

Brandon Burton 14:40
So I’ve heard of chambers doing co working spaces, for sure, but not having their office space be that that canvas right for that co working space. So I think it’s a very unique idea with 45 staff. Was that a hard idea to get across the staff that you. Won’t have your designated real estate within the office as you as you termed it before,

Rick Baker 15:05
yeah, we went through a process. You know, early on, when we first moved in to our space here, with the team that was kind of converting, and our, one of our office supply or office manufacturing companies has a process to help you actually go through that. And for, you know, there’s protocols that you, you know, you create that are kind of basically the unspoken rules of how you operate. You know, when you sit at a spot and then, like, how do you leave it for the next person? So we did a lot of training with our employees. Like, this is what to expect. And no, the conversion was actually fairly easy. There’s, you know, there’s, it took a little while in the very beginning, and I actually think it positioned us very well when, when all of us had to deal with covid and work remotely, we were all used to working with our backpack and being remote anyway, basically. And so it really helped us adapt quickly when it came to covid.

Brandon Burton 16:09
So that that question was on my mind, you know, first of all, it sounds like this is a new space for you. It wasn’t an existing office space. Is that correct?

Rick Baker 16:19
Right? It’s new. We moved down, you know, a couple few blocks from where we were previously, out of our Okay.

Brandon Burton 16:27
So then my next question was, with the new office space, when did you guys make this move, and did you have to deal with covid During that time, and, and I’m sure that had some, you know, maybe complications, but also benefits, as you mentioned, with already being structured with that kind of office structure. But what did you guys see through that experience?

Rick Baker 16:47
Our original move in here was 2018 March of 2018 so we were in here for two, two full years before 2020 came around in Michigan. You know, everything was completely closed down during covid, and so we were not able to come into our space. We were not able to have members in our space at all during 2020, for almost a whole year, then when we had to actually designate because, like I said, we have our work, work campaign, which is a coffee shop. Then we have meeting room space. They’re all designated differently at the state of Michigan during that time. And so we were able to open pieces of it at different times. And so yeah, it was a quite a journey. What we found after covid was the utilization even higher when people started coming back to work, when we did open up, and that that drove our expansion in 2022 Yeah, and a number of companies, because some of those companies were actually shrinking their footprints a little bit, and so leaning on us more for meeting spaces and things like that.

Brandon Burton 18:00
Yeah. And I’m sure things had to be thought through as far as, like sanitizing a workspace before you leave. And, you know, the stuff we don’t want to think about anymore. So yeah, we won’t dwell on that part of it so much. But I like the idea of you guys being so well positioned, you know, ahead of covid to as these changes happen that, you know, other offices kind of scaled down, and people working from home, but maybe at home, they don’t really have a space to work from, so to be able to utilize their chamber membership to come to the chamber office and have space there to be able to work do you see a number of people that come consistently, like every day or multiple times a week, or what’s that? That info like

Rick Baker 18:44
we do, we do have some, what we call frequent flyers. We have folks that are here almost every day, if not every day. And we’ve seen, you know, kind of unintention, not necessarily the intent of our our thoughts originally, but have embraced it. We’ve seen kind of some incubation of some small businesses that that’s then as they finally got their own space, they moved out. We’ve seen that multiple times where, you know, companies that got started, and then they finally get to 345, employees, and they find their own they get their own office space, and move out, and they still come back and use our meeting rooms. But God, we have some companies that are here quite a bit, and we’re actually thinking next, what’s next for us? And we’ve done a we’ve met with our frequent flyers, especially to find out, like, what else could we do to make this even more valuable to you as a chamber member,

Brandon Burton 19:42
yeah. So I love hearing the stories of incubators getting started and spun off. And I know for a lot of these incubators, these brand new businesses, having that physical space and even an address is so important for them getting started. Are they? Able to utilize the address the building, or how is that factored into utilizing the space?

Rick Baker 20:06
So actually, right now, no, they do not use it as their mailing address. That is something we’re thinking about as an add on benefit to probably a cost to some of those that are more frequent flyers, but they can do pretty much everything other than, you know, have access to the space you know, during our office hours, and they don’t have it as their mailing address unless we work out a special when we that’s kind of our next phase,

Brandon Burton 20:37
yeah, so from a tactical standpoint, do people Reserve meeting rooms and spaces? You mentioned they’re classified in different areas. So is that something they go online and book a room? Or how does that work?

Rick Baker 20:53
Yeah, we have, we have a person on our team that manages all of the meeting room space, because we now have like, 15 meeting rooms. And you know, it’s so and most of them are full every day, all day, with different clients. And so it’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of people, lot of energy, lot of activity in this in our office, which I love. And so it takes, you know, we had to have a person on our team that could manage all of that, make sure that they got a good customer experience, and provide them, you know, with the room set up and there’s, like I said, there’s about 15 different meeting rooms, and they’re laid out differently, different sizes, depending on what the need is of our members,

Brandon Burton 21:37
yeah, very cool for a chamber listening who might be interested in doing something similar. Has is there big lessons you guys learned in setting up this kind of an office space that they might want to take note of before venturing into something like this?

Rick Baker 21:56
Um, you know, I think, I think a lot of it depends on the the team in place, and are they willing to give up their actual designated office. It takes, you know, some learning, and you know, willingness to do that. I guess you could have that. It would just cause you would just have to have much more square footage to be able to accommodate both, you have to be willing to have this level of activity in your office. To have there is a lot of activity, and there’s a certain level of now, our team loves it, you know. And most a lot of the people that have been hired in, they like this environment. They know what they’re coming into. So yeah, but there’s a certain level of stress when you have guests, you know, like, if you have guests in your home for a weekend, you know that there’s, like, a it’s you can’t just relax and sit around like you normally would. And so there’s a just a little extra level of activity.

Brandon Burton 23:03
Call it attention. Yeah, you’re more attention.

Rick Baker 23:07
Be willing to work with and have around you. I love the energy our team. Loves the energy the interactions that happen in our with between our members and our staff and between members that are in our space. We hear that all the time. It’s like, oh my god, it’s a great one of our members referred to us as the town square like this is where you go if you want to see people that you’re you’ve been trying

Brandon Burton 23:31
to connect with. That’s awesome. I love that. So you’d mentioned that this is a benefit of membership. Is it a membership tier? Are all members welcome to? How does that structure work?

Rick Baker 23:44
So all members are welcome into our space. And then it’s a different membership levels of access to meeting rooms. And then maybe, you know, at the highest level, not have to pay for the meeting rooms in addition to your membership. So you get x number of utilizations a year based on your membership investment

Brandon Burton 24:03
levels. Yeah, very cool. Well, let’s shift gears to the the other program that you guys submitted on your application, if you’d like to to introduce with that program, is

Rick Baker 24:13
about, yeah. So like many chambers, you know, we are, we’re always working to create a community that’s vibrant and attractive and will attract people and attract business and and we’ve been on a journey here in Grand Rapids for number of years, and we’re so we’re at our next phase. And so it’s what we presented, was a couple of transformational projects. Is how we refer to them, as they’re transformational for our community. In those two projects are 14,000 seat empathy outdoor amphitheater, a entertainment venue, and that is in our downtown, and then a professional soccer stadium, which is also in our downtown. Area again, trying to continue our journey of creating high energy, high traffic, kind of attractions that then support our entertainment businesses, the so you know, hospitality businesses that we have in our downtown area as well as, you know, find, you know, adding additional tools in our toolbox, like, if you might say, for attracting great talent to our region.

Brandon Burton 25:29
Yeah, definitely that that place making aspect of making Grand Rapids a great place to live and entertain and and all of that. So you’d mentioned you guys are working through like this 10 year vision. Was there a capital campaign associated with that to execute on these projects? Or, I imagine the soccer stadium has something to do with the soccer team. Would would help finance with that. But how’s it coming

Rick Baker 25:57
together? Yeah, so our, you know, big piece of what we had to do was part of the capital stack to make these projects a reality. Was what we’ve used previously for some of our other projects as a portion of our hotel motel tax. And we needed to do through multiple steps, and part of that was getting legislation passed at the state level that would allow us to increase the hotel, motel tax that we use. We had to get approval first at this local, city and county boards so that we could go and ask for our legislature to change our ability to increase our tax and once we got through each one of those steps, we had to run a ballot campaign with our local voters to get approval for the increase. And of course, there’s a lot of messaging and a lot of things that you need to do to make sure that they understand it’s like, this is a hotel, motel, tax. It’s an attacks on your property. It’s not, you know, there’s

Brandon Burton 27:06
people your tax and they freak out a little bit. Yeah, people

Rick Baker 27:09
see tax increase and they, you know, there’s a certain reaction that you get immediately. And so there was a lot of work that our team had to do with partners in the community to make sure that the message was very clear, and people understood what the what they were supporting, and what they were helping to invest in for the future of our community. And so we were pleased that we were able to get a yes at each one of those steps along the way. There was a lot of pressure and timing that that was important because you, you know, you design like significantly, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment and costs change quickly, you know, a few years delay and the changes, the costs can change. And so we wanted to keep things moving, and so that the estimates for costs were accurate and we didn’t have any surprises later.

Brandon Burton 28:06
Yeah, when this is part of a 10 year plan and vision like, man, a lot of the costs have changed within that 10 year span. But it’s got to be very satisfying to see this, you know, coming from a dream or vision, a plan, to to something that’s materializing. What’s the timeline look like for completion on the amphitheater in the stadium?

Rick Baker 28:27
Yeah, so the amphitheater is well under construction. It started sooner. That was the first project that we got going on from a construction standpoint, and the first concert will be in May of 2026 Okay, and so, you know, there,

Brandon Burton 28:48
do you know who’s coming with? Not yet, okay, yeah, we might be able to pre sell some tickets here.

Rick Baker 28:56
I would think that it would be quite an honor for any entertainer to be the first entertainer in a new venue. And we have a, you know, our we have a great contract partnership with the organization that runs our arena and our convention center, and they’re now contracted to run the amphitheater and using Live Nation to, you know, work all the deals with the different entertainment groups. So, yeah, I’m sure that’ll be exciting, and it’ll be a hot ticket for sure.

Brandon Burton 29:29
Absolutely sounds very exciting. Yeah,

Rick Baker 29:33
soccer stadium is a little bit they’re just starting construction now. They’re doing groundwork and site work. They just started it recently, and so that’ll be about a two year build out before that’s completed some of the other steps that are coming along with that project. And we haven’t announced the the name of the team yet, you know, or team ownership, any of that kind of stuff. And so we’ve, I think, you know, we’ve been phasing it out, just. Kind of keep the attention and excitement, but we’ll be doing that very soon, because it’s important, because there’s material that needs to be bought and you want it to align with the colors of the team and right like that. And so that stuff will be coming along in the near future.

Brandon Burton 30:16
Yeah, that’s really cool. Well, Rick, as we begin to wrap things up here. I wanted to ask on behalf of you know, chambers listening, who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you suggest for them as they try to work towards that goal

Rick Baker 30:35
while we I think for us, what really has helped us as an organization, and that be at the beginning of this whole journey of re reinventing ourselves, as I mentioned back in 2018 and we also started implementing Eos, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. And there’s other operating systems out there Eos, what I like about it is, it is not hard, you know, it’s very simple. It gives you a set of tools. But what the most important thing it does is it gets the whole team laser focused on the on the goal. You know, everyone is aligned. And, you know, here’s who we are as an organization. Our values are alive. They’re not just something on a piece of paper. They’re on our wall, but they’re not just on the wall. We live them. I hear people on our team stay them, you know, they’ll reference them, you know, regularly. So I know that they’re on the top of mind for them. We use it for hiring and hiring, promotion, recognition, to have everything to make sure that our value is alive and well. But the long game, they understand where we’re going and then, but more importantly, they understand why, and that’s important part of it. You know, we can set a goal for something, but if people don’t understand, aren’t bought into the why that’s our goal, or why are we going this direction, or why do we need our, you know, our revenue, to be this amount, then it’s harder for them to maybe buy into the mission. And I think what we’ve seen as organizations, and I’m sure the other chambers that are listening, we’re able to, we’re able to attract really high quality talent, because especially it seems like the workforce right now wants to be part of a mission that they’re excited about, and so we have an advantage a little bit. We may not always be able to compete in the marketplace for wages against some of our largest employers, but we’ve been able to attract people because they buy into the mission in the in the focus of the organization. And we have a we’re able to do this work because we have an incredible team of people. I just get out of their way, you know? They we get the right people and let them do their work and bring their expertise to the table, and it works out really well for our members and our organization and our community. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 33:10
it’s super important to be clear on that that mission and purpose, and that’s going to drive people in the right direction, for sure. Oh, Rick, I like asking everyone I have on the show about the future. How do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Rick Baker 33:29
Yeah, that’s, yeah, that’s the age old question, right? You know? And I think the ACC has done incredible work with the Horizon Report and updating that again now it’s incredible how accurate the last one was to project out where we are now 10 years later, and so that’s been a great resource. I think our business communities and in our every city around the country need us now more than ever. We should be a business imperative, and that’s our goal here in Grand Rapids, we need to be a business imperative for every business in town with a pace of change the challenges that are coming, the how quickly those challenges are coming, the disruption that we have. Our members need us tremendously to help stabilize the environment that they’re in, and a lot of the growth, the the excitement that happens in this country that we all love is happening at the local level. We’re driving it this. It’s not being top down, driven from, you know, from Washington, DC, it’s bottom up driven now, top can affect it and make our jobs harder, but we can, we can push through it, and we will help navigate. We’re a resilient, you know, people here in the United States, in our cities, and so that’s to me, I think. You know, now more than ever and into the future, we are, if we’re doing the right kind of work for our members, we’ll be a business imperative for them. Yeah. I

Brandon Burton 35:10
love that. I love how you said it’s your job to help stabilize the environment that these businesses are trying to conduct their business in. And that’s

Rick Baker 35:18
thrives. Business thrives unstable and predictable. The unstable, unpredictable is where it’s like, oh my gosh, what are we doing? And so we can bring some stability to them and help them see what’s coming and be prepared for it. Then we become very valuable to them.

Brandon Burton 35:36
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Rick, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and either learn more about the programs you talked about, or more about how you guys are conducting business there at the Grand Rapids chamber in general. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you?

Rick Baker 35:56
Yeah, the best way to reach me is I is email, quite honestly, and it’s, it’s simple emails, is rick@grandrapids.org, okay, very simple than that.

Brandon Burton 36:07
Yeah, I like that. We’ll, we’ll get it in our show notes too, to make it easy, even easier for people, yeah, to reach out to you. But Rick, this has been great having you on the show. I appreciate you taking the time to visit with us and to share. You know these, these programs you guys are involved with that are making an impact in your community, and I wish you and your team Best of luck as chamber of the year.

Rick Baker 36:28
Thank you so much. Brandon, appreciate you.

Brandon Burton 36:33
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2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Ocala Metro CEP with Tamara Fleischhaker

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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 finalists series. And for today’s episode, we’re thrilled to welcome Tamara Fleischhaker . Tamara is a powerhouse in public policy, community development and business advocacy. She currently serves as the interim president and CEO, as well as the chief experience officer of the Ocala Metro Chamber and Economic Partnership, or the CEP. With nearly two decades of leadership at the CEP, Tamara has played a pivotal role in merging organizations, launching innovative programs like business incubators and award winning communication strategies, and steering grass root political victories that have shaped the region’s future. Tamara’s roots in business run deep, from helping out in her family’s screen printing company in high school to work in in corporate marketing at Fortune 100 company to becoming one of Florida’s most respected chamber professionals. She is a certified chamber executive, a Florida certified chamber professional, and an IOM program graduate, recognized as a 2016 professional of the Year by the Florida Association of chamber professionals. Tamara recently chaired that same board in 2022 to 2023 outside of work, Tamara is a passionate community advocate, serving on multiple nonprofit boards. She’s also a die hard hockey fan who splits her loyalty between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Toronto Maple leaves, and she loves exploring every corner of Florida but Tamara, I’m excited to have you on the podcast today. First, congratulations to you and your team for being selected as chamber of the year finalists. It’s quite an accomplishment, but thank you. Yeah. I wanted to give you a chance to say hello to all the listeners out there, but also to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Tamara Fleischhaker 3:04
All right. Well, wonderful. So thank you so much for this opportunity. We have such a tremendous team here, so I’m really grateful that that all of their work to get us to this finalist position. It’s truly an honor you. So you’ve already talked about my hockey background. You know, I love water, whether it’s the ocean or frozen ponds, if you will. And I probably, another interesting fact is I also love hot air ballooning. I had the opportunity to get involved in that when I was a teenager, and because I’ve been in a festival life, kind of a festival volunteer, for most of my life, and had the opportunity to crew for hot air balloons. And also, you know, go up in a few and that has always been a lot of fun. It’s something I don’t get much time to do now, in in the current role that I have, but it’s, it’s still a passion for me

Brandon Burton 3:51
that is really cool. I’ve never been up in a hot air balloon. I don’t know if I could, I don’t know if I could do it. I don’t know. I’ve seen videos of people that go up and they do skydiving from them, where they get no thank you. I don’t need to. I can’t do that for sure. I’m out myself. Yeah, very cool. Well, tell us a little bit about the CEP to kind of set the stage for our conversation. Let us know the size, the organization, staff, scope of work you guys are involved with budget just to kind of prepare us for the topics we cover.

Tamara Fleischhaker 4:23
Sure. So we our organization was formed about 13 years ago through a merger of both the Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Corporation in the Ocala Metro, and I’ve been with the organization through that merger. So it’s really been an exciting 12 years for us. When it was first formed, we were all coming out of a pretty tough, historic downturn of the economy, and we certainly had our issues in our community. So the organization was really formed with the goal in mind to be exactly what this community needed. I know people have. Merged and unmerged organizations, yeah, over time. And, you know, they always say, Well, what did you do? And I said, You know what the key to this is find out what your community needs. And that is what we did. And we’ve certainly seen the success with doing that. You know, Florida has seen tremendous growth. We ourselves were listed this year as the fastest, fastest growing Metro in the country, with a 4% growth rate year over year, which was a little bit of a okay, that explains why it feels like this in our community. And then, which is, of course, why we’ve also been focused on infrastructure. We’ll get to that in a little bit. But so this organization has, has really focused on, how do we grow jobs from the ground up? So entrepreneurship, we run two incubator facilities within our team. We also, of course, work on Business Retention and Expansion and business attraction in the traditional lanes of economic development. But outside of that, we are a full service, chamber functioning organization as well. And so we have on, you know, all of our full team that you would expect as a part of that we do all of the networking events and educational events, run a adult and a youth leadership program through the organization. So we have all of what you would traditionally expect within both sides of organizations. We just get to do it all with a really integrated team. We have about 30 staff members that host all of that because, additionally we we have a foundation within our structure. We have a a CDFI that we are working on within that organization. We also run a market space, which during covid, is something that really became a piece for us, that we have a facility, that it’s undercover, but yet outdoors, and we run a Saturday market out of there, and we rent it out to the community for different events, and, you know, festival pieces that they might do as well. So gives us another stream of income there, but it also adds a little bit more staff to the team. So again, we that’s our size of staff, we have about 1300 partners. We call our members partners because they are partners in the work that we do to support the business community. So that is how we look at our organization. So right around 1300 partners, I’m not sure if there’s something I missed in there, but I’m sure that if there’s another key point, you’ll let me know.

Brandon Burton 7:20
Yeah, no, I think you did a great job covering kind of that scope that you guys are involved with. I guess one of the aspects, budget wise, what do you guys look at? Budget wise? Yeah,

Tamara Fleischhaker 7:32
so for budget, we run about 4.4 million across our six entities,

Brandon Burton 7:37
okay, and I think that’s important, just for those listening to be able to try to scale, you know, the different programs and Exactly,

Tamara Fleischhaker 7:43
yeah, because they’re also wondering, how do you have 30 staff members? That’s

Brandon Burton 7:47
part of it, right? Absolutely so. And from what I remember before and having Kevin Sheilley on the podcast a couple of times, you guys are heavy in the equine industry as well. We

Tamara Fleischhaker 7:59
are. So yeah, we are blessed to be the horse capital of the world, and that is, I know a lot of people ask the question, Well, what about some other particular areas across the country? And we absolutely agree that Lexington is the thoroughbred capital. Ours is because we represent 73 different breeds, and we have one horse to every four people in our community. So we have more horses than any other place in the country, and that is part of the USDA registration of information. So yep, our our groups here have trademarked that name, and we love that. I I still believe we are the only chamber I know. We’re the only chamber in the country right now that has an equine initiative, which we absolutely love, because that is a huge part of our tourism trade here, and we absolutely enjoy having that be a part of our organization. And yes, so that is under what we call our traditional chamber side operations. But there is also economic opportunity in that as well, because we have a lot of companies that have created equine products in the community to meet the needs of what that horse community looks like.

Brandon Burton 9:04
Yeah, I think that’s a great example of going back to what you had said about creating the organization to what your community needs, right? You guys leaned heavy into that. So that’s awesome, absolutely. Well, on these chamber of the year finalist episodes, I like to spend most of our time really diving into the two program synopsis that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. So we’ll take a quick break, and when we come back, we’ll dive in deep on both of those and learn more about what you guys submitted.

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Brandon Burton 12:17
All right. Tamara, we are back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’ll dive into the two program synopsis that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. I know one of them has to do with the sales sales tax referendum, sales tax referendum. If I could speak right, why don’t you tell us what that’s about, the history of that and how it came to be. You know, at the front of mind right now for you guys to approach,

Tamara Fleischhaker 12:42
sure, absolutely so for us, this was actually our third referendum that we ran on a sales surtax for infrastructure and first responders. We started back in 2015 again, recognizing that our community was growing so rapidly that even if we looked at impact fees and our traditional methodologies of you know you’re getting your property tax, we wanted to maintain a balance in all of that, because as a growing community, to meet the needs. So we recognize that the best thing we could do is run a sales tax because then it’s not just our community that pays for it, it’s all those visitors that come to us. So we started that first process. Ran it for four years, and it was successful. We won. Then what we found out is that there continued to be some pressure from the legislature about how taxes were run. They were setting some standards about when in the year cycle you could do it and for how many years you might be able to so we did another four year and was very successful. That led us to looking at this tremendous growth that we’ve already spoken of, how fast we were growing. We want to be able to keep up with that infrastructure and make sure that the services that our community enjoys are still able to be found in the community as you’re moving here, or for someone who’s been here their whole life, the other piece of that is our schools are struggling, because often what they find is they get some unfunded mandates that come along to them, and you have that tremendous growth, they’ve got more students, and they’re outpacing the facilities that we’ve had. So we also realized that we had kind of a dual need for what was going to happen in the next 10 to 15 years. So we thought, you know, when you buy a house, you don’t plan for just four years of how much you’re going to pay for a mortgage, you’re planning 20 years, right? 20 years or more. So we said, let’s think about this in terms of how roads are being built in the community, how the transportation plans are being written. And we decided to tackle it for a 20 year penny sales tax for transportation infrastructure. And then we decided to add a half penny for 10 years dedicated to school facilities. So that might mean existing, upgrading existing facilities and or building new schools, which is all happening as a part of that plan. One of the things. That has made this so successful for us is when we first went to the community with it, we were very transparent with it. The city and county joined in on this process, and every dollar that they’re spent, they’ve created a budget for it in advance. It goes through the city’s budget process every year. It goes through the counties, and every time they spend money, they show the money. So the county has a dedicated website, and each of them has it in their budget, what they’re spending from those committed pennies that they’re getting and how they’re using it, whether it’s 10 fire trucks and, you know, new radios for something, or whether it is improvements to our jail facility and we built, you know, 17 miles of roadway or resurface, 12 miles. It literally gets put down to every penny that they spend and how they’re doing that. And then each year in the budget cycle, they can, you know, re look at events that are going on in the community, or they can look at what their use is, or a special needs. Do we, you know, are we building out a new section of our community? Maybe need a new fire station. So you know, that can be adjusted each year as a part of the budget process, but that’s how we went about, kind of taking the lead in this and recognizing that we needed to bring a community together. The greatest part of this is how we were able to mobilize so many different groups together on this. We brought together our realtor Association, road builders. We brought together all of our Of course, you know, we’ve got our public and private on both sides of that, but the business community really came together for this, and we raised over $250,000 to help run commercials and take kind of a new digital turn on that. But we also had some of these organizations going ahead and sending email blasts or doing social media campaigns. We even went to to the unions for the school board and also to our first responders, and they shared out this information because it helps them. They’re getting new equipment. They’re getting well taken care of. It doesn’t come out of general funds. So they still get to, you know, maintain the salaries, and we still get they still get to have improvements there. Because the worst thing a community can do it would be to go ahead and train people and then not be able to pay those first responders and have them go to someone else’s community. So we put all of these pieces together. We were so excited that the community really came together behind this. It really was one of those things where, you know, you get that broad collaboration as a part of what we’re doing, and with that, we’re actually ending up building two elementary schools, adding a new wing to a middle school, and building a new high school. All in those projects are already in process for the next five years, and so there are some other improvements that will happen out of that for the schools, but it really is a big piece of how do we make sure that local governments have the flexibility that they need, that they can stay sustainable and that they have long term funding sources for the growing needs of our community, where they don’t have to put that tax burden just on the property tax zone, you know, for those who would pay property tax for owners. So that was a really big piece for us. Really exciting. It was the first time we’d ever done true digital media, basically being on, you know, Amazon Prime, being on Hulu. It was a whole new venture for us to take that large of a piece. But we, you know, we also did a lot of conversations to business groups, anyone that wanted us to talk about it. We come see them. We went out to several communities, you know, we’ve got larger housing communities in the in the in our metro, and went out talk to them, gave them the whole, you know, here’s what it is. We’re just laid out the facts. And it was really incredible to see how they all really supported that and came behind it. We passed it in every single district, every voting district, which I think is, you know, the bigger piece of this, that kind of, you know, a lot of people told us it’s going to be close. You’re going to be you might get one passed, you probably won’t get both, and it’ll probably be a pretty close vote. Well, I’ll take 63% of the vote for the sales tax renewal and 59% for the schools tax so when I look at those numbers, I think that that’s that’s a pretty good thing, saying our community agreed that we need to take care of our schools, and that we need to have our students in safe classrooms and having all the technology that they need for the future, and also that we’re taking care of our first responders and that we have great roads to travel on in the Ocala Metro. So, you know, we’re pretty excited about how that all came together this last year.

Brandon Burton 19:38
Yeah, think that’s a huge help with the for example, the the transportation and first responders, sales tax, when every penny is being accounted for, and you can go back and say, Look, this is where it’s all being spent, that makes it a whole lot easier to pass the next time it absolutely does. My question, when it when it comes to the schools, is there certain things that that money is allowed to be allocated? To or is there like, for example, sometimes when a bond is passed, maybe it can’t pay teacher salaries, but it can build new infrastructure, new schools, campuses and stuff like that. Yeah. So, yeah,

Tamara Fleischhaker 20:12
yes, yeah. So the parameters for this, actually, it is all about capital outlay. So this was very specifically for new construction, for facility updates, so there is none of this being spent on salaries. But again, it helps to keep that out of the general fund. And because of the term, they were able to put Bonds out so they could build the schools now and pay those off as they collect that sales tax over the next, you know, few years. So yeah, it is very specifically because they had funding, and we’ve helped them find it for other programming. We actually passed a one mill renewal two years ago that helps them with our technical training skills and being able to have more in the arts sector of their schools. So we’ve been helping out in that lane and bringing people together for that for you know, this is more than this one election cycle, but yes, this particular sales tax is dedicated very specifically to the capital investments within the schools.

Brandon Burton 21:12
So my other question with this program is, with the capital that was raised to promote and do the digital marketing and everything that you guys did it? Did you have somebody in house that could kind of leverage that, or did you contract and go with an agency that could help put you in contact with prime and Hulu and, you know those examples you mentioned?

Tamara Fleischhaker 21:29
Yeah, this, this was the first time. So in the first couple of campaigns we we did a lot in house, social media, driven in those but this was well outside of our wheelhouse. So we absolutely did hire an agency. And I will tell you, it was an agency that was referred to us by a partner in the community. And again, you know, we had so much of our business community that said, you know, we’re absolutely behind you on this, and helped fund that investment. So yeah, we did a little bit of we supplied some B roll and some other video because we do have our own video studio in house, so we were able to work with them on that and help put together the scripting. And so that was kind of the fun part, that we were able to use some of what we’ve done in the community and our own video studio and supply that information to them. But yeah, we definitely hired this out, just to make sure you want to put the experts in a smart move. Yeah, yeah. And I think every year, we all realize as Chamber organizations, it gets harder and harder when you’re doing political things on social media and and those types of channels. There’s so many restrictions that are put in place that it’s always best to let the experts do that if you’re in a position to do it.

Brandon Burton 22:37
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s shift gears and change our focus on to the other program that you guys submitted on your application. If you’d like to introduce that program and tell us what it was all about.

Tamara Fleischhaker 22:49
Absolutely. So our other program is what we call the Ocala Metro Catalyst Fund. This is a community development finance institution which is regulated through the US Treasury Department, this was a new thing for us. We I guess I should step back and say, you know, we started an incubator program with the help of the county and city on the campus that we have here, because we are right across from City Hall, and within our campus area here, they had a building that used to be the original power plant for the city of Ocala, and so both of those entities helped us open up in that building. So it’s the power plant business incubator. So we started there with a real focus on entrepreneurship. And how do we help people to grow their own business? Right? It’s the greatest way that you can have control of your own career and your life is to be able to start your own business. And so we have been running that incubator since 2012 it has been incredibly successful, and this last year, we were able to open a second incubator location. But in the process of running these incubators, the biggest challenge I think we continue to recognize is that there’s an access to capital issue for entrepreneurs, and it can be even worse in some of our underserved communities. And we have three that we’ve really keep an eye on within our community, that those zip codes kind of tend to be the ones that really have struggled the most in our community, and have kind of been overlooked over the years. And so we have put programming from our incubators specifically into those communities. And what we recognized is traditional lenders don’t often help those in the underserved community, and they don’t have that way to do that. So what CDFIs do in a community is they help close that financial gap. They can spur economic growth and promote mobility where, you know, traditional lending falls short in that lane. So for us, you know, we did a lot of surveying, a lot of talking to people in the community. And you know, part of what happened is. It actually started in a post covid environment, right when we were looking at businesses that were receiving assistance through the Cares Act, and then we realized there continued to be this gap in critical funding in the state of Florida has made great inroads over the past couple of years, but we had already started into this process and recognize that for lower income zip codes. This is going to be an ongoing challenge with traditional lenders. So we started out a new 501, c3, and as you can imagine, in this being a federal program, there are a lot of regulations, a lot of processes to go through. So we did hire a consultant to help us start this process that got us on the on the road to this. And so, you know, we’ve now been able to offer some nano loans to businesses as a part of the process, and we’re already in the repayment process on that. And what we’re really looking forward to over the next few years is that we’re hoping to get our final certification in January. We’re fully on track with that. We’ve received a large grant from Treasury to make the next steps in this and working towards that certification. The other piece of it is our county government has also given us a grant that we’re using as a matching grant in the community. They gave us $75,000 to go out to the business community. And so we are currently raising matching grant funds through that so that we’ll be able to offer larger loans, where our next step is micro loans and those who would be anywhere from 2000 to 15,000 and then once we’re fully certified, and we can engage banks, then at that point as a part of the process, then we’re hoping to be able to go to those more traditional business loan sizes of somewhere between, you know, usually around $50,000 would be kind of the top end of those types of loans. But that gives businesses who are in their first five years of startup that working capital that they that they need. And again, we’re really targeting communities that would traditionally not be served by a traditional bank because of where they you know, those communities are, and because of their economic situation that they’re already in. So our goal is to try to make equity where we can in the community, and to try to balance that for everyone, so that there’s an equal opportunity. Because we do feel that entrepreneurship is the fastest way to to really create personal wealth and personal opportunity for you and your family.

Brandon Burton 27:27
Yeah, I love this idea. I’d love to see more chambers embrace this and be able to provide access to capital, funding to these, these businesses, you know, coming out of an incubator, these new businesses, I’m trying to get going. The biggest question that I have, so you addressed it, you know, how the funding, how this in, I think, in the the introduction, you had talked about your foundation. So this is how it’s within the foundation.

Tamara Fleischhaker 27:53
But this actually this, so this actually does run separately of our foundation. Oh, so yeah, just, yeah. Just to clarify our so our Foundation did help with initial startup funds. So you know, when we were trying to get those nano loans started, but we have, actually, this is its own separate 501, c3, organization now. So yeah, when we first started talking about it and how do we fund some of the initial pieces we were working on, we did use our foundation to help us with that, but at this point, it is a standalone organization, and so I think that’s what makes it a little more special as we’ve been able to move it forward. And I think that’s what makes it such an important program, is that it doesn’t rely on our foundation. Our foundation can still be dedicated to serving the mission of our overall organization, right where we talk about, you know that the foundation can magnify mission, and so that’s what we continue to work on. So this one is its own entity at this point,

Brandon Burton 28:48
awesome that. Thank you for that. Clarification. When it comes to the the Nano loans, the the soon to be micro loans that you you give out. How do you secure that? Like, what kind of is there collateral? Is there? How do you ensure that you get repayment and that it’s not just a gift?

Tamara Fleischhaker 29:06
Yes, no, yep. So, so we, you know, there is a whole comprehensive process, much like banks go through, right, looking at their financial situation, looking at the viability of that business, right? Because it’s partly the same process we use in an incubator is that business scalable. What, you know, what are the opportunities? And part of what the great part in doing this process is there’s a requirement for them to get this funding that they have to go through the technical training so they get the technical assistance that goes with it. So we’re working with these businesses. Our team over at our incubator is working with them every day to, you know, to check in and make sure that they’ve got all of the pieces of that ready. We actually, because we’ve had a great partnership with Kauffman Foundation through the incubator for several years. We have some of their programs, like the Fast Track Program, which is a great program that gets a business started on. Yeah, how do you even write a marketing plan? How do you write your business plan? And over the course of that, they’re writing all of those documents and really getting themselves on stable footing. Because the key to an incubator in any community is essentially, we say we help a business fail fast, right? If you’re going to make mistakes, do it in a safety net where you’ve got people around you that can help catch you and help get you back on track, because that’s the piece right. Businesses that are incubated, I am probably going to get the stats wrong, and those of your listeners will be like, that’s not the right stat, but I’m going to estimate that it’s about they’re 80% more successful in the first five years, whereas, you know, an average business without that kind of support network, you probably have about a, you know, 12% survival rate, and so we know that that’s already, you know, the piece to having a community that supports our entrepreneurs, and that’s a key piece, but having that opportunity for them to get that continued coaching that becomes a part of the process as well, because they don’t get their loan payments. If they don’t, you know, and have that technical assistance going on. And I think that’s the piece that makes this so special, and that’s a continuing piece, but that links it back into our incubator as we’re going forward now. The other thing that we did is we had an amazing event just recently, which was a matchmaker event, and this is where we bring in local banks. We had about 25 local banks, about 120 participants, and all of them come in and they sit down with those documents that they have, their business plans and their financial documents, and they talk to the banks about getting loans. And so the other piece is we’re teaching these businesses how to build up the what they need within their business that will help them in the future with regular, traditional loan programs. And that’s really the goal behind this, is to get them established, give them a credit history, because, more than anything, that’s what they’re missing. They don’t have a credit history, even if they had collateral. They’re a new business, right, right? It makes them risky. And so that’s that’s our goal, with all of this is really opening the door for them, for the future, for larger and other, you know, loan opportunities.

Brandon Burton 32:07
Yeah, that is fantastic. The whole point about helping these businesses fail fast, reminds me of Thomas Edison and a reporter asked him, you know, what do you think about all your failures? He’s like, I didn’t fail. I figured out 1000s of ways that a light bulb would not work, right? And that’s the whole idea. You fail fast so you can get to that solution.

Tamara Fleischhaker 32:25
Yeah, we actually have that quote on the wall in our incubator. We we went with a lot of those types of quotes as inspiration, because that’s it, right? And when you know so many people that you know, sometimes we talk about we have some serial entrepreneurs in our community too, and some of them are on their third or fourth company, because they just love that drive. Now that they’ve, you know, they’ve been so successful in their first business, they keep going on to the next. And I love seeing that.

Brandon Burton 32:48
Yeah, that’s awesome. But Tamara, as we begin to wrap things up, I wanted to ask for the listeners who are interested in taking their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item would you suggest for them and trying to accomplish that goal.

Tamara Fleischhaker 33:03
So I think the first thing I would say is never think that you’re too small to try starting some of these programs. I think that’s that’s the biggest part is we say, well, we could never do what the Ocala CEP does, because we don’t have that kind of budget or that kind of staff. 13 years ago, there were five staff, and I can guarantee you, we had a small budget at the time. So I think the key to any of this is, what can you take away, what part of what we’re doing can you use, you know, if it’s, you know, from a sales tax standpoint, okay, take a look at your community. And is this something that you think with transparency and other things? Because I’ll share how we did it. I shared all the time, and I think that’s the great news about chambers, right? We talk about R and D all the time. I’m going to rip off and duplicate what somebody else is doing. And most of the things that we do truly are scalable. So even if there’s just a few of you, get a committee together, get, you know, get your board behind what you’re doing, and let them help lead the brigade for you. And what we’re doing with an incubator, you do not have to be in the situation we’re in. Get your community partners together. That’s what we do as Chamber organizations, right? We’re the catalyst. We’re the conveners. We bring people together. So get people behind you on this, whether that issue is housing, whether that is, you know, improvements in your communities, whether it’s entrepreneurship, there are so many lanes that you can bring people together, and that’s really what we do best. So I would say, don’t be afraid to try it. Just go for it. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 34:33
I love that response. I 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?

Tamara Fleischhaker 34:45
So I think, you know, we talk about this all the time. We hear the news stories, and we see this kind of greater political divide, or so it seems. But I think what we’re finding more and more is as things seem a little more crazy in the environment. And around us, people look to their chamber. Businesses definitely look to us. And they say, Okay, we we’re asking you to lead, and I think we’re going to be called upon. We’re we’re already seeing it happening. And I’m sure chambers across the country are as well, that we’re being called upon to voice an opinion or be a part of more issues that are happening in our community, and of course, my only caution would be make sure that whatever you’re engaging in meets your mission, right that, because it’s so easy for us to have mission drift and stray away from that, but our voices matter so much in the community, and we’re going to continue to be called on so we all need to be thinking about that. What are we prepared to what is our process for engaging on issues, and what’s the right thing for our community, and how do we want to address that? As chambers,

Brandon Burton 35:47
yeah, I totally agree. But Tamara, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect or learn more about your approaches. There in Ocala. Where would you point them? What would be the best way for them to connect

Tamara Fleischhaker 36:04
with you? Well, the place that I will start them is our website. It is the OcalaCEP.com so Ocala is spelled o c, a, l, A, C, E, p.com, and you can see, we’ve got a team page there. We’re all you can find any one of us on that and make an outreach, and you’ll easily find me there. And the great news is, most of us are first name at Ocala, cep.com if you want to send an email. So again, I’m Tamara. It’s T, A, M, A, R, A, and so you can feel free to give me a call, you know, off of the website there, or you can give me an email and I’m happy to connect with you, or connect you with a member of my team who might be a better resource for you.

Brandon Burton 36:43
That’s very good, and we’ll make sure to have the website and our show notes to make it easy for people to find you guys and fantastic reach out and connect. But Tamara, this has been great having you on the show. Thank you for diving into these programs and telling us how you guys are making that secret sauce there in Ocala. But I wish you and your team Best of luck as chamber of the year.

Tamara Fleischhaker 37:05
Thank you so much. Brandon. Really appreciate the opportunity to talk to your listeners.

Brandon Burton 37:11
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2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Greater Fort Wayne Inc. with John Urbahns

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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 guest for this episode is John or bonds. John is the CEO of Greater Fort Wayne Inc, and of course, he’s representing a Greater Fort Wayne Inc as a chamber of the year finalist. But he joined the organization in 2014 and at the time, was serving as executive vice president economic development, before taking on the CEO role in 2019 under his leadership, Greater Fort Wayne Inc has assisted with over 200 business expansions and relocations, resulting in more than 13,500 new jobs and $600 million in new payroll. Previously, John was the Director of Community Development for the City of Fort Wayne, managing strategic planning, redevelopment and economic development initiatives. John has led key community projects such as the landing electric works and the Bradley hotel, while also engaging with residents and leaders to shape Allen County’s future. He holds a degree in urban planning and environmental design from Ball State University, and is an AICP certified urban planner, John, I want to welcome you back to chamber chat podcast. Congratulations to you and your team for being selected as a chamber of the year finalists. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the chamber champions, and if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

John Urbahns 2:41
Hello, Brandon, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be back. Love talking about our team. Our team is excited about this opportunity. We think we’ve done a great job in transforming our community, and really all of northeast Indiana, so excited about it. You know, I’m a I’m just a proud Hoosier. I’m a proud father of three great kids here that are all making choices to stay in our community at the end of the day. That’s that’s the biggest job in the world that I have, is making sure that every kid has the opportunity to have a great opportunity in Fort Wayne, in Allen County, and just continue to thrive. So excited to be here. That’s

Brandon Burton 3:22
right. You’re you’re living the work that you do, right, keeping your kids into the community. That’s great. That’s great. Well, tell us a little bit about Greater Fort Wayne Inc, to kind of set the perspective for us as we start our discussion today. Give us an idea of the size staff, scope of work. You guys are involved with budget, that sort of things Greater

John Urbahns 3:42
Fort Wayne ink, you know, a lot of people think, Oh, you’ve been around forever. I joined the organization in 2014 January, 2014 when we formed the organization, Oh, right. We merged our chamber of commerce, which was 100 years old, our Economic Development Alliance, which was a public private partnership doing economic development, which was about 20 years old, and then our leadership Fort Wayne program, which is at the time, was about little over 30 years old, and merged those together, the business community really said, we need to pull these assets together to do economic development, to do chamber activities, to do leadership programming, so that we can take on bigger and bolder projects in the community. So we’re about 1111, and a half years old as an organization, but you know, really serving as the economic development entity and the chamber for all of Allen County. So not just Fort Wayne, but New Haven Hunter town, some of the smaller communities, 660 square miles, is our is our jurisdiction, but we work very closely with those regional counties in northeast Indiana.

Brandon Burton 4:46
All right, very good. But how many Chamber members and staff? Yeah,

John Urbahns 4:51
so we have, we have 14. We just passed the 1400 mark on membership in the community. We’ve got 20 staff members. But. Budget of about $3.4 million that that is made up of, you know, membership revenue, dues, a non dues revenue, just lot of great things going on. A lot of great support from our community. In what we’re doing as a community, we’re seeing a lot of growth, which is what you want to see as a chambers and an economic development agency, and really feel that the work we’re doing is helping drive that.

Brandon Burton 5:23
Yeah, very cool. Well, on these chamber of the year finalist episodes, I like to spend the majority of our time really diving into the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. So we’ll take a quick break, and when we get back, we’ll dive in deep on those two programs.

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Brandon Burton 8:28
All right, John, we’re back, as I mentioned before the break, we’re we’re diving in on the two programs from your your chamber of the year application. I know one of them has, you know, obviously, a focus on economic development and another one on talent attraction. Do you have a preference on which one you’d like to cover first?

John Urbahns 8:47
I’m good with either one. You know, our role, our mission, is about building nationally recognized economy, but our Why is really about people and capital. So we always talk to people about it. It’s about people setting the environment where people want to be, where people want to move to, and where capital wants to be deployed, whether that’s locally, nationally or internationally. So both these programs tie very, very much into our why on the people and capital side. So people are probably the most important. So let’s just jump in on the people side.

Brandon Burton 9:17
All right, so let’s do that so your your onboard program, tell us what that’s about. And kind of, I always like to know what the need was, it was addressed, and how you guys went about answering

John Urbahns 9:27
that need. Yeah. So one of the one of the areas that we started working was onboard Fort Wayne. We’ve seen a lot of growth in our community. We We had a lot of years of, kind of dying, the slow death, of negative domestic migration and population decrease with some of the work that we’ve done to drive investment in the community, we’ve now seen eight straight years of positive domestic migration. If you go back 1990 when they started tracking this every year was negative until eight years ago, and that’s because we chose to invest in ourselves. Started to make progress in that environment, and as we started to see that increased domestic migration, we started seeing a lot of influx from people from throughout the nation coming in to Fort Wayne and Allen County. How are we going to welcome them? How are we going to really come alongside them and help them get connected within the community? So we created the onboard program about five years ago, and have slowly built out different segments of it. And over the last couple of years, we built, we built in the intern experience and best in class, which are two of the two of the pieces that we submitted for the chamber of the year application. So the intern experience, really diving in with interns and companies. They’re going to come here to work and hopefully have a great experience at their company. How do they fall in love with the community? And that’s what we stepped in to help do. So each summer, we do between five and one year nine, nine weeks straight of just social activities for the interns, to get them connected to each other, to get them connected to the community. One of the keys is we, you know, we survey them early on. You know, what’s the chances of you seeing yourself living in Fort Wayne post graduation in both years, it’s been a little right around 60% of the kids see themselves living here. And these are kids that are coming from all over the US, right? We part of the survey. We look at where they coming from one year, 25 states. One year, 23 states, multiple countries, of kids coming in from across the US to do internships here. So these college interns? Is that college intern? Yep. So if only 60% can see themselves, living here, that’s a challenge for us. By the end of the summer, both years, it’s increased to well over 80% of the kids we when we do the post program survey, 80% over 80% say they could see themselves living in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And there’s a lot, and we ask them why we you know, it comes down to cost of living, opportunities, connectedness, not just within the in Fort Wayne, but to outline, you know, larger metros. So we feel the program has been very successful. Our companies feel great about it. It lets them focus on the day to day, you know, like, let’s make sure they have a great work environment that they like our company, but we help them fall in love with the community. And maybe there’s some connections that are made while they’re here over the summer, and they and they fall in love in general, and have those strong connections as well. So it’s it’s creating that connection to the community. We parlayed that last year into the best in class program and said, All right, we’re getting great results from these college interns, but how do we get to kids before they go off to college? How do we build that pipeline? Just like a company builds a pipeline, we need to build a pipeline. So last year, we worked with all 17 high schools in Allen County and really sat down with your principals, your guidance counselors, and said, Give us your top kids, your 10 to 15 kids, not necessarily one through 10, one through 15 in the grades, but who are the leaders? Who are the kids that are going to go off and maybe never come back? And we pulled them together and said, give them to us for a night. So we had about 250 kids come together last year, and we had this best in class event where we talked about what’s going to happen over the next four years in our community, right? How is it going to change? We had some young entrepreneurs come in and talk to them about how they’ve chosen to make their best life here in Fort Wayne and Allen County. We talked about the business environment, right? So many kids, they don’t. They know about what’s going on the community, but they don’t know about industry. So we highlighted the key industry sectors and the great job opportunities that they can have here in the community. And then at the end, we wrapped it up with a cost of living index, right? We had, we had kids at tables, and we gave every kid a different at the table, a different city, and we started to help them understand, or they, I guess they under they figured out themselves. Hey, if I move off to some of these bigger cities, am I going to be able to afford to live the way I would like to live? Can I have? Can I own a car? Can I own a home? How much am I going to be able to go out? How many times can I go to Starbucks or the local coffee shop? And they started to understand Fort Wayne, Indiana was the best place for them to grow up. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 14:34
my son is our oldest. He graduated high school last year, so his eyes are being opened right now as he’s looking at cost of living, and what a call to reality. You’ve got these 250 of the greatest leaders in your area, you know, coming out of high school. Then to be able to give them this, this real life metric of this is one of just one of the real positive. Of reasons why you’d want to choose our community to stay, you know,

John Urbahns 15:04
yes. So you always wonder, did I make an impression? What? What’s the results of this? Right? We wanted these kids to not just know themselves, but ultimately go off to college and be our sales people while they’re out at, you know, universities throughout the Midwest, throughout the US, we had calls the next day from parents and said, I don’t know exactly what you said to my kids last night, but they were leaving. They were leaving after high school. They were going off to a couple of cases, Indiana University, Purdue University, pick your new mission. They were going there, and they were never coming back, and after last night, they said they want to come back. And that, to me, says we made a difference. That’s really cool, right? We’re driving change. We’re changing the mindset of the young folks about the community, and they’re starting to see the great opportunities that they can have. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 15:59
and so going backwards a little bit with the intern program, I think that’s a missed opportunity that so many chambers and communities have where interns come in and so much of the focus is on, you know, building the the work experience, and connecting with the company and and we miss that opportunity to connect them with the community and To get them to get them to fall in love with the community, you

John Urbahns 16:23
have to engage them. You have to get them to fall in love. You know, we’ve we’ve done a lot of work in our community about reinventing, reinvesting ourselves, building up our downtown. We do a business survey. Every five years, we hire a polling firm. It’s not just a survey we do. We are a polling firm. We do a statistical analysis of it, and 95% of the businesses believe we’re on the right track with where we’re headed. The number one issue in the community that they think affecting talent, attraction, retention, and these are companies across the community, is downtown and riverfront revitalization. So we know we’re on the right track, that we’re hitting the right points. Now we need to get those kids that out and enjoy those things and see those things while they’re here. So feel really good about it.

Brandon Burton 17:13
That’s great. Well, let’s shift gears to the big economic development program, and the I’ll say economic development. Win that. You guys are going through it at the moment. Tell us about that. Yeah,

John Urbahns 17:28
the, you know, I mentioned people in capital. The other side of our business is the capital side, right? Economic development. How are we creating the environment to attract capital into our market and get locals to invest as well. But last year was was a big year for us. We had $3.66 billion in building permits in Allen County. Put that in perspective, if you go back to 2012 so about 13 years ago, we were averaging about $500 million of building permits a year. So we’ve seen dramatic growth in that we hit a billion in 2017 and we haven’t looked back from that. So capital is a big piece for us. The other thing we had looked at through our economic development strategy was land assembly, and how do we make sure that we have opportunities for companies to grow? We saw the need for land in our community. We had an opportunity with a project that came to us from our electrical provider and said, Hey, we’ve got a company that’s that’s looking at our market. We’ve done a lot of great things to improve our water supply and our access to water and on the electric side as well. So ultimately, we landed a $2 billion Google data center, right? It’s their largest AI data center in the world that’s being built here in Fort Wayne, and we had a challenge to figure out how to get 900 acres of land for that development. Ultimately, this could end up being a 10 plus billion dollar investment as the multiple phases grow out in our community. And these are, these are tech jobs in our most depressed area of the community, right? So we can come back to that, but there’s gonna be a lot of great spin off effects from this that we’re gonna be able to utilize. But we’ve talked a lot as a chamber world about chamber foundations over the last several years. Do you have a chamber if you don’t have a chamber foundation? When you’re asked that question at ACC, I feel like everybody’s like, Well, why don’t you have one yet? You need to look at one. So we have one. We’ve been, you know, using it in different ways. But one of the things we had to respond to this, this about a year and a half ago, when this project started, was we had a partner that was going to work on land assembly, and it wasn’t going well with the company, and the company came to us and said, Hey, can you help us acquire the property? And we said, Yes, we’re going to do that. We’re going to, let’s, let’s figure out how to do that. So we utilized some funding in our chamber foundation to go out and acquire a. The 900 acres of property so that we could move it forward. We acquired that 900 acres of property in under 90 days. Wow, which is amazing as a community, and we couldn’t have done it if we didn’t have the chamber foundation infrastructure in place to go and do that. I think the other thing you have to look at from you know, you think about all the horizon points. You think about catalytic leadership and pulling people together. This property was located not just in the city of Fort Wayne. It was also in the city of New Haven, and it was an unincorporated Allen County. We took the role as a developer to go acquire that property. But then also, you know, petition for the vacation of a county road, we had to get the city of New Haven to dis annex about 60 acres of the site that was in one community, so that the city of Fort Wayne could annex it and annex the rest of the property and have that in their tax base. Now, you go to a mayor and tell him, I need you to dis annex 60 acres so that your neighbor can take it. Yeah, right, that that’s a tough conversation. But he jumped right in and said, Hey, let’s figure out how to do it, because this is a win for our community. It’s a huge win. Yeah? Mindset, right? If you go back 510, years ago, this ends up in a lawsuit, and frankly, the project doesn’t happen, but we had that buy in, and it’s because we’ve got the trusted relationships with all the different partners to pull it together so that it was a win win for each of the communities, because he knows his community is going to grow because of this right he’s right next to it. He’s going to see a lot of great growth, even if the even if that project is not directly within his political jurisdiction, right? Companies don’t care about political lines. They care about getting projects done. We used our foundation, we acted in a way, to speed a business to get this win for the entire community,

Brandon Burton 22:01
yeah. I mean, Moses split the Red Sea. I mean, you guys worked on getting a city into D annex, part of the land. I mean, it’s a miracle, as far as I’m concerned, but being able to be that convener, so like you said, be that trust. You know, have that trust in the community. Be that convener to really lead a project that’s going to benefit all of the surrounding communities as well. It’s, I mean, that’s the perfect position and role that a chamber should be playing. And then you’ve got the added benefit of being able to access your your chamber Foundation to help, you know, get the ball over the line, so to speak. Great testimony on being conveners and having a chamber foundation to see a big project come together that’s super exciting.

John Urbahns 22:48
And this is going to have, you know, I mentioned that, I said I’d come back to it. You know, this isn’t, you know, part of the community that has seen the most disinvestment or the lack of investment over several decades. We now in that, in that part of the community, have our first market rate subdivision being built for the first time in 40 years. Wow, market rate subdivision being built with the with the with the project, and the TIF district and the city being able to work to reinvest dollars within that community, to look at neighborhood commercial corridor projects, and we’re looking at other industrial properties that need to be repurposed in that area. This project now gives us the opportunity to really dive in and make some really big, transformational change in that part of the community. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 23:36
that’s awesome. So just a side note or comment on the chamber foundation. For those who don’t have a foundation, may be curious, how do you how do you guys fund your foundation? How did that? How did the funds become available to be able to fund a project like this? Yeah, we,

John Urbahns 23:56
you know, our our foundation, our c3 organization, is all of our fee for service agreements with city, Fort Wayne, City, New Haven, the Airport Authority, the county commissioners, they flow through that as well. But then we’ve used that to assemble dollars. The dollars we used for this project date back 25 years when the business community raised funds to help the city finalize an industrial park, and as part of that, those business funds that went into it as land sold, came back to us, into that entity or that foundation, to reinvest and basically evergreen, so that we could continue to do similar investments about eight years ago, we use that funds, those funds to help the city acquire another 145 acres and turned around and sold that to a large, large facility here in town. Again, we got the money back, and then we used it in this case. And then. Um, when this project closed, the funds came back into that. So those, those funds are recycling and coming back to us to now. Now we’re looking at new opportunities. How are we going to invest that to again position the community for growth from an economic development perspective? So those rate, those funds were initially raised as from the private sector. There’s other funds that you know because of this project, we were able to get several people that were involved in the project to provide some additional funds to it so help grow it because of the success of that project. So we’re just trying to continue to grow it and make sure that we can leverage it multiple times, right? It didn’t, it didn’t help that project, not just that project back in 1999 it helped us with multiple projects along the way, and it’s going to help us continue to move things forward. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 25:56
it’s a great framework of how to utilize a foundation. And for those who are thinking about it, it’s a great exposure to one

John Urbahns 26:05
way we used it. I know that others use it a lot of different ways. We can all learn from each other. I think that’s the key that I like about ACC, that I like about this process. We all learn from each other. We’re all doing great things. We just might be doing different things. Absolutely, we

Brandon Burton 26:21
all have different communities. So John, for those listening who are wanting to take their chamber to the next level working towards that goal, what kind of tip or action item might you leave with them towards trying to accomplish that? I

John Urbahns 26:37
think one of the things that that I would tell all of my my peers, you know, those in this world, and I’ve learned this, you know, again, very recently, that we have to be we’re that we’re the future of the community. We’re looking out ahead. Make sure you’re having those conversations with your key businesses about the future, right? So often, we all get kind of bogged down in the day to day making sure that projects are moving forward, programs are moving forward. We could spend our entire day focused on the here and now and making sure that goes smooth. But we need to make sure that we’re having the conversations about the future, right we are. We are the future of our community. We’re going to drive that. We’re going to be the catalytic leader. We’re going to be the futurist. Make sure that you’re bringing your business, your key business leaders and government leaders along with you. In that regard, don’t lose sight of the future. Make sure that you have those conversations. Is what I would leave with everybody. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 27:39
and said, Don’t lose sight of the future. I always like asking that question, too, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

John Urbahns 27:48
Yeah, you know, I can only speak from for my chamber, but we are. I’ve seen the change in this community. Yeah, I came here almost 30 years ago, and it wasn’t a community that I moved to to spend a career. It was a community I moved to for a job out of college, and we started to make change, and chambers need to be key in that role. If you’re not, if you’re not affecting change in your community, you’re not doing it justice, and you’re not doing yourself justice. So the future, the future of chambers, is bright, but we have to make it bright.

Brandon Burton 28:26
Yeah, I like that. Need to be affecting change in your

John Urbahns 28:30
community. We, we often say, we, we need to, we need to make the change happen, and not let the change happen to us. Yeah, so many times that happens.

Brandon Burton 28:41
And you know, when it comes to change, a lot of people fear it, because so often the change does happen to us, but if you’re being forward thinking and driving the change, you’ve got a lot more you know, direction on what the future looks like when you’re driving it instead of being acted upon. So yeah, great point. Well, John, for those listening who might want to reach out and connect with you about either these programs or how you guys are doing things there. Greater, Fort Wayne Inc, where would you point them? What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect?

John Urbahns 29:12
I’d point them to our website. GreaterFortWayneInc.com, just just, you know, Google, us make that your That’s right, your browser choice, if you would please. But Greater Fort Wayne inc.com, all of our contact information is there. We are happy to have conversations about any of the programs we’re doing, any of the projects we’re here to help each other, and we definitely, we definitely subscribe to that. You know, I talked about, we talked about the Google project. We’ve coached probably now seven or eight other communities on how to handle these big projects and pull them off some of my peers that are probably listening here, we’ve had some conversations, and it’s been very valuable to them, and it’s valuable to us when we can go and talk about others. So. Go to the website. I will tell you that we are literally in the middle of a of a complete over overhaul of our website. So what you see today is what, not what you will see at the end of July or the first of August, but go to our website. Reach out to us and income back. Come see us.

Brandon Burton 30:19
Yeah, very good. And if you have trouble finding it, go to Google.

John Urbahns 30:24
Go to Google. It’s gonna be easy. I love the plug.

Brandon Burton 30:26
Well, John, this has been great having you back on Chamber Chat Podcast. I appreciate you spending time with us. I wish you and your team best of luck with chamber of the year. And you know, keep making those big swings and big movements in your community. You guys are doing awesome.

John Urbahns 30:40
Thank you. I appreciate it. Brandon.

Brandon Burton 30:43
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2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Sarasota Chamber with Heather Kasten

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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 guest for this episode is Heather Kasten. Heather is the president and CEO of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce in Florida, with more than 14 years of experience in the Sarasota region, Heather previously served as a President CEO of the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance. She has a diverse background, having worked for Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals and six flag theme parks in various regional management roles. Heather is deeply engaged in the community, serving on the board of career source, Suncoast United Way Suncoast and the Education Foundation of Sarasota County. She is also active in several local advisory councils, including those for the USF Muma College of Business and the 26th West Entrepreneurship Center. Heather holds an MBA from Webster University and a business administration degree from the University of Iowa. Outside of her professional duties, she enjoys reading, boating, traveling and spending time with her family, but Heather, it’s great to have you back on chamber chat podcast. Welcome and congratulations for being selected. For those who may be familiar, they were chamber the year finalists in 2024 so this is two years in a row being selected as a finalist. So huge congratulations to you and your team. But wanted to give you a chance to say hello and to share something interesting about yourself so everyone listening can get to know you a little better.

Heather Kasten 2:42
Yeah, well, Brandon, thank you so much. It’s we’re so grateful to you for hosting this podcast, which is so informative. I really enjoy listening, and we are truly excited. Our team and board of directors are over the moon about us being a finalist again for ACCE, the Metro Chamber division this year. So we’re excited to go to Philly. We’ve got a good, good sized group of us traveling out there to attend the conference and the convention, and hopefully you’re going to bring something, bring that big trophy home. We’ll see that.

Brandon Burton 3:19
Yeah, yeah, there’s some. There’s something to be said about coming in numbers to the conference. I remember a few years ago in the Conway, Arkansas chamber one, and they had, like, I want to say, like, two full tables full, just packed full of people from Conway. And it was, it was pretty cool. So I’m glad you’re bringing a great representation. That’s awesome.

Heather Kasten 3:41
Yeah. And you know, as far as something unique about me, I feel like I’m, you know, a cat with nine lives in that I really have worked in many different industries, from theme parks, which we talked about last year, some of the funny duties work as a regional sales manager for six likes theme parks, and then in the pharmaceutical realm, through Lily and women’s health and the neuroscience division, and then landing in chamber work. And have been doing this, this work, for about 16 years now. And absolutely love it. Love just being able to serve and support the businesses in our community, which, let’s face it, they’re the engine that power any local economy, or the the local businesses,

Brandon Burton 4:26
absolutely. Well, give us some perspective with the greater Sarasota chamber. You mentioned being more regional, but give us an idea of size, staff, scope of work. You guys are involved with budget. That’ll kind of set the stage as we get into the programs that we talk about today.

Heather Kasten 4:43
Sure, we are 104 year old organization here in Sarasota, Florida. We work with a little over 1500 regional businesses throughout Sarasota and Manatee counties that represent. About 60,000 employees throughout the region. Our team here, I always like to say we’re a small but mighty team of 15 individuals who are just a committed, dedicated, passionate group of people who show up here every day working to support our local businesses. We have a very active Foundation, as well as as the chamber work that we do, and I know we’re going to get into some of those programs later. Those programs are truly funded through our foundation, very

Brandon Burton 5:35
cool. So I’m hopefully, as we go through the conversation today, we can pull more on the foundation. And I know there’s a lot of chambers out there that are trying to learn more about foundations, if they don’t already have one, seeing how they can deploy a foundation, how it can really be beneficial in their community. And so hopefully your experience will will be able to tap into that as we dive in today. So with these chamber of the year finalist episodes. I love to spend the majority of the time talking about the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. So when we get back from our quick break, we’ll dive into those programs and learn more about what it is you guys submitted on your application this year.

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Brandon Burton 9:02
All right, Heather, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re diving into the two programs from your chamber of the year application. I understand one of the programs is around career and workforce development. Do you like to tell us what that is and dive into what the I always like to know what the origins are and how it’s evolved to what it is today.

Heather Kasten 9:23
Yeah. So the exciting thing Career Edge is our workforce and talent initiative that has been around for coming up on 14 years. And this was really formed 14 years ago to address some, some tremendous gaps in our workforce, our local workforce. I always like to say career, just like a three legged stool. It takes funders to be able to fund the work that we do. It takes educational partners and providers to train and then it takes the participant, the individual, who is actually willing to go through the program and come out the other end. End the what we submitted this year for ACCE was just the work and the results of Career Edge. Every year we have a third party evaluator come in and really do a deep dive into, you know, the wage increases that individuals experienced. They validate all of the data that we that we provide. And so it’s not the Sarasota chamber beating our chests saying, Oh, look at the work we’ve done. This is, again, an independent evaluator looking at this work. Last year, we deployed over $330,000 in workforce grants and training and upskilling grants, and we train just shy of 500 local individuals. So, you know the So, what of that is you, if you think of someone working a job that really doesn’t have a career pathway, a minimum wage job, it could be at a fast food restaurant, and they, we put them through one of our trainings, which is in five industry segments. So the trades, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, transportation and logistics, automotive, healthcare, manufacturing, those are all the the industry segments that we serve. So think about someone working a fast food job. We fully fund putting them through the CNA training. They get their certification, and then we place them with a health care member of our chamber. So it’s a win for these employers too, because as a member of the Sarasota chamber, they’re getting first dibs at this talent. As far as the individual, you think about just the change in the trajectory of their income earning potential over the course of their lifetime, and the the economic impact, both to to their own family and to the community as a whole. It really does put them on a pathway, whether it be it healthcare or think of an electrician that has many different certifications and levels. Same thing with plumbing and HVAC, it really does provide a career pathway for these folks to make some really good money and and, you know, be able to live a wonderful life here in Sarasota.

Brandon Burton 12:16
Yeah, so I like how you talked about the three parts that go into a program like this, between the funding, the educational partners, or who’s going to teach what we’re trying to preach here, and then the participants. So could you speak to a little bit about how you pulled like, how did you gather the participants? How did you reach out to them? How did you recruit those who would be the educational partners and talk about the funding for it as

Heather Kasten 12:41
well, sure. And you know, the exciting part, and the Chamber’s role is really kind of the unifier and the convener of those three pieces, but for the chamber, you know that that convening would not be happening, and so we, we play such a key role in that. But let’s start with the funding, we go out every year and sing for our supper. We work with many local foundations, some national foundations, some bank foundations to apply for these grants, and that’s the money that we have to work with each year we’ve been really fortunate. We have two local foundations that absolutely believe in the impact. They’ve seen it directly in this community, and they are substantial funders to the program. The participants through our chamber, you know, we work with, we probably have 200 nonprofits that are members of our chamber, where, when we’re putting up one of these. We call them a fast track program, where in like eight to 12 weeks, someone can get trained. When we are about ready to launch a fast track for instance, we have one coming up in automotive, electrical, and we put that out to our nonprofit partners. We have used the press to, you know, put out press releases and and social media posts. We partner with our faith based organizations. We we get the word out pretty well, and then these participants log on to our website, they fill out an application, and then they’re vetted. And then, you know, we take a class, usually of about 15 individuals to put them through this training and the chamber we play a pivotal role in that we really do Shepherd these folks through the program. These are individuals that have, they have more things on their plate than than others. And, you know, car breaks down, childcare issues, things like that, and we, we really are instrumental in in helping them to get to class and to have child care so that they can participate in the program.

Brandon Burton 14:53
That’s awesome. So for the those that are participating, sounds like there’s an application for. Process you selected in this example, 15 for the the automotive certification. Is there any fee or anything for those participants, or is it fully funded through the foundation and the grants? Or how does that structured?

Heather Kasten 15:13
It is fully funded so they, you know, they’re they do have some skin in the game in that there are some fees. For instance, in healthcare, there’s some vaccinations and things that they have to get on their own. But for the most part, you know, 98% of this training is fully funded, and so we do it. That is a big job, is to really bet the people who are serious this can’t be, you know, Grandma Jones wanting her grandson to go through this program, you know, we we have to make sure that, you know, that these participants are committed. We have to be a good steward of this money that we’ve been granted.

Brandon Burton 15:53
Yeah, so you mentioned that having that third party evaluation and seeing the the wage increases. Can you share maybe just a couple success stories you’ve seen out of that third party evaluation.

Heather Kasten 16:05
Absolutely, you know, on average, last last year, we saw the average wage increase of folks coming through the program was over $9 an hour. And you start doing the math on that, you know, times eight hours a day. You know, just to make it round numbers, that’s $100 more a day that they’re making. You think of, you know, 2020, working days in a month. That’s 2000 more dollars. You just start doing the math, and it is absolutely exponential, the money that someone is earning because of these programs. And again, this is, you know, for a lot of people, this is their first generation of being trained. And when we host these graduations, Brandon, it’s, it’s just heartwarming. Their whole family comes. They might as well be graduating, you know, from an Ivy League school. It’s that meaningful for their family. That

Brandon Burton 17:03
is really cool. I love hearing that. I love hearing the life changing impact that programs like this can make. So programs like this, like Career Edge, obviously help employers in the community find that talent where they’re able to continue performing their you know, their mission as a business, whatever it may be, but that’s only one aspect of it. I know in certain communities, housing can be an issue too, where you may have people that want to work there, but they live too far away, that it doesn’t justify, you know, the commute coming in, but housing is makes it difficult to attract that talent as well. So let’s shift gears into your second program that you guys submitted on your application around affordable housing and how that plays into this big picture.

Heather Kasten 17:52
Yeah, you know, like many communities, Brandon throughout the United States, our community is no different. Starting back, you know, when COVID we had 1000 people a day moving to the state of Florida. It has softened a little bit to, you know, around 700 people a day. But when you have that big of an influx of people, it just the the laws of supply and demand. It made it really hard. People were moving to the state, you know, cashing out in California, you know, one bedroom house for a million dollars, coming to Florida, paying cash and really pricing out all of our young professionals. And you know what I call our community heroes, the teachers, the firefighters, the policemen not being able to to find affordable housing here in our community. And so in 2022 our chairman of the board, you know, we really, he really had made it, you know, laid down the gauntlet that we are going to take a very proactive approach to affordable housing. And what we did was we hosted our first affordable housing Summit, and that would have been back in 2023 we partnered with our largest employer, Sarasota Memorial Hospital. We had over 200 business leaders attend. And really that summit was really focused on drilling down on the needs. This is not we’re not talking about folks who are on federal aid. These are working individuals, and so that was from that summit we took, okay, here we know we have a problem. It’s now the business community’s problem. So now what are we going to do about it? The Chamber went about we really wanted to drill down to investigate, like, who are having these struggles, we surveyed our young professionals. We had over 300 responses to a survey, and the results were just really disheartening. We had numerous over 30% of our young professionals saying they were contemplating leaving the area because they weren’t able to find affordable housing. We had over. 40% driving 40 miles a day to come to work, and as you know, that clogs up our roads and causes transportation issues when people can’t live by where they work. So we went about putting together a second summit, again, hosted back at Sarasota Memorial, where we brought in some experts. We brought in someone from the Florida Housing Coalition to assess what are some best practices. We brought down someone from Pinellas County, Florida, who is probably about five to 10 years ahead of us in the proactive nature of of tackling affordable housing. We hosted a second summit, and then we also took a very intentional approach with our city government and fought very hard hundreds of hours into attending City Commission meetings to back some zoning text, amendments, change, changes that would allow for greater density those after Many, many, many, many hours of meetings. The City Commission did vote to allow for greater density. And what that means is that a developer on one acre of ground, instead of being limited to building five units, of which he needs to charge $5 million a unit, when you increase the density, you could have 100 units at 200,000 and so we’ve already seen over 202,000 units, just because we fought for those zoning text amendments of affordable units that’ll be coming online here in the next two to three years. They’re going through, you know, that permitting process, they’re starting to come out of the ground. So again, if not for the Sarasota chamber, would these zoning text amendments have have gotten over the goal line. We also

Brandon Burton 21:48
go ahead. Go ahead.

Heather Kasten 21:50
I didn’t wrap up with we also partnered with four local foundations who commissioned a study to look at what is our current need, like, how many units do we really need? You know, you can’t, if you’re not keeping score, you’re really not playing the game. And so we had this study commission to look at how many units do we currently need, and how many will we need in 10 years, so that we can start planning, you know, for that. And then also took a look at the type of units needed? Do we need studio apartments? Do we need one bedroom, two bedroom? Or these families that are struggling? And so we just got those findings back, we have a program coming up in two weeks where they’re going to really go through the findings very descriptively, so that policy makers and developers so that we know what we need here in the future.

Brandon Burton 22:44
Yeah. So I guess that was going to be my question as to the type of housing. I would assume, something like condos or, like you said, the studios or the, you know, one or two bedrooms would depending on what those needs are. But also those young professionals today that are having those needs, you know, in 10 years. I’m glad that that’s that vision is being extended out to, what is that going to what’s that need? How’s that going to shift? You know, in the next several years? I know one of the other obstacles cities is communities look at solutions like this is the NIMBYs in the in the community, right? Those that don’t want it in their backyard. Has there been land identified for the more high density housing, and has that been approved, and has there been pushback from the community? How do you guys address that and overcome that?

Heather Kasten 23:34
Yeah, well, it’s fascinating. Nobody that you talk to is against affordable housing, just not in their backyard. Yeah, just not in my backyard, right? And so the uniqueness of the zoning text changes that that we worked on is that they’re along our major corridors. So these are very well traveled, you know, you’re not going to build a million dollar house on, you know, next to a four lane highway. And so the city was able to identify ground along these major corridors, along major, you know, retail, mixed use projects and and the exciting thing too is now, as developers are going before our planning board and our City Commission to get their projects approved, many of them are coming with an affordable housing component, and so they might be building, you know, they still might be building, you know, $2 million units, but they’re coming and saying, Okay, well, 15 of these, we’re going to go, going to make affordable, and with that, then they can build more units, so that, that’s Where that density thing comes into play the density bonus. And so we we have seen that is working. We are seeing projects that are coming online with an affordable component. So they’re going to be mixed in with the $2 million units. They might not be as big as the $2 million units, but they’re going to be in the same building and no. Is really going to know, you know, are you the $2 million homeowner? Are you the, you know, $250,000

Brandon Burton 25:07
homeowner? Yeah, I like that. I like when it can be blended in there and and you can’t tell, right? There’s so many interesting dynamics when it comes to housing, when there it comes to, you could maybe argue income inequality in certain communities, and when you get the higher density next to others, it just creates a lot of dynamics, but that chamber is perfectly positioned to be able to help navigate through those dynamics. So sounds like you guys are making a great impact there, and a lot of good headway. Is there anything else on the affordable housing front that you want to touch on before we move on?

Heather Kasten 25:48
Just you know that, you know, we’re still fighting that fight. Of course, there are some market factors. The influx of people moving to Florida has slowed, and certainly the market has cooled a little bit, which that is good for supply and demand and brings us down. It brings the market to more of a steady state. You know, for two and three years, it was on a left to right upward curve of pricing and lack of availability that, you know, lack of things on the market. And so that has cooled a little bit too. So I think it’s all of those things working together that are going to, you know, really help position our community to be, you know, more affordable for especially those key workers, like we talked about,

Brandon Burton 26:34
yeah, I’m in Texas, so we’ve seen a lot of that same, you know, type of growth. A lot of people leaving places like California and coming to places where they can buy a home for cash, and it prices a lot of people out, and then you get the congestion with the, you know, the traffic. And so it’s a continual problem, but we don’t have as many of the nice beaches that Florida has. So I mean, that just really compounds your guys’s problem there. So, but Heather, I wanted to ask, on behalf of those listening who want to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them towards accomplishing that goal?

Heather Kasten 27:13
I would say one thing that we have done that has really made a difference is really being intentional about taking care of your team. And we have put together the last two years a we call IT staff engagement committee that meets once a month to plan various things for us to do. It can be things like visiting, getting a behind the scenes tour at the airport. It could be touring, you know, an attraction here locally, it could be just going out for a happy hour, being very intentional. And we’ve also made a pretty significant investment into what I call like a team coach, someone who is working with us as a team, helping us to work together. You know, chamber life. It’s, it’s awesome, it is super fun, but it’s also exhausting. It’s always one thing, you know, one event to the next. It is, you know, you’re constantly out there hustling for for members, and it’s a lot on an individual and a lot on a team. And so one of the best things that I feel like I’ve been able to bring to the table as CEO is for us, for me, to really support and and not just put my, you know, it’s more than just, you know, ordering pizza once a month kind of thing, just being very intentional with what we do with our team and our staff. And just for instance, we had a monster event, probably our biggest event of the year last week. It was our Sarasota business awards of 600 person lunch with 10,000 moving parts. And you know, going into this week, I just was like, You know what we’re I’m going to call close the office on Thursday too. So this week, the team is going to have a four day weekend. And I think you can never invest in your staff. You the payback on that is tenfold.

Brandon Burton 29:12
Yeah, I love that. The whole idea of having a staff engagement committee, I think, is very intentional to make sure that their needs are being met, and making sure that burnout doesn’t kick in sooner than it should.

Heather Kasten 29:27
And also just the flexibility, you know, I will say that our chamber, I have someone who likes to get here at 5am every morning. Now he’s out earlier in the afternoon, and then I have people that come in at 830 and go till five. And so just the offering people like true flexibility in how they do their job, and that has also been, I think, really rewarding and really helped to keep people here and engaged. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 29:55
that’s great. I love that, that piece of advice, I like asking. Everyone we have on the show about the future of chambers, and how you see the future and purpose of chambers going forward.

Heather Kasten 30:08
Well, I absolutely believe in the work that we do. I do feel like the model has to constantly be evaluated and tweaked. And so, you know, the days of kind of just doing the rinse and repeat and the networking events. I just don’t know how relevant some of those things are. And I’m constantly challenging our team to look at how we’re doing things and what we’re doing, why we’re doing them. I think you know really going back to, how do you best serve a business? What does that look like? Because it looks different than it looked five years ago, that and looks different than 20 years ago, for sure. And so I think just really being up on the wheel as to what your business community needs, and then being able to provide that, and also looking at some of the things that maybe in the past have just been done, like, oh, that’s just part of your membership. You know, are there ways to monetize some of the work that, that that you’re doing? And in being able to put $1 value to that, and that’s good that, that’s what keeps me up at 3am is, you know, what does that look like? How do we continue to grow and and all of those things?

Brandon Burton 31:24
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. Well, Heather, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any contact information, so that way listeners who may want to reach out and learn more about these programs or how you’re doing things at the Greater Sarasota chamber, what would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you

Heather Kasten 31:41
sure. Uh, my email. Super easy. Just hkasten@sarasotachamber.com, that’s going to be the best way to get a hold of me. I’d encourage anyone to check out our website, which is just SarasotaChamber.com It lists all of the programs, all of the initiatives that we’re currently working on, but I’d love to hear from you, and would love to learn from you as well. That’s a great thing about chamber business, is that we can all share ideas and best practices and and, you know, all really encourage and help each other to grow and be better.

Brandon Burton 32:18
Yeah, we’ll get that in our show notes, so it’ll make it easy for people to find it and reach out to you. But it’s been great having you back on the podcast again. Big congratulations to you and your team for making those big impacts in your community. I wish you guys the best of luck in Philly, and we’ll see what happens.

Heather Kasten 32:38
All right, thanks so much. Brandon, I really, am truly honored to be on the podcast. Thanks for all you do.

Brandon Burton 32:45
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2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Rowan County Chamber with Elaine Spalding

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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.

Our title sponsor for this episode is Bringing Local Back. Remember when your community could turn to a local TV station or newspaper for the latest updates and affordable ads? Those days may be fading, but the need for local connection remains. That’s why we created Bringing Local Back, a game changing platform that restores the local visibility and advertising power to your community. It’s more than just tech. It’s about driving engagement and creating new revenue for your chamber. Ready to see the future visit bringinglocalback.com to schedule your demo today. This is the future of local commerce.

You’re joining us for a special episode in our 2025 ACCE Chamber of the Year Finalist Series. Our guest for this episode is Elaine Spalding. Elaine has served as the President of the Rowan Chamber of Commerce in Salisbury, North Carolina, since May 2013 with over 30 years of chamber management experience across several locations, she’s been instrumental in the Rowan chambers national recognition, earning the title of 2020 chamber Executive of the Year from the Carolina chamber Executives Association. Elaine holds certificate certifications as a CCE or certified chamber executive, and also has her IOM designation. She’s deeply involved in the community leadership, serving on multiple boards, including the Carolina Chamber of Commerce executives and the Salisbury Rotary Club, and is a graduate of leadership Rowan and the Charlotte regional American Leadership Forum program. Elaine holds a Bachelor’s of Science in journalism and speech from Murray State University and and enjoys kayaking, hiking and spending time with her husband, Keith, I believe is how you pronounce it, and their dogs. But Elaine, I’m excited to have you with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. It seems like we just had you on the show, but love to give you the chance to say hello to everyone listening, and congratulations being selected as a chamber of the year finalist, but I couldn’t say hello. And if you would share something interesting so we can all get to know you even better.

Elaine Spalding 2:40
Sure. Thank you, Brandon, I really appreciate you inviting me back. I always enjoy your podcast, and I’m honored to be on here again. And we are so excited to have been named a finalist in our population size category for the ACCE chamber of the year. This is very exciting coming up. And in addition to what you covered in my chamber background and my personal life, fun fact to know is I have 101st

cousins. Wow, that’s quite the family, and I know them all. Yeah, wow.

Brandon Burton 3:24
So we just my wife, and I just had a new nephew born last week. Oh, so we’re, we’re adding up. You know, how many nieces and nephews, so cousins for our kids? And yes, we’re at, we’re at 13 for them, so nowhere near the 100 mark. But that’s, that’s impressive.

Elaine Spalding 3:39
Big Families, big, big farm families, and it’s great. I still keep in touch regularly with a lot of my cousins, and just love that extended family.

Brandon Burton 3:51
That’s awesome. Well, we had you on not too long ago, back in episode 327, but for those who are regular listeners, this next little bit might be a little bit of a recap, but I think it’s important for those who tune in, especially for these chamber of the year episodes, to be able to know a little more context about the Rowan County Chamber. So if you can just give us an idea of size of the chamber, staff, budget, scope of work you guys are involved with that’ll kind of set the stage for our discussion.

Elaine Spalding 4:20
Sure, this year, the Rowan chamber is celebrating our 100th anniversary, and that’s been a fun project to work on. We are lifting up our long term businesses all year long. We have 824 members as of right now, and growing, and we have a staff of four. It’s a very active business community. We have the headquarters for food line in our community. And if you’re from the southern part of the United States, you will know Cheerwine, very popular soda. So food line and Cheerwine are headquartered here in Salisbury, North. Carillon,

Brandon Burton 5:00
that’s right. And if you spend any time in the south, you know Food Lion, so, yeah, very good. Well, on these chamber of the year finalist episodes, what I like to spend the majority of our time discussing is the two programs you submitted on the chamber of the year application. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna take a quick break, and when we get back, we’ll dive in deeper on those two programs.

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Brandon Burton 8:11
All right, Elaine, we’re back, as I mentioned before the break, we’re we’re diving into the two programs on your chamber of the year application. I don’t know if you have a specific order of which one you want to address first, but I will. I’ll let you decide which, uh, which of the two programs you want to highlight first.

Elaine Spalding 8:29
Well, of course, they. They are two of our very, very favorite ones that we profiled in the synopsis for the ACCE chamber of the Year award. And the first one is our Dragon Boat Festival. We celebrated our 10th Anniversary of the Dragon Boat Festival in 2024 and really thanked all of the businesses that have been with us for all 10 years. We put big number 10 blow up balloons on every one of the corporate tents, so the people who’d been with us for the entire time and thanked all of our long term volunteers and really celebrated all of those businesses that have helped make this event be so successful.

Brandon Burton 9:15
Okay, so I have to ask dragon boats, what is that? Tell us what that is. And just to make sure people are hearing you right, Dragon Boat what? What is

Elaine Spalding 9:24
it? If you have not participated in a dragon boat race, it’s basically a long canoe. It’s an ancient Chinese water sport. So you have 20 people in a very long canoe, all paddling together, and it is the best team building exercise, because everybody has to be in sync to get the boat to just glide along the water. Our major corporations love it. They tell us after every event that it’s the best opportunity to just hang out on the lake and really enjoy the day. With your coworkers. You’ve got the plant managers there and the frontline workers and everybody working together and just enjoying themselves. So it’s a wonderful community event. It would be kind of like what a lot of chambers have a golf event in the summer. This is our golf event. Okay?

Brandon Burton 10:17
So are these companies fielding their own team. I say Fielding? Are they filling their own boats?

Elaine Spalding 10:25
Yes, yes. We there there, as they’re about four or five vendors that do these Dragon Boat Races actually all over the world, and it’s gotten to be very popular in the southeastern part of the United States. In fact, it’s the fastest growing water sport. And of course, here in North Carolina, everybody loves races. We have NASCAR. And so we thought this is just a great way to highlight we have the second largest lake in North Carolina, right in our community, High Rock Lake. So it was a fantastic way to highlight that part of our community and just have a fun day on the lake and make some money for the chamber and make some new friends.

Brandon Burton 11:06
Yeah, I love that they can, you know, fill their own boat and come out, but it is a great team building exercise. I’m sure there’s practices that have to go into this, like, you can’t just show up and try to compete, right? Yes,

Elaine Spalding 11:18
yes. And there are some club teams in and around the area, groups of people that get together just for fun, and they’ll pick out four or five races they’re going to do in this part of the country and participate with us. So that’s a nice added benefit as well.

Brandon Burton 11:34
So where does somebody acquire a dragon boat? Are there? Is there local manufacturers? Are they importing from China? With being a Chinese tradition, what is the Where does one get

Elaine Spalding 11:45
them out anymore? Okay, we actually have a company out of Tampa that makes the dragon boats here in the United States. And they will bring them up on big, long boat trailers, and they bring all the personnel, the steers, people, the coaches, the race officials. I mean, it’s all very sophisticated, and they run the race. The chamber’s responsibility is to run the festival part. So we get the food trucks and our local breweries all participate, and it’s just a fun, fun day on the

Brandon Burton 12:14
lake. So they’re bringing the boats with them when they come up. So these businesses are not storing their own dragon boats in their workshop, or whatever they’re they’re just using them for the event.

Elaine Spalding 12:24
Yes, we bring everything they need. We tell all of our teams they just need to bring the people power.

Brandon Burton 12:30
Okay, all right. So what other things I mean, most chambers, I think, are pretty well familiar with running a festival. But is there anything unique with the dragon boat races, it needs to be considered where it maybe takes the festival, you know, to a different angle or a different approach,

Elaine Spalding 12:48
right? Well, one of the things that we really wanted to focus on was improving the health in our community, so we thought this kind of a fun outdoor activity would enable us to do that. And one of our top sponsors of the event is our local hospital, and so in conjunction with Novant Health, we award a workplace wellness award every year at the Dragon Boat Festival, and that’s based on companies that encourage their employees to stay active and stay healthy, and, you know, not have any injuries in the workplace, and that has really gotten to be so popular, we have a traveling trophy that goes around, and many of our companies are all vying to say, look, we started this new workplace wellness program. Please recognize our company. So it’s a great added benefit to the program.

Brandon Burton 13:38
Yeah, I love that. There’s so many layers you can just, you know, dive into when it comes to an event like this. So how do the bragging rights look? So whatever team wins the dragon boat races? Is there a trophy with that? Is there, I’m sure social media posts. What’s a recognition like? Is

Elaine Spalding 13:56
it we have the Olympic style medals, and so there are gold, silver and bronze teams, and all, all of the teams are so excited about getting those Olympic style medals at the end of the race. And Team pictures are lots of fun. And the the Bragg and rights every year, it’s like the there’s one bank and the hospital and a couple of others that are very, very competitive. There’s a couple of teams that just come to have a fun day on the lake. They’re not quite so competitive, but it always, always is just a great opportunity for the top business leaders and our entry level employees to really feel appreciated by the business community, and that’s what we want to see happen. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 14:46
I love it. It’s such a unique event. I’ve never I have not heard of any other chambers doing Dragon Boat Races, so I think that’s a neat thing to be able to hone on, hone in on something that’s unique and kind of special to your community. 30. I love what you guys did with the the 10 years and the balloons, recognizing those people that have sponsored it for the duration. I mean, that that goes a long ways of saying, Hey, we recognize that you’re doing this. And it creates a little bit of a stickiness, I would imagine, for next year they’re going to want to continue that sponsorship.

Elaine Spalding 15:19
Yes, as Chambers of Commerce. You know, we all have to really think about thanking and appreciating those businesses who’ve been with us through thick and thin, all the businesses that stayed with us through the pandemic and have helped us out since then, really get all of the Small Business Programs and Services back out there for our business communities, and so we want to continue to highlight and thank those very, very loyal

Brandon Burton 15:47
businesses. Yeah, very good. Well, let’s shift gears a bit into your second program, which I understand is around your small business grant program. Yeah, tell us about that. What’s what’s involved there, and what role does the chamber have with that? Yes.

Elaine Spalding 16:05
So as you know, there were lots and lots of federal grant and loan opportunities that carried small businesses through the pandemic. But since the pandemic, some of our small businesses had continued to struggle, and I had been lobbying with our city of Salisbury government to continue a small business grant program, and last year, we were finally able to convince them to start a pilot program. So we started with $30,000 to award two small businesses that were within the city of Salisbury, and our chamber serves a county region, but this one was specifically targeted for those within the city, because that’s where the funding was coming from. And so we got a committee of volunteers from our minority business council and put out all of the grant criteria they had to have a business plan, they had to have all their proper documentation. And we had volunteers that developed a rubric, and we went through all of the grant applications and were able to award six small businesses with $5,000 each. And oh my gosh. When we sent out the information about the grant recipients, we received so many positive comments. One email from a small business. She said, I just am sitting here crying because I was struggling to try to figure out my next plan. And she said, this has given me the energy to get everything back on my plan and get going again. So it just was so gratifying to see these small businesses that really have been struggling feel like the local business community and their city government supports them and wants to see them continue to invest in their business. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 18:04
I’m sure there’s a wealth of data that you collect too from these applications as you go through it. And you see these small businesses that sure really need these loans to be able to survive. They can give you a ton of content for future programming and things like that. But like this example you share to this, this lady, that it just meant the world. It was it allowed the business to keep going. And I think as small business owners, there’s so many instances where you’re just getting beat up left and right, and to get that little win, that encouragement that says, keep going, you got this sometimes that’s all they need to be able to get over that hump that they’re they’re currently facing. So, yeah, I love that. I love hearing the success stories.

Elaine Spalding 18:47
Yeah, yes, me too. And we’ve related all those back to our friends at the city, and we’re able to have the second phase of the small business grant, and got some additional funds, and we, we the chamber actually has a 501, c3, organization devoted to entrepreneurial development, so there’s some additional funds that came through that. And just lifting up our locally owned, locally grown small businesses is so important and continuing to encourage other people to go ahead and launch that entrepreneurial venture?

Brandon Burton 19:27
Yeah, absolutely, so. Is this something that you would anticipate with continued success, continuing to have funding coming from it, or is there a timeframe where you see this ending with the grant programs, or what the

Elaine Spalding 19:45
second phase we’ve already awarded for this year too, and has had $10,000 more so total of 20,000 to give this second year. And I really hope that it continues to grow, because there are so many of those small businesses. That are struggling, I think, particularly in our current climate, lots of uncertainties about new federal policies and so everything that we can do as a local Chamber of Commerce to really try and encourage those who have a good business plan, they’ve got the skill set to get that business off and running, they just need a little bit of support. Our grant program was focused on something, a piece of machinery that they might need for their business, you know? I mean, it had to be something that, then was a really good return on the investment that they would be able to continue to grow their business.

Brandon Burton 20:43
That makes a lot of sense. So just out of curiosity, did you already have the foundation in place, the 501, c3 as you receive these grants in order to be able to apply for them, or is it a newer thing having the foundation?

Elaine Spalding 20:56
Yes, we’ve had the c3 within our organization for the last six

Brandon Burton 21:03
years. Okay, so I know that’s more and more on the the minds of chambers to how can we access, you know, more funds and be eligible for grants and things like this and and having that foundation or that 501, c3, is, is very helpful to be able to attract some of those, those funds. And, of course, having the the purpose for it, right? Like you said, it’s developed for the entrepreneurial development so,

Elaine Spalding 21:29
right, right. And just all of the news about that has brought more members to the chamber. You know, we did not take a grant administration fee for doing this program with the city, and really felt strongly that we wanted all of the funds to go to the small businesses. And as a result of that, I think that has elevated the role of the chamber in the community. And just today, I got another email from a business that wanted to know when’s the next round of small business grant funding. So now we’re able to give them a time frame in the year that they need to get all of their paperwork together. This this particular business was still in the process of getting all of their state and local approvals, and so then they’ve got something to look forward to when they get all of that documentation together. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 22:23
and I love the idea that the criteria is that it needs to go towards a piece of equipment or something. It’s not just, you know, bringing in some part time help for a little bit, but it’s something that’s going to be a game changer for this business. So I love that pouring gas on the fire, as they say,

Elaine Spalding 22:42
it’s been great. And you know, those partnerships that we can do with our local governments, with our local education partners, I mean, those are the things that I see, you know, making the pie bigger for everybody in our communities.

Brandon Burton 22:55
Yeah, absolutely. So I like asking everybody. I asked you when you’re on the show before, I always like having a tip or action item for listeners who want to take their chamber up to the next level. I think, especially as a chamber of the year finalist, very appropriate to ask what you would suggest for chambers trying to accomplish that goal. What would come to mind for you

Elaine Spalding 23:19
Well being a CCE finalist of the year, I would encourage everyone to attend the ACCE conference. I pick up so many great ideas at every one of the conferences, and just sitting down at lunch or maybe over a beer at the end of the day, you can really help your chamber if you’ve got something you’ve been struggling with, but you haven’t exactly known who to go to, you know, just shout it out in one of those meetings, and you’ll get four or five people that have been there and they have been through the Battle and can tell you how to work your way through any issue or problem that you’ve got going

Brandon Burton 24:06
on. Absolutely I would echo that. I mean, the ACCE conference is great because these are the chambers that really value, you know, those peer connections and the continual education to be able to run a very good chamber and state associations are great too. Regional associations do all those. But there’s something special about the ACCE conference, where you’ve got some of the best of the best chambers that are there, and if you can connect and and make friends, you know, with with other peers that are there in those rooms, that’s where the magic happens. So

Elaine Spalding 24:38
yes, I appreciate that. Brandon, I encourage people to listen to your podcast and to take advantage of all of those professional development opportunities that you can, because you can always pick up at least one good idea from any time that you devote for your own professional development.

Brandon Burton 24:57
Absolutely So the other question. Question I like asking everyone I have on the show is, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Elaine Spalding 25:08
Well, and again, plugging acces horizon initiative, if you read that document, I mean, that is the future of our chambers of commerce all over the world and for chamber execs to be nimble and to be able to deal with whatever issue is going on globally, nationally, locally, you know, we are dealing with housing issues and daycare issues that I never thought our local chambers would be involved in strategies around that for our communities. I mean, we used to be so focused on it’s a business issue. It’s got to do with something that’s going to help the business community. But all Yes, yes, all of these growth issues, particularly in the Carolinas, we’re seeing such growth. We need to help our communities deal with the issues that are also impact impacting our employers, housing issues, daycare issues. I mean, it is huge for our

Brandon Burton 26:10
employers. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been great having you back on the show. I wanted to give you an opportunity to plug any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and learn more about these programs or how you guys are approaching things at the Rowan County Chamber. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with

Elaine Spalding 26:31
you? Always happy to help my fellow chamber buddies. It’s Elaine Spaulding. The telephone number at the Rowan chamber is 704-633-4221, or you can email me at espalding@rowanchamber.com,

Brandon Burton 26:47
that’s perfect. We’ll get that in our show notes to make it nice and easy. Bet Elaine, thank you for coming back on the show and sharing the highlights of these two programs. I’m so excited for you guys, and wish you and your team Best of luck, not only with the dragon race festival, but also this chamber of the year.

Elaine Spalding 27:05
Thank you. Thank you, Brandon. I really appreciate you inviting me to be on again.

Brandon Burton 27:10
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2025 Chamber of the Year Finalist-Chino Valley Chamber with Zeb Welborn

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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 guest for this episode is Zeb Welborn. Zeb is the President of the Chino Valley Chamber of Commerce in California, and also the founder of well born social media. He’s passionate about empowering local businesses and driving community development through initiatives like upskill Chino Valley, named the 2023 Executive of the Year by W, A, C, E. Zeb brings award winning leadership and strong focus on connection, innovation and service to the chamber world. The Chino Valley Chamber was also a 2024, Chamber of the Year Finalist. So we’re excited to have Zeb back with us today here on chamber chat podcast. But Zeb, I wanted to give you a chance to say hello to everyone listening, and, as usual, share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little

Zeb Welborn 2:03
better. Yeah, hi everybody. My name is Zeb Welborn. I am President and CEO the Chino Valley Chamber of Commerce. So thank you for the great introduction. Something interesting about myself recently, because we did this last time. I don’t remember what I said last time, but let’s see. I do play soccer every Sunday, so I play adult League Soccer, so I’m playing against 18 year olds upwards, every Sunday. I do a lot of golfing. So I wrote a book about, it’s called the Social golf course, about how to do social media marketing for golf courses. And I do get a chance to play golf at least once a month or so.

Brandon Burton 2:37
That’s cool. The book is that’s something new, for sure. And even the soccer, it takes a lot to keep up physically, you know, as you get on with with years past that 18 year mark, I mean, you’re only like 21 so, you know, it’s only been a couple of years. So, yeah, yeah. But anyway, first of all, congratulations to you and your team being selected as a chamber of the year finalist again, definitely showing you guys are making an impact in the community. Tell us a little bit about the Chino Valley Chamber, just to give us an idea of size, staff, scope of work, budget, just to set the stage for our conversation.

Zeb Welborn 3:16
Yeah, we have about 400 members here at the Chino Valley Chamber of Commerce. So we are a population of about 200,000 so we cover two cities. We cover Chino and Chino Hills, located in Southern California. Our budget is about 1.2 million. We have eight staff members. When I started, our budget was significantly less than that, and we had about, we had three part time people. I was also part time. So we’ve grown a lot. I took over. It’s coming. I’m coming up on my seven year anniversary, so I took up about seven years ago. And yeah, so we’ve grown a lot. It’s been a lot of fun, very rewarding, and we’ve made it a good impact for our local businesses here in the Chino Valley.

Brandon Burton 4:00
Yeah, sounds like it sounds like a lot of growth, going from three part time to eight staff now, and growth in the budget as well. So hopefully we can hear about how some of that happened as we touch on the programs today in our in our discussion. So typically, with these chamber of the year episodes, what I like to do is focus on the two programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application, and, you know, do a deep dive into the details of them and share with us you know what’s been working for you guys there at the Chino Valley Chamber. And we’ll dive into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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Brandon Burton 8:16
All right, then we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re gonna we’re gonna dive into the two programs you guys submitted on your chamber of the year application. As I understand I mentioned in the bio, too upscale Chino Valley is one of those programs. Do you want to spend a few minutes telling us what that’s about? You know what the program is, the impact, the need that you guys are feeling in the community, and just kind of go from there. Yeah,

Zeb Welborn 8:44
absolutely. So we’re sorry I cut out for a second there. You’re talking about upskill Chino Valley. Yes, correct, yeah, yeah. So that is one that we did also submit last year. It came about out of COVID. So during COVID, obviously we did a lot to support our local businesses that was kind of recognized by a lot of different folks. And so when COVID hit, and shortly thereafter, what we started to realize was there is help wanted signs everywhere in our community. So every single building had a help wanted sign, and we’re trying to help solve that issue for our local businesses. So we implemented this thing that we called up skilled Chino Valley, which is kind of four different things. So it’s leadership development, it’s entrepreneurship development, it’s economic development, it’s workforce development. So we created an idea these different programs that we would implement in those four categories that would help move the needle for our businesses to try to help solve that workforce shortage, because at the same time that that was going on, where we’re identifying that there’s those issues, we were also attending US Chamber led courses that were just kind of talking about the challenges that workforce would be, that our businesses would be facing when it comes to their workforce for the foreseeable future. And so our thought was, well, let’s try to solve that for our region, and that’s the way. In collaboration with my board members, that we came up with those four different things that we identified, and each one of those four things we identified programs that fit into those categories that we could execute on as a chamber, as long as we had the resources to do so. So that’s what we pitched. We presented it to a bunch of our legislators, our county supervisor Curt Hagman, gave us some funds to help support that effort, and then our state legislators also gave us some funds to help support that effort. And so that really allowed us to start pursuing this work. So we’ve been doing it for about three years now, going on year four of our coming into our end of the three year term. So we’re going into our fourth and we’re we’ve done a lot of really positive things. We’ve checked out the economic impact of like, the work that this has done, and it’s substantial. So it’s something that we’re really excited about and proud of, that we were able to implement here in Chino and Chino Hills.

Brandon Burton 10:52
So is upscale Chino Valley? Is it a program that people apply to be a part of? Or do you guys address a need in the community and you go targeted? Or how does that has the format set up?

Zeb Welborn 11:03
Yeah, so it’s those four things. So really it was like capacity building, right? So we wanted to do a leadership program. Our community never had a leadership program, so we developed and implemented a leadership program. We developed and implemented what we call a round table program. So we were doing two round tables a month. So we’re bringing in businesses from different sectors or different challenges and discussing those needs of those businesses. We were doing entrepreneurial training, so we’re doing at least one a week. So we’re doing an entrepreneurial workshop at least once every other week. And then then the workforce front, we’ve been we’ve placed over 500 people in local jobs over the last couple of years. So that’s and we do that in a variety of different ways, but I’ll say that it’s mostly through job fairs, but there’s a whole bunch of other things that we do on that front, like one on one placements and stuff like that. So that was kind of the gist of what our upscale Chino Valley program was, or is, there? Is

Brandon Burton 12:01
Yeah, yeah. And as Have you seen it evolve at all from when you first started, as you address more of the needs that are, you know, pertinent to the community, obviously, coming out of COVID, things looked a little different than they do today. There’s a lot of similarities, still, but, but it is a different landscape. What? What have you seen as far as where you needed to make some adjustments and evolve the program.

Zeb Welborn 12:24
Yeah, I think when we started, we’re really ambitious about the scope and scale of all of the work that we’re doing. So we were, you know, like I mentioned, one a week for the entrepreneurship stuff, once a month for the round tables, the job fairs we do once every other month. We’d have a lot of different programs and a bunch of different areas. So that created a lot of logistical challenges to execute, also like the amount of time our members or their committee was willing to vote towards those kind of efforts. So we’ve kind of from the start to finish. I guess the thing is, is, how do we pair some of those things together so that we’re not doing more programmatic content than what is needed. So that’s probably the one learning curve, or a thing that’s changed since we first started, is making sure that we’re kind of putting those programs together so that it has more impact for the people that we’re serving.

Brandon Burton 13:13
Yeah. So I’m curious with these leadership roundtables and the entrepreneurship trainings, are these being done in person? Are they virtually? Are they a hybrid of sorts? Or what have you learned as you do these trainings around tables? Yeah,

Zeb Welborn 13:27
we’re kind of flexible on how we operate, because essentially what we’ve been what we’ve been doing, is you’re partnering with different entities and organizations. So a lot of the times it is in person, a lot of times it’s virtual, and a lot of times it’s hybrid. So we do a good, healthy mix of all of those things, we’re just trying to make sure that it’s as accessible as possible for the people that need it. And sometimes you want to have those intimate discussions where they’re kind of private and together here on site, at a chamber, at a different location. And sometimes it’s, it’s, it makes more sense to do it virtually, to actually execute on that work. So it’s a variety of different ways that we go about doing it.

Brandon Burton 14:02
Yeah, I can see people attending, you know, when it’s maybe they prefer in person, or maybe their schedule only allows for the virtual just maybe where they’re located or what their schedule looks like. So being able to have that flexibility, I think, is, is great. It’s great that you guys offer that. Is there anything else about upscale Chino Valley that is worth mentioning or that we need to know about before we move on to your other program?

Zeb Welborn 14:27
Well, I’ll just share that we put together an economic or an impact report every year, so we kind of analyze it. We keep all the data. We keep all the information about all the stuff that we’ve accomplished for it. And so, you know, we basically got a little bit over a million dollars of funds to start and execute these programs, and the economic impact that we provided is substantially larger when you factor in the, you know, the more than 500 people that have gotten jobs with local businesses here locally, the growth of the businesses that we’ve been able to facilitate some of the resources and programs we’ve directly, I. Given or connected our businesses with has been substantial, and so that’s kind of the thing that I like to harp on is, is this was a vision as a plan. We didn’t know exactly where it’s going to go, but as we’ve executed on it, it’s paid off way more than what was invested in us in the first place. Yeah.

Brandon Burton 15:19
So is that funding long term? Is there? Do you redress it each year to go back for the funding? Or how’s that?

Zeb Welborn 15:28
No, it’s kind of a one year allocation. So, I mean, I shouldn’t say that it was, it was given to us with a three year window, actually, when he wrote the proposal, because I had never done this before. We wrote for seven years. So it was supposed to be for seven years, is what we planned it out. And then once we, like, went through the whole process, and I was under the impression that this was, like, good to go and ready, but that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t until we actually got the the check in the bank account and stuff so and then went to the they’d give us that contract. They said, Oh, it’s not seven years, it’s three years. So we had to expend all of those things in three years. And so that’s what we’ve been working on and doing it, and our goal is to kind of create these sustainable programs. All of the stuff that we’re doing is getting invested by our community or businesses or community leaders to help make these things happen. So that’s what we were that’s what we’re counting on, and I think that that’s we’re well on our way to make that happen.

Brandon Burton 16:21
Awesome. Sounds great. So the other program that you guys submitted, CVCC future ready is, first of all, I’m guessing CV stands for Chino Valley, but tell us what it is and what the whole program is about,

Zeb Welborn 16:36
yeah. So we’re calling this CVCC future ready as a result of that upskilled Chino Valley program. You know, one of our goals is to create sustainability with this. And so we’ve developed lots of partnerships along the way, and one of those partnerships with Chaffey College, so they’re our local community college, but also with our local school districts, some of our private schools that are here locally, and so essentially, these are youth programs, so very similar to the upskilled Chino Valley work, in that we’re connecting local students with businesses and real world opportunities. So the way that this kind of lays out is is we’re doing it with internships. We’re doing it with career days. We’re partnering with Chaffey College to develop round tables so that they have access to experts like business insiders and experts to at their community college. And so basically, I’m kind of relating as anything that we do. A couple other things we do on that front is we do an entrepreneurship fair for junior high and under so these are elementary and junior high school students. We do it twice a year, and we have about 300 kids that participate in this thing. They set up their kids booths. They sell their products and services in our downtown area. Another thing we do is a pitch competition. So we do a high school like Shark Tank like petition for high school students. So they pitch their entrepreneur ideas, and we give out some funds for them to either, you know, pursue college or pursue their idea. And that’s the kind of a culmination of everything they’re doing. So the the short answer is we’re CVCC future ready is connecting our local students with real world opportunities in our business community.

Brandon Burton 18:22
I love that starting early with elementary and middle school, with these entrepreneur affairs, in the creativity that these kids will have with things, you know, to solve problems. I remember when my son was was little, his elementary school age, and he had this vision for creating this cancer curing pill. You know that had robots like Nano robots, that would go and it’s like, it seems far fetched as a kid, and now you see the development of technologies like, man, he wasn’t too far off. So how do you guys get in there with the schools and make this happen with elementary middle school, to get them on board, create the vision is there? How’s that communicated, how’s that developed at the schools?

Zeb Welborn 19:05
So it’s different for each one, and we have different relationships with each one, so it’s kind of like a culmination of relationships. One of the ladies that we brought on board, her name is Nicole Tabitha by so she’s kind of our youth program director, so she does facilitate a lot of those relationships, and that was a challenge when I started. I have a lot of high school students who would come to the chamber say, Hey, I’m looking for an internship, or I’m looking for a thing. And I was like, that’s great. I’m happy to help you. And I was excited about helping them, and I’d connect them with our local businesses. And then what would happen is, is that cycle would kind of get buried every single time there’s a new semester, we’d kind of have to start all over from scratch, and so by having somebody on staff that manages that relationship and making sure that there’s a steady cycle of of interns, but also opportunities connecting businesses with others, that’s kind of what I feel like is needed for. Yeah, especially today, where the world is changing at such a fast pace, with AI and social media and the ability to communicate with each other so quickly, and the world and the world of work is going to change so much more quickly that there needs to be a much stronger tie between businesses and our educational institutions. But the challenge is, our businesses are way too busy as our educational institutions, and so there’s no way, I think the way that the current structure looks, what I’m looking at from the outside in, is that they’re trying to do it on their own, where the educational institutions are like begging the businesses to participate into it, versus coming to us, who can play that kind of middle row and saying, We can speak on behalf of business number one. But we can also connect you with businesses, because we’re trying to solve their issues holistically and not just in that one, one case. So that’s one of the things I’m trying to get more awareness for, I guess, in our chamber industry, building that relationship between education and and local businesses. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 20:58
and I, I’ve often seen that communication going the other way too, from the businesses you know, trying to get the attention of the educators, saying, We need employees that have these skill sets. Please teach them to this. And to your point, with the changing workforce environment, things are developing very quickly with things like AI and when you’ve got a school and education system that has curriculum that has to get approved. And, you know, there’s all these steps for things to happen, and things are moving so quickly that if we can get some of these kids into the workforce as an intern to learn firsthand and see, you know, is this something that I enjoy doing, and then dive in deeper to learn about that profession, I think is the key to be that matchmaker. And sounds like you guys are doing that. Well, is there anything else, as far as the internships, or even just in general, with the CVCC, Future Ready highlights or things that have stood out to you, maybe from the career fairs or or the round tables you guys do,

Zeb Welborn 22:02
well, I think probably the most. We have lots of really good success stories. So you know, hearing from kids about how they gotta sell out of their products at those career fairs when we do those round tables like I think typically when they so, so the colleges or the community colleges will have to do these roundtables in order to approve their curriculum, or to say that they’re taking his advisory advice from these councils. And normally they’ll get a handful of people that were participating, if that so when we ever, whenever we do a roundtable, we have a healthy group of people that are showing up to those roundtables, depending on the industry. So we, we did a manufacturing roundtable not that long ago, where maybe they would get a couple of people that would show up. We had like 30 manufacturers that were present for that. So that’s a success story. We have a lot of the interns that have participated in it that are just talking about how that experience has set them up for their future careers. So that’s been exciting. We had, oh, the last thing is we, because of the work that we’re doing at Chaffey College, and also with the US Chamber, we’ve gone through the talent pipeline management program, through the US Chamber. So I’ve been trying to, like, pitch that to our community, and it hasn’t made it slowly gaining traction, but it’s one of those things you have to do a lot of seed planting and chat with different folks over time. So I think we’re going to get started implementing that this year. So that’s a whole nother level that we’re going to try to take our programming to here at the cheetah Valley Chamber.

Brandon Burton 23:28
Very cool. So I have to ask, with these entrepreneur fairs and the pitch competitions you have, what are maybe a couple of the most creative ideas that you’ve seen these kids present or sell.

Zeb Welborn 23:42
So I’ll just tell you, I mean, so a lot of kids are doing like the printing, yeah, so there’s a lot of 3d printing products and stuff that they’ll share. I did buy, I don’t think I have it anymore, but I did buy like, artwork, you know. So like, a little fourth grader was putting together artwork, and she was displaying all of her artwork, and it was adorable. So I know I’ve got it somewhere, and I used to be right here, but it’s not there anymore. And then what else I think what I see a lot of other folks like, they’re, they’re kind of taking a product that they that they were like, reselling products, basically. But that still requires a lot of ingenuity, just to be able to identify those, to bring them to the space and do it. There was one my son took a video to hold a snake. So they were selling holding onto a snake at the fair, okay, and to have a snake around his neck. And there’s, Oh, there’s one kid who I think has built a pretty successful business already. He sells candles, like homemade candles, so he’s been doing that since the first one that we started, and he’s gotten some recognition here locally. And so I think he’s done really pretty well for himself so far from what I added,

Brandon Burton 24:59
yeah. That’s cool. I love hearing those stories and and even those that are reselling products. I mean, hopefully these kids are learning how to do the market research and see what products sell and what’s worth investing into to resell. And there’s, there’s a lot of value in doing that. That’s really cool, absolutely. So I like to ask, especially as a chamber of the year finalist for listeners who are wanting to take their organization up to the next level. What kind of tip or action item would you share for those listening to try to accomplish that goal?

Zeb Welborn 25:35
I think one of the things just so I’m on the Western Association, Western Association of chamber executives board. So I’ve been doing that for a couple years, and just prior to serving on the board, you know, just like being involved in the industry in general, and I get the sense that there’s a lot of people that I always treat this like as a business, but not just a business, but like the leaders of our business or business community. So So when, when you say that, it means, like, being compensated that way. It means growing in that way. It means thinking in that way. And I think when I have some chats with like, we’re providing a service for a value, and we should receive that value for the services that we’re providing. And I think a lot of chamber executives are uncomfortable doing that, I think, and I don’t know if it’s just kind of like we’re just, we all want to be of service and help support and just do good things for people, but I think treating it like a business is, is the number one thing, and then number two is, is, I feel like setting goals for your organization that kind of hit on those metrics where you’re trying to grow revenue and grow your organization and grow your business. So when I started, I implemented, you know, this goal setting program that I think has worked really well for a chamber to help it move in a positive direction. So if there’s a book called measure what matters, which is the guys at Google how they did their goal setting for their organization, and so I’ve implemented that every year, and we’ve kind of gone through that flow. And it’s, it’s a it’s our chamber has grown every single year since I started, and I, I don’t anticipate it slowing down anytime soon.

Brandon Burton 27:17
Yeah. So aside from winning the title of chamber of the year, what are, what are? What’s a big goal that the Chino Valley Chamber is working towards right now?

Zeb Welborn 27:28
Well, right now we, we got some funding approved by our Congresswoman to build an entrepreneurship center in our community. That was, it was federally funded, so it was going through the whole process. It was good. So when the change of administration happened, that kind of got put on hold. So we’re not sure if that’s coming through or not. We think it will, but we’re still not positive. We had to resubmit everything. So everything’s been resubmitted. It’s going through the process again. They seem likely that it’ll go through, but that is something that we’re working on, is we’re operating out of a space. It’s like an old school house building. So we have eight people in this open air space. There isn’t any room for meetings or that kind of thing on site, anyways, and so that would really be something that I think would level up our chamber, is having the ability to have spaces, space for our team, but then also space to bring in our members in the community to promote their business and promote entrepreneurship and grow our business community. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 28:27
so I like asking, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Zeb Welborn 28:36
Well, I do really like reading like that horizons report, I think is very insightful. I think when, when we went through the process last year and kind of applying, and that was kind of when I was exposed to it for the first time, and it was 10 years it was made 10 years ago for the time that we had last year. And I mean, it was pretty spot on. And I get the sense that it’s pretty spot on. I think the one thing is, is going to be huge for every industry, not just chamber industry. So I would imagine encourage folks to get acclimated and adopted the AI, just because it makes everything so much more efficient and you can accomplish things so much more quickly. But it has a variety of other uses to it, so that’s going to change the world for every industry, I think, in in the chamber space, I do see a lot of opportunities connecting our educational institutions with our businesses, and being the mediator between those two. I think our businesses are so busy, our educational institutions don’t have the resources to do it, and so there needs to be some way to fill that void between the two. And like when, whenever we are asked to do that outreach to business, and we can bring a whole bunch of people, and it’s not it’s because we’re not just serving them for one thing. We’re serving them for everything. And then I think our educational. Institutions or government, or some ways, is being able to support that effort, because it’s going to be critical as we move forward in our in our professional careers.

Brandon Burton 30:14
Yeah, I would agree. I like that, and especially the the focus with with AI, and just recognizing it will affect every industry, and I think as chamber leaders being able to understand some of the applications and know how you can best help the businesses in your community to adapt, to adopt AI and to really lean into it, to help with some of those workforce shortages and to make things more efficient and cost efficient, and you know, all the things that you touched on, but that is a the Chamber’s role, to be that connector with the the education and the employers, to bridge those gaps and be that convener. So I appreciate that. Well, Zeb, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information for listeners who may want to reach out and connect with you and learn how you guys are doing things there in Chino Valley, or even learn more about the programs you guys submitted. What would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect with you?

Zeb Welborn 31:21
Yeah. So my name is really easy to find. I’m on all the socials at Zeb Welborn, so Z, E, B, it’s my first name. Well born is my last name, W, E, L, B, O, R, N. I am on all the social channels. So you can feel free to reach out to me in one of those spots, if you want to reach out via email. It my chamber email is zwelborn@chinovalleychamber.com and then our website is ChinoValleyChamber.com and you can follow us there and on all of our socials.

Brandon Burton 31:50
All right, I’ll, I’ll get that in our show notes and with your socials. I’ll, at least, you know, tag your your LinkedIn in there, so make it easy to find and connect with you, but Zeb, this has been great having you back on the show and and highlighting these programs you guys submitted, and looks like you guys are making a real difference there in the Chino Valley community. And I wish you and your team best of luck. Is 2025

Zeb Welborn 32:17
chamber of the year. Awesome. Thank you so much. Brandon appreciate

Brandon Burton 32:21
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Greater Phoenix Chamber-2024 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Todd Sanders

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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 2024 Chamber of the Year Finalist Series. And our guest for this episode is Todd Sanders. Todd is the President and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Chamber in Arizona, and was named that that role in 2009 before assuming his current role, Todd represented the interests of businesses and community at the Arizona State legislator and Phoenix City Hall as Vice President of Public Affairs. In that role, he enhanced the Chamber’s position as a statewide leader in immigration policy, initiative reform and pro business tax policy. Prior to joining the chamber, Todd acted as a Research and Policy Analyst for the Arizona House of Representatives, serving several standing committees in the areas of taxation, Environment, Energy, state trust, land, counties, municipalities and international trade. He also acted as a liaison to the Arizona Mexico commission on behalf of the house represent, House of Representatives, and currently serves as board president for the Arizona Mexico commission. Todd is a native of Bogota, Colombia. Holds a Bachelor of Science in political science from Northern Arizona University, and he and his wife have a son and live in Phoenix, Arizona, Todd, I’m excited to have you with us today here on chamber chat podcast. Want to start by saying congratulations to you and your team, what a honor and accomplishment, and want to allow you a chance to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better, you

Todd Sanders 2:45
bet. Well, thank you for that, for that introduction. I think if my mom were here, she would be certainly proud, but I certainly embarrassed by all of those. Although those details, thank you for taking the time. I can’t tell you how thrilled we are here in Phoenix to be in the running for a chamber of the year. It is, is a tremendous honor. And as soon as we were notified, the whole chamber was, was just overjoyed. So really appreciate the opportunity. In terms of about things about me, usually, I usually tell people Sure, I was born in Bogota, Colombia, kicked out for bad behavior, but, but the I will tell you something that I think probably 99% of people don’t know. So you mentioned that my name is Todd Sanders recently, well, I shouldn’t say recently. About three or four years ago, we were at a family reunion, and somehow our family tree came up, and we mentioned my brothers and I were saying, Well, we know that my mom’s side was from Scotland, and dad’s side was from Italy. And someone piped up and said, Italy, you know, what are you talking about? There’s no Italian blood here. And and we were just we were so confused that dad’s not with us anymore. And what we learned was, what actually happened is, generations ago, a we actually my our great, great grandfather migrated from, I believe, Mexico into the United States, settled in California and and at that time, decided that probably would be more advantageous to have a more Anglo Saxon sounding name. So he and some friends who sort of came up with this idea, put some names into a hat, and they drew, and my great, great grandfather drew the name Sanders previously. And I guess, I guess you could say, currently, our name had been Sepulveda. So actually, you’re talking to Todd Sepulveda, but by accident, or, I guess, because, of a set of circumstances, Todd Sanders, so something that most people don’t know about me and then, and of course, Todd Sepulveda doesn’t really roll off the tongue. That’s

Brandon Burton 4:47
right. I wonder if your first name would have been different if it’s

Todd Sanders 4:50
still I wonder, yeah, absolutely.

Brandon Burton 4:54
Might be talking to a whole different person. But that’s that’s interesting. I like hearing the family history. And how names change. And my last name is currently Burton, b, u r t o n. But again, his family immigrated into the states. They came from France through Canada into Maine, and at the time it was b, e r t i n, and of course, everybody’s illiterate back then, so they said the name, it got written down, b, u, r, t, O, N, and here we are still today. So yeah, it’s, that’s the way it works. That’s right. Well, tell us about the greater Phoenix chamber. That’s what we’re here for. So tell us about your your organization, size, staff, budget, scope of work, just to set the stage for us. Well,

Todd Sanders 5:38
you bet Walt, thank you for that opportunity. So we have interesting history. Unlike most of the the folks that are listening to this, this podcast nationally, where states have been around for a while, Arizona is a relatively young state. We were formed in 1912 so, so, you know, we just had our our centennial chamber was formed in 1888 so prior to statehood, some some visionary business leaders at the time, formed the Phoenix chamber, and obviously through that time, it has evolved into the organization it is today. So as of, as of now, we have about 2400 members, ranging in all sizes. Our budget is is split between two entities. There’s the chamber side and the foundation side. And when you put those two together, it’s shy of about ten million with the foundation being slightly larger. The staff, our staff is currently close to 70 and and a lot of that serves some of the needs that we’re addressing through the foundation. Yeah, in terms of programs of work, as you mentioned, I come from a policy background, so I’m I can’t get away from that. We do a lot of the state legislature. We work a lot with our city, our city council, and more and more, especially with our friends at the US Chamber, we’re doing work at the at the federal level, there’s also an economic development component to the work we do now. Like, like most of us, we aren’t an attractor. We have a statewide attractor and a county attractor of businesses into the valley. But certainly, as as most chambers do when we get businesses come into town. How do we keep them here? How do we keep them growing? And then finally, as an outgrowth of that work, there’s a workforce component to it, and that’s really where the foundation comes into play,

Brandon Burton 7:30
yeah, but I’m glad to hear that you guys have a foundation. I know that’s kind of the trajectory that we see. Chambers are encouraging chambers to go to be able to really further the work that they have to do. But so typically, on these chamber the year finalist episodes, what I like to do is focus the majority of our time on the programs that were submitted on your chamber the year application, and dive into kind of the origins for those and and the impact that they’re making in your community. And we’ll, we’ll dive into those programs for the greater Phoenix chamber, as soon as we get back from this quick break.

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All right. Todd, we are back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’ll we’ll dive into the pro. Programs that were submitted on your chamber of the year application. I understand that the first kind of scope or program of work will say, covers several programs, kind of in one container, we’ll say, but please introduce that to us. Let us know what those programs are, and again, what the origins and the reason it kind of how this developed?

Todd Sanders 10:25
Well, thank you for that. You’re right. The first, the first set of programs, is sort of under one category. And I think about it as sort of this idea of belonging, my my philosophy, my leadership philosophy really revolves around an abundance model, which, of course, isn’t isn’t blind to the fact that we have to compete, but there’s also a lot of room for us to work together or to bring people in. And so one of those is really revolves around our strategy relating to helping small and mid sized business understand what the road to diversity and inclusion looks like for their companies. Large companies really don’t have a big challenge with implementing these kinds of programs within their within their organizations, but small and mid sized companies tend to have challenges with that. And this goes back eight years ago, July 7, by the way. July 7, 2016 was the day that this all started for me. I had a member of my board, Frank Reed, African American gentleman, who called me and said, Todd, I need to go to lunch. And can we, I need to get on your calendar today, which I thought was was interesting. But we did it. And he and our chair, we sat down and and he said, today in my hometown of Dallas, five police officers were shot for a race related reason, and we can’t let that happen in Phoenix and and part of that is because we’re not we’re not bringing people in, we’re not having conversations, and we’re not really thinking about belonging here. And he said, I need the chamber to engage and but that that lunch, we said, All right, we’re going to do that. And that was the start of something, I think, really impactful, which which began with this, this toolkit that, for instance, our for our friends in the Billings Montana chamber are using as well, where we’re giving small, midsize businesses a roadmap just to start to bring people in and have conversations about how we can all belong, and we built up a toolkit. One of the first things that that occurred was that we decided that staff’s not going to build this thing out. My members of my executive committee built this thing out with with help from us and more of logistical support. And the product, I think, was remarkable. Now it’s in the second iteration, and and and the discussion at that time was, well, what do we do with this? And we immediately decided we’re not monetizing it, we’re giving it away. And you can imagine my sales people. We’re thrilled with this idea, but we felt like it really important for us to learn from what happened in Dallas, and this is before, certainly George Floyd and all these other things. But how do we start bringing people in and just talk to each other, right? And so we decided we would give it away, whether you remember or not, we want to help people in, and we’ve we formed a committee that really what we do is we help businesses along the way when the way they have want to have conversations about, how do you include people? And how do we, how do we make that a part of what we do every day? That’s the toolkit that we use. So that’s one part of it. There were some existing programs that really got wrapped into this. We have an Athena program, which I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with, with the Athena international program, and that’s really how we look at women leaders in our community, that balance, obviously, leadership positions. They also are mentors, and they’re making change in their community. And we’ve had this for 38 years now. It’s a really important part of who we are. There’s also a bit a business, a Women’s Alliance, where we’re bringing women leaders together on a monthly basis, and we really promote what they’re doing. They They network with each other, they lift people up. And it’s a remarkable, remarkable program. Never leave one of these programs without feeling inspired and and really wondering how you didn’t know about this person in our community. And then finally, our Valley young professionals. We, when I became CEO, I really made it a goal to make this a program that was going to be worthwhile, not just something where we were checking the box. And so we really thought about, how do we make this impactful? And part of that, obviously, is giving people coming into their careers an opportunity to really understand what it’s like to serve on a board. What’s a nonprofit all about, what’s your role, what’s the what’s the role of the organization? And and it was working really well. We had really strong leaders, which I think is part of the key, right? But then I there was something was missing, because they there was always this idea that there’s the vyp board, value professional board, and then there’s sort of, quote, unquote big board. And I thought, why do we Why do we have that? And going back to this idea of abundance, I said. Let’s do this. I want to make the leadership so the Chair and the Vice Chair, I want to make them full fledged members of our board, and that means they’re voting members. They’re not junior members that are observed, but they’re full fledged members of the board. That really sort of changed the way young people were looking at this committee and engaging in this committee. Now, what’s interesting about it, you know, how you so you’re thinking about influencing and really bringing up a sort of a set of people as we started to incorporate them into the board, we started feeling significant benefits from having completely different point of view on the board, so much so that at our board retreats, we actually invite the the vyp board, the full board, onto our into our into our retreats, along with our foundation, because they’re adding so much to the conversation. So really, this, this whole idea, and all of these programs are, we’re all wrapped around this, this thought that there’s, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of abundance out there, and how do we start to share that, and how do we start to bring people up? And as a consequence, it’s made us stronger, it’s made us healthier, and it’s and I think in a lot of ways, it’s the reason why we’re here today, talking to you, because that’s the kind of thing that really starts to move a community forward. Right

Brandon Burton 16:21
now, when you think of inclusion and making sure people feel welcomed, I like to think if somebody walks into a room and they don’t feel like they belong there, whether it’s whatever group, you know, segmentation you want to, you know, put the focus on, if they don’t feel like they belong there, they’re out, you know, they’re not going to stay, they’re not going to come back, they’re not going to engage. They’re not going to go to the next level with engagement with your organization. So it’s so important to be able to really highlight these areas, to make sure that people from all different walks of life as they come in, that this is a place for everyone in your community to be involved.

Todd Sanders 17:04
You Ben

Brandon Burton 17:06
with a thought, do you, I know, unfortunately, dei gets kind of a political spin put on it. So how’s the approach that you guys have? Or have you gotten any you know, received any feedback from people on the outside saying, what’s the chamber doing getting involved with these things, and how do you address that with them?

Todd Sanders 17:26
You know, I haven’t gotten the the angry emails that I’ve that I’ve heard about, and I think part of that is because we really look at it from a practical standpoint. I’ll give you an example Frank. Frank read the gentleman that I talked about, you know, provided such an important example, and we’re seeing this, for instance, today in Phoenix, there are literally more jobs than people, so we’re having to do everything that we can to really fill these, these critical slots in our economy. One of the things that that this applies to is the workforce side, obviously, and his story was that they had a really high level position in a company that they were trying to fill. And they they brought they were thinking, Alright, we need more women leaders. They brought in these five. I mean, these were top notch, Ivy League type folks that any one of them would have been incredible for this position. And so they brought them in. They did these interviews. And you know how these, these things work, it’s not generally one person, it’s probably a panel of folks and and they all five women, declined the position in succession, and finally, Frank decided to call a couple of them, and what they said was, you know, it seems like a great company, a lot of opportunity there, but I don’t see myself represented there. There was just a bunch of bunch of men on this in this panel, and I didn’t think I belong there. And for him, it was a really interesting wake up call. And said in the sense that if you want to bring people on board, make sure that they feel like they have a place there. And I think when we talk to companies about how you’re going to look for this top talent, as we’re thinking about $40 billion worth of semiconductor dollars coming into Arizona, and what’s going to be needed in terms of top talent, you got to make sure that that people feel like they got a place at the table if you’re looking to fill these really critical roles. So I think for us, it’s been looking at this from a practical perspective. Same thing goes for the young professionals, the when I think about way back when, when we started this group, there was one particular person who who was their their chair at the time, and she was a complete standout, just amazing. Went through that process, left the vyp group because she’d sort of graduated out and was chair, and had done everything that could be done. Then she became a member of the board through her company, and two years ago, she was my chair. She was the chair of our board, and an incredibly catalytically or who brought so much to the table. So I think when people start to see this as not a political exercise, but this idea that all we’re doing is making sure. Sure that there’s room at the table for everybody. You tend to win.

Brandon Burton 20:03
Yeah, that goes back to your, your thought on abundance, right? There’s room for everybody, and let’s, let’s show them. I, I’ve heard it, and I think I’ve shared it before on the podcast, but when you walk into a room and you see people gathered together, they tend to be in in a circle, right, talking to each other. And that to be inclusive. Instead of a circle, create more of a horseshoe, right? Leave it open, let people in be able to let them feel welcome and like they belong there.

Todd Sanders 20:27
Well, it’s true. And I think, you know, part of that is came from this idea. You mentioned, I was from Colombia, and it’s odd, because when I’m in the States, I always feel like there’s a part of me that’s that doesn’t belong, because it’s true, right? I’m, you know, people you were born somewhere else, and when I’m in Colombia, people like automatic people like, automatically think I’m

Brandon Burton 20:45
American, because, yeah,

Todd Sanders 20:47
I don’t use the simple but a name down there, and so it’s an odd thing to it, so it gives you a sense for what that’s like. But, but, yeah, it’s been, it’s been really rewarding in terms of how far this has gone and the impact that it’s had, not only on the chamber, but in in organizations throughout the Valley and in people, yeah, oh,

Brandon Burton 21:07
that’s great. Let’s shift gears a bit into the other program that was submitted on your application. And if you could tell us what that is and what the origins and the purpose was behind that,

Todd Sanders 21:19
well, you mentioned the foundation, and I’m really glad you did. And I’m encouraging other other chambers to certainly look at foundations. And I will say that we call it the 10 year overnight success story. Yeah,

Brandon Burton 21:31
it takes most are right 100%

Todd Sanders 21:34
I’d love to say it was two years. But, you know, a lot of that work was was built on, you know, the things we had done in the past, and when I mentioned the the Retention and Expansion work that we did, what, what I assumed, when we started talking to businesses, that they would tell me, Todd, the big issues here in Arizona are, are taxes and regulation and and as we talked to business leaders, none of them said that, Which was really shocking to me, and this is before workforce was was cool. They all said we don’t have the qualified talent that we need today and and that was a big wake up call for us. Part of the part of that also was a visit we had with a what would be a fortune 200 company locally that was moving about 200 jobs that paid six figures outside of Arizona because they couldn’t find enough people who could pass the series seven exam. And okay, hold on. We’re the we’re the fifth largest city in the country. That doesn’t seem possible, right? So we figured out very quickly that there was a role for us there. We needed to do more in this space, and so that’s how we got into workforce. And as we as we had a few years under our belt with workforce, it became really clear that we there wasn’t a good method or a good pathway for kids in high schools looking to college and career either or right. I know it’s black and white, but it’s not, it’s college and or career, because they’re interchangeable in some ways. And so I’ll tell you the story real quick. We decided we really need to learn. And so there’s a really great program in Nashville, and kudos to to the Nashville chamber and all the work that they do out there a program in Nashville where they have these Academy an academy model. And so we took a group out to Nashville, and we said, we want to learn about this. And by happenstance, the Phoenix union board actually ended up there as well. We had no idea they were going to be there. We bumped into each other, and it was weird, because we didn’t know each other really well. It was a lot of distrust. Why is the chamber here? You know, what is this board doing here? And we started talking. Go figure, right? We started talking. And by the third day, we were kind of a unified group. And we left there saying, we don’t know this is our model, but, but if, maybe, if we decided to work together, maybe there’s something here for us. And so we did. We decided that we would start with one school, and what we would do is we would see how we could create pathway opportunities for kids in high schools, especially in Title One high schools. And so that was, that was a about four years ago. Three years ago, we started with our first school and and district, and that started to grow over time, and it is something that now has grown to 20 high schools in Arizona and 1000s of kids through that work. One of the things that we we found, among other things, was that a lot of these kids had the the skills, they had the ability, they certainly had the right to engage in some sort of dual enrollment opportunity, but they weren’t doing it, partially because they didn’t know it existed, and mostly because they didn’t have the funds to pay for the dual enrollment. So this is what I love about this sort of project, because it engaged the. Foundation that also engage the chamber. Remember, I told you, we do a lot of the at the legislature. So last year, we got together with some of our partners and and petitioned the legislature for an appropriation that would allow our our kids, our Title One kids, to get at least six credit hours, usually 12 credit hours of dual enrollment before they graduated. It was an interesting issue because it was, believe it or not, bipartisan. There was both sides. It was weird, right? This was a good idea. It was, it was odd, but it was a great, a great thing to sort of be curious about the this bill passed, and now there’s an opportunity for these kids to not have to worry about the financial barrier and think about what this will mean going into into college. You know, if, if they have these 12 credit hours, it means they’re probably going to continue on into the community college system, get a get a two year degree, or a four year degree in industries or in areas where there’s a huge demand in Arizona. So that first year we did it, we saw 40% increase in dual enrollment in 20 in 20 High School. So a significant number. This year we’re seeing a smaller increase. And we had to ask ourselves, what’s going on here? We obviously have a lot of kids out there that haven’t seen this opportunity. What we found was, and probably what we’re seeing in a lot of communities around our country, where we’re actually have a shortage of teachers who are certified in dual enrollment. So we were able to get funds together, and we’re actually providing incentives for teachers to get certified. They have to do that. They have to pay to get certified. So we’re helping them get certified. Our goal is to get get them certified through the system, and then next year, bring those numbers up again. But it’s an interesting sort of process, from where we started with us in Nashville, looking at how we can work together, to today, looking at very specific numbers and the families that we’re helping on a generational basis.

Brandon Burton 27:02
Yeah, well, that goes back to, you know, raising the tide, you know, raises all ships as well. So in both of these programs, I see examples of that. So with this one, you’re focused on the employers making sure they have the pipeline coming in, but in doing, in focusing on that, you’re enhancing the life of these young people going through high school and looking to the that next step in their their life, their, you know, work or college, or both and, or both, right?

Todd Sanders 27:28
I agree. And then the schools,

Brandon Burton 27:30
the schools are being elevated, and the teachers are being elevated. So all around it’s great. They

Todd Sanders 27:35
really are and, and I’ll tell you, you know, a big part of this was internships, right along with a dual enrollment opportunity. And you can imagine what the reaction is from a lot of businesses when you tell them we want to live and have some seniors come in and do an internship, especially in areas like healthcare or or advanced manufacturing, like Honeywell. And I’ll use Honeywell as the example. They were very polite, and they said no, and we finally convinced them, three years ago to take three of our kids. And they said, okay, they have to be over 18, so they’re in their spring semester. We’ll take three. Let us see what happens. They took three, and at the end of it, they said, You know what these kids are, they’re pretty good. We’re gonna hire them. Awesome. So they hired these kids last year. They took six, and they erased the 18, the 18 year old rule. Well, let me fast forward to today. How many do you think they’re taking?

Brandon Burton 28:32
I I’m gonna say at least 12, if you just keep doubling, right? Or is 24 How many years is this now? This will be the third year. Third years, I’m gonna, I’m gonna guess 1288,

Todd Sanders 28:45
we’re taking 88 of our kids now. Here’s the here’s the awesome. I’m gonna bring this all back to where I started, in terms of abundance. All right, so here’s, here’s the story. So earlier last month, we met with the representative money well, when he was telling us that they’re gonna increase to 88 and he said, I need to tell you what happened in that first cohort of kids, there was one kid who was on the bubble, looks like he wasn’t going to graduate. He wasn’t engaged. High School just wasn’t his thing. And the school and Honeywell decided, let’s let’s see what happens. Well, you know what happened, right? Honeywell hired him at the end because it really seemed to work. Well, guess what? Today? Well, not today. Last month, he brought his he bought a house for his family. Wow, yeah. I mean, think about that as a kid who’s on the bubble, probably not going to graduate all of a sudden, he’s got this incredible job of Honeywell. And today, I mean, my kid’s 20, he’s not buying a house for his family. This kid just bought a house for his family. That’s not political, that’s amazing. How do we start to create an abundance mentality in our community and really create opportunity for everybody, including Honeywell, by the way,

Brandon Burton 29:54
yes, wow. That just blows my mind. The 88 interns now that great story, great. Success, yeah,

Todd Sanders 30:01
a lot of those. Yeah, I

Brandon Burton 30:03
bet we can go on for a couple hours trying to some great stories. And I’d love

Todd Sanders 30:08
to say that, you know, kudos to the chamber, no, kudos to those companies. CVS just did 20. Yeah? So it’s great to, it’s great to see that impact, and it’s great to see companies stepping up like that, yeah,

Brandon Burton 30:19
well, and for those who do go the route of higher education after high school. It’s a huge help to have those dual credits going into college and university, and being able to kind of have that head start. And my son just graduated, and he got it, got out of high school with 30 college credits, like, that’s awesome going into as a sophomore, right? So it’s

Todd Sanders 30:41
you think about the financially for you. I mean, that’s yeah, you just saved

Brandon Burton 30:45
a year. Yeah? I recognize it, yes, yeah. Well, Todd, I like asking, especially as a chamber of the year finalist, for listeners who are tuning in, what kind of tip or action item might you have to share with them as they look to take their chamber up to the next level?

Todd Sanders 31:06
Well, I, you know, I’ll go back to the 10 years ago when we decided that we wanted to, we needed to raise some money to make this happen. I think our goal was, was, was about a million dollars and and that was, that’s a big number. It’s a big number today. And as we were talking to business leaders, I think there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s always a lot of skepticism about a new program, and you’re coming here to help. And we hear this all the time. And I think one of the things that we said that I think made a big difference when we when we made our pitch, I said, Look, something in what I’ve just talked about is going to go wrong. Something’s not going to work. I promise you that is going to happen. But I’m also going to promise you that we’re going to take that, we’re going to learn from it, and then we’re going to pivot, and we’re going to make sure it does work. And I think we’ve, we’ve gotten comfortable with being uncomfortable, and that’s in all parts of our chamber. I mean, it’s so easy to say, I don’t know, that’s kind of scary. Well, we maybe we tried that before, or that’s never going to work, or we’ve always done it this way. We do it too, but if you give yourself permission to fail, you’re going to succeed.

Brandon Burton 32:18
Yeah, I love that. If you give yourself permission to fail, you’re going to succeed. It’s that’s a t shirt. That’s a t shirt, right? Yeah, so,

Todd Sanders 32:26
but you fail a lot and and that that’s what makes us successful. It’s

Brandon Burton 32:31
right. That’s right. You learn, right? You bet. Well, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward.

Todd Sanders 32:41
Well, you know, I really feel like chambers are in such a good place right now. I feel like, you know, we’re looking at ourselves in a way that is probably different than we had even 10 years ago. You mentioned foundations. I think there’s a renewed emphasis on how we are really the heart of our economies. And I think probably covid was terrible. We wouldn’t want to go through it again. But I think covid really gave us a moment to really understand the importance that chambers serve in our communities. We are at the heart of our economies and our communities. And that certainly was reinforced during that time, and I think it gave us a new sense of what we need to be and how we need to do things, and how we talk about ourselves. We are economic developers. That’s chambers are the original economic developers. I don’t care how you slice it, that’s how the community sees us now. I think that’s tremendous, but we’re also taking that a step further and looking at things that we hadn’t traditionally looked at, like, like education, like foundation work. And I gotta tell you, I love this industry and and I’m so proud to be a part of it.

Brandon Burton 33:53
I love that, yes, every chamber is an economic development. Doesn’t matter what the city contract says you are involved in developing the economy in your community. Well, Todd, 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 learn how you guys are doing things there in Phoenix, and maybe dig in a little deeper. Where would you point them? Absolutely

Todd Sanders 34:17
Happy. Happy to help on that side as well. You can also, you can always go to our website, PhoenixChamber.com a lot of information there about all the programs we talked about, including a few others that I didn’t my email address is tsanders@phoenixchamber.com so feel free to reach out there as well. And then, certainly if you want to have a conversation, 602-495-6460, 495-6460,

Brandon Burton 34:43
that’s perfect. We will get that in our show notes for this episode too, to make it easy to reference and have people pull it up and find you there. But Todd, this has been great having you on Chamber Chat Podcast. I wish you and your team the best of luck in Dallas as Chamber of the Year, and keep up the great work. Work you guys are making a huge impact.

Todd Sanders 35:01
Well, thank you. We will look forward to seeing you

Brandon Burton 35:05
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Greater Winston Salem, Inc.-2024 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Mark Owens

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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 2024 Chamber of the Year Finalist Series. And our guest for this episode is Mark Owens. Mark is the President and CEO of the Greater Winston Salem, Inc. Mark has over 14 years experience building communities through economic development. He was named president CEO of Winston Salem chamber, now greater Winston Salem Inc in 2017 and previously served as president and CEO of the greater Greer chamber in South Carolina. Mark is actively involved in the community in Winston Salem and forcep County, serving on the board of directors at Novant Health Forces Medical Center and the Piedmont Triad partnership, among others. Nationally, he serves on the board of directors for ACCE. He’s a graduate of Presbyterian College and the US Chamber Institute for organizational management, and he holds his CCE designation. Mark is a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and he is and his wife melody, have a son named Luke and a golden doodle named boots mark. Welcome to the chamber tap podcast. First of all, congratulations to you and your team. It’s a great accomplishment to be named as a chamber the year finalist. I’d love for you to say hello to all the chamber champions that are out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.

Mark Owens 2:29
Yeah, thank you, Brandon. I really appreciate what you do for our industry. And having the opportunity to be on this podcast, it’s great to to meet everybody through through this platform, and looking forward to meeting others in person coming up soon. We’re really proud of greater Winston to be one of the finalists, and really honored to be a part of this recognition. And it’s been a great a great process, a great journey as a team. And we’ll look forward to sharing a little bit about that with you today. A little bit about me. Fun fact, wow. I think maybe when I was at Presbyterian College, I played soccer there and was able to get an internship at this thing called a chamber of commerce, which I had never heard of before. And so I started as an intern, and then actually worked part time for a year while I was in school at the Chamber of Commerce in Lawrence County, South Carolina. And so work based learning is near and dear to my heart and provided an opportunity for me to to discover an industry I never even knew about as a young person. So internship is is probably that fun fact about me being in a chamber to start off?

Brandon Burton 3:35
Yeah, that’s awesome. You’re sort of a product of the programs that are being modeled at your chamber now. And that’s a that’s awesome. A lot of people find chamber work by accident, but that’s right, that’s about as intentional as you can be doing an internship. So that’s that is a fun fact. Well, tell us a little bit about greater Winston, Salem, Inc, just size, staff, budget, scope of work to set the stage for our discussion.

Mark Owens 4:05
Yeah, absolutely. So we are here in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and greater Winston Salem, Inc was originally the greater Winston Salem Chamber of Commerce. Technically, we are 138 years old. Our chamber existed before Winston and Salem became one city, they were two separate cities. So our chamber claims a little bit of responsibility for bringing those cities together 100 years ago, but our organization is greater Winston Salem inquire the combination of the Chamber of Commerce and the economic development organization for the community. That was a merger that took place in 2019 I moved to Winston Salem in December of 2017, and in 2019 our boards voted to merge economic development back into the chamber of commerce and evolve our name to greater Winston Salem, Inc. Little do we know that our bylaws say our first day is literally April Fools of 2020. And so during covid, I was the only person in the office on the first day of this new, newly named organization. But our team is really focused on three main things. Our vision statement for 2030 which is to be the top mid sized city in the southeast, to be a more equitable community, and to be the best place to raise a family. And we really shape everything we do around that. We have 16 team members here at greater Winston, Salem Inc, about a $3 million budget, and when we started, we were at about 1.7 million. So we’ve had a lot of growth, not just economic development, but specifically workforce and utilizing grant opportunities, which I know we’ll talk about here in a few minutes, but we have a great board, a 29 member board of directors, a community that was built on textile and tobacco, and we’re evolving into biotech, life science and advanced manufacturing being a key component of our membership base. We have 848 members, so we are a growing community, but really tied to the fabric of Winston sale with our rich history, and it’s a great place to be. That’s awesome. Yeah, I

Brandon Burton 6:08
love these communities that have such a rich history. To be able to go back 138 years and be able to see the those beginnings, and see how the communities evolve, see how the economy has evolved, technologies, all these different things, and to be able to be there for the growth and and championing, championing, championing the cause and change, right? So in these chamber, the year finalist episodes, I really like focusing the majority of our time on the programs that were submitted, and your chamber the year application and kind of how they came to be, the history leading up to them, the impact they’re making in your community. And we’ll dive into those programs as soon as they get back from this quick break.

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All right. Mark, we’re back. Let’s let’s jump into the first program that was submitted on your your chamber the year application, if you can tell us what it is and kind of its origins and the momentum that it’s built over time. Yeah,

Mark Owens 8:48
I’m going to start with our Career Ready youth part of our program, and that’s something that’s been really a key component to our community. And what we do at greater with cell make you heard earlier that I was a former intern, work based learning is is really important to me, but our organization has been involved with working with our young people, specifically K through 12, for a long time now, since the the late 90s, we have been contracted by our K through 12 school system to do career readiness and career exploration. We also used to do some third grade reading, coaching, coordination, but since our school district has taken that in house, we’ve expanded what we do as we work on really feeling that start of the funnel of talent pipeline. We know by talking with our business community that access to top talent is a key factor for community and economic development for all of our communities, not just for today, but for tomorrow. And being able to get our community businesses to buy into our goals of being the top, mid sized city, that means we have to retain and prepare our young people for this emerging, evolving economy that we sit in our office. Sits in a factory that used to make cigarettes, and now there’s scientists in here with us doing research on how to regrow organs. And just that evolution of the economy of Winston Salem is why we’ve got to start preparing our young people for the work for tomorrow. So a few of the things that we do, one of which we start with our eighth and 10th graders, we call it wow. It’s called World of Work. We rent out our Coliseum or Wake Forest University, plays basketball, and every eighth grader and every 10th grader in Forsyth County comes through a career fair over a two day period. We’re talking almost 9000 students come through over those two days to see what kind of career paths are out there. We do that about a month before they sign up for CTE classes, because in our community, 99% of students that take CTE programmings Career and Technical Education graduate, as opposed to our graduation rate, which is at an all time high, at 86% so we know that career and technology technology education. And Technical Education provides a path forward in the future of the workforce. It creates more graduates, and it gets those young people ready for that next step. So after World of Work, what do we do next? We have a program called Aspire. It’s for our 11th and 12th graders. It’s paid internships, and we’ve started by focusing at our Title One schools. So those schools that have been traditionally underserved, and these students go through paid internships, $15 an hour, where we receive grants. And those grants, we reimburse the companies for paying for those young people up to $15 an hour for 100 hour internship. So we believe that these young people, you know, have an option to go work, and some are providing in, you know, for family household income. So we believe in paid internships and find ways to really encourage those young people to go explore, whether it’s at Novant Health or atrium health or hospital systems, whether it’s with our banks like truist and Bank of America, or whether it’s in small businesses or startups, we have programs where we can, we can supplement those companies that are paying for these interns and reimburse them. That program was launched, but we noticed something. We noticed that our students needed a little more preparation before they went into the workplace. So we launched our work ready certificate, where now we have a 15 hour credit contact to our credential program, where we do soft skills, mock interviews, resumes, and if they create finish those 15 hours of the credential program, they also receive a stipend where we partner with local big box retailers For Dress for Success program. So we provide them with dollars to go dress and be ready for the the internship placement that they receive. So now we have graduates going through that that are getting placed in their internship program. And we also noticed that we had some students that just needed a little extra mentorship. And that’s where senior Academy comes in, and senior Academy is for mostly for seniors and some juniors that have been identified by their guidance counselors as as maybe just needing a little extra motivation to get to graduation. So we recruit businesses, business members and individuals that want to do one on one mentorship with high school students, and we help them get over the graduation line. We have about 140 students each year, a part of senior Academy, and we’ve about a 98 to 99% graduation rate of those, one on one mentors. So we’re really looking at this career ready youth as an opportunity to look at the entire individual and say from eighth grade on that there’s a there’s a pipeline, there’s a pathway that’s clearly laid out for everybody in our community to participate, not just the individuals that have more resources. And I think that’s been really important in what we’re doing. We know our companies need this workforce of tomorrow, but we also know it’s the right thing for our community to continue to grow and develop young, talented, diverse leaders. And this program is so impactful. It’s, it’s one of our favorite things to do when we go to those graduations and those ceremonies where we see individuals get those credentials, it’s really exciting. That is

Brandon Burton 14:13
awesome. Yeah, I’ve heard of a lot of, you know, career readiness, you know, programs that chambers have done, and they’ll list a couple things, and then you kept saying, and then it leads to this, and then it leads to this, and then it leads to and I love how it’s just all packed together, and it is a roadmap that leads to success. I was curious with the Aspire, with the paid internships, are there certain business types that you’re trying to match them up with or is it open to any Chamber members that want to offer internships? Or how do you go about promoting that and putting those offerings out there?

Mark Owens 14:47
Yeah, that’s a great question. It’s open to every business in the community and all of our Chamber members. So we we really actually target companies in our retention visits. We visit with our. Top 150 employers every year, and we talk to them about their needs and ask them to participate. Of course, there’s some challenges, if in manufacturing and automotive spaces, where you have OSHA situations and safety, but we really actually want it to be, you know, what I would call those office related jobs, or those jobs that they have an interest in, like construction working in construction management or in a law firm. Our real goal is that these young people dream and hope and see what’s out there and and that they get this opportunity to be exposed to new career paths that they maybe thought weren’t attainable. We want every student to feel like they have the opportunity to have an internship and understand what it’s like to work in an office or work in management, or work at a bank or or work at a hospital. And I think one of the biggest surprises Brandon that we’ve had is that some of our young people that have done paid internships at the hospital, we’ve had 10 students at the hospital, is hired on part time to continue that after the internship, so they’ve gotten great career opportunities and jobs right off the bat, and it’s really something that we weren’t expecting to happen. But students are saying, you know, I never knew that I could work at a hospital. I didn’t think that was for me. And now there’s opportunities that open those doors and provide opportunity beyond just what they could dream. So we try to open it up for everybody, but it’s really intentional in our marketing efforts, and one on one communication, we really go ask, and we tell the company that, hey, we’re going to reimburse you. There’s no cost to you, just your time. And that’s really been a great thing to break down the barrier. And one last thing I’ll say on that Brandon, we also provide transportation. So if these young people don’t have transportation, we’ve partnered with a local, you know, what we call micro transit company, that can go pick up these young people and take them to and from their jobs. And so that’s been a barrier that we’ve been able to eliminate in this process.

Brandon Burton 16:56
That’s awesome. I love the exposure and getting these young people exposed to different career paths and opportunities and show them what’s possible, but also give them a taste of what it’s like to be in that setting. Because maybe they hate it, maybe they intern at a law office and think I don’t want to go to law school and spend hundreds of 1000s of dollars in student debt, but to be able to really set them on a course of what it is that they want to do and what they don’t want to do, I think it’s just as important, man. You

Mark Owens 17:27
took the words out of my mouth. We just talked about that this morning. We had an intern here working with us, and I said the same thing, you may find that you love it. You might might find out it’s not for you. And both things are incredibly valuable. So you’re right, it just gives the gives them an opportunity to see what’s out there and and try it before they go down that pathway. And if, if they do like it, then that’s where, you know, this second program we’ll talk about in a second kind of ties in, because we don’t want that pipeline to stop at one spot. We want to be able to help those students progress

Brandon Burton 18:01
in their careers. That’s right. Now, you guys are obviously about stacking these programs on top of each other, so let’s, let’s see where this takes us. So they graduate. You know, they’ve had these internships, they’ve got the Work Ready certificate to be ready for those internships, or dressing for success. They graduate now. What now? How do you continue them along that

Mark Owens 18:21
path? Yeah, it’s this is an area where I do hope we can improve a little bit, because there there may be some leakage in the pipeline here when when they graduate and go to school or go in the workforce, it’s hard to track where everybody goes and stay in touch, but that’s where this next program for scythe works comes into play. And what we saw is that we have a lot of organizations in our community, probably like yours, that are listening, that do workforce development or some component, but we’re not as coordinated as we could be. We, you know, you’re you’re sending somebody who’s looking for a job opportunity or more training or job interview skills or whatever it is. You may send them to two to three, four locations just to to fulfill and get all the knowledge they need. So we applied as a group to the county for for an ARPA grant through the American rescue plan act, and for what’s called for scythe works. What that is, it’s the county. It’s us. Is greater in salmon. It’s our goodwill partners. It’s our school system and our community college for site tech, the five of us are all on this grant, and it’s created a one stop workforce hub location. We physically moved our chamber office in with the career and workforce team of Forsyth Tech here in innovation quarter on Winston Salem, we share an office every Wednesdays. Walk in Wednesday people can come in any day, but we we target Wednesdays for one on one, career coaching, interview, training, access to scholarships to go to for site, tech, whatever it may be to help them access new openings. In addition to hosting seven seminars a month for the community, they’re all free of charge through the. Grant to be able to talk about re entry after maybe something that happened in the law or or stepping away to be a stay at home parent, re entering the workforce or hiring individuals with neurodiversity issues. So there’s a lot of great things that we’re doing there. We also created forsythworks nc.com, which is a one stop shop for job posting. We’re aggregating job postings that we’re seeing through indeed and other places all to one site, so somebody can go to that site say, hey, I’m interested in this job. Here’s the training that it would take. Here’s how I can go ahead and register for that training, or register for classes for SciTech or Goodwill’s offering this program. Here’s the expected salary range in that industry field. It’s really a way to kind of come alongside an individual specifically as the American rescue plan act designates qualified census tracks more underserved communities to really help and create economic mobility. That’s one thing that we’re really passionate about, is be a more equitable community, as you heard in our vision, and we believe we can do that through economic mobility. So access is key to this. So we’re doing that in English and in Spanish, and trying to make sure everybody has access to the information, the training, the skills and the tools, so that ultimately they get that career that changes their lives and their family’s lives. So we’re really, are of trying to stack, to be honest with you, we keep finding challenges, and that’s why we keep trying to add on to it. If we, if we kind of just pieced it together, we may not have it as comprehensive, and we’re not done. We want to keep growing and find new solutions, but we’re really proud of that partnership. So now we’re all working together, and everybody is on the same page, going in the same direction, and it’s creating some impact. It’s only been launched for about a year, and so we’re starting to see some great metrics come in,

Brandon Burton 21:49
awesome so I’m curious with the job posting site, the reference so it’s aggregating from all these different resources of job postings and putting into the one, one stop shop to be able to find a job in the community. Is there a certain platform you guys are using? Is it a proprietary thing? Or how are you aggregating all these different job postings? Well,

Mark Owens 22:10
you know that this one, you have people on your team that are smarter than you, so I’m not sure I’m the best. Then I can tell you, it’s an RSS feed we’re pulling mostly from indeed, but we also have in our, I think it’s a WordPress designed website to where we have a job board in there, and we give access to all of our partners to be able to enter it in. So most chambers, right, probably have job boards that your members can post on for free or for cost, or based off of a tier, we have that as well. So it’s really just kind of pulling all of that into one page. Sometimes the job will click you and take you to an indeed, posting. Sometimes it’ll take you straight to a company’s website. But it’s really designed to try to help the seeker go to one place, instead of needing to carve out and go to different sites to do that. Yeah. So

Brandon Burton 23:03
it sounds like you hire well as well.

Mark Owens 23:06
You have a great team. I can say RSS feed and WordPress. If you ask me how to do the those things, that’s not me. But I know, I know the little, really good team that makes all this possible. For sure,

Brandon Burton 23:19
absolutely. The key thing is that it works. So that’s, right, works. Yeah, that’s awesome. So I like asking, especially with you being a chamber, that you’re a finalist. I mean, you guys are kind of top of the game right now for chambers that are listening and wanting to take their chamber up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you share with them to try to accomplish that goal?

Mark Owens 23:43
Yeah, that’s a really good question. I first want to just say our board and our staff that’s doing this amazing work together, and what it’s been really fun about this process, and I think kind of, as part of my answer to your question is we didn’t set out to go try to win an award. We tried to set out to make a difference. And I think whatever your community is facing, it’s going to be different for everybody. And so the first thing we did was go ask and listen and adapt. And I think that would be my first thing is go go together with partners and go find out what your members and your businesses are facing. We we sometimes get caught up thinking we know what our businesses and our members need, instead of listening first. So I think our first step was listening and then set out to really adapt and evolve and sell mission investments, not just transactional memberships, and really try to find a way to say, hey, we’re moving the community forward through our work, and we want you to be a part of that. So honestly, I would say, Put your head down a little bit. Go, ask. Go. Listen, it doesn’t happen overnight. We’ve been working on this. We’re honest. Were a little surprised to be a finalist. We again. We didn’t set out for for this as our goal, but the process of going through this has sharpened us even more. Has helped us put our plans together and and really audit ourselves and say, What are we doing? What are we doing? Well, what can we improve on? And I would just the last thing I would say is don’t be afraid to try something. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, you can try something again, but it’s really exciting, and I’m really thankful for ACCE, the regional associations, chamber, chat, podcast, sharing ideas, to be able to listen and find new ideas is really impactful. And I just encourage you to start by saying, we think we know what we’re doing, but let’s go ask and confirm that with our businesses and make sure we’re providing the value that they want, yeah,

Brandon Burton 25:50
and that I can appreciate. You know, the the application process, and like you said, not going out to to win an award, but the process has sharpened you to refine things, and I can see where you can look at all your programs at work and be able to almost organize them in a way that makes more sense, on a kind of a flow chart, if you will, that maybe that structure has always been there, but to see it laid out and presented in a way that makes sense, I think, really helps to get everybody on board and and, like you said, to be able to sell the mission of The Chamber and what you guys are after, rather than transactional members. So that’s very well said.

Mark Owens 26:26
Thank you. Yeah, and I just want the listeners to know, like, I worked in a smaller chamber with five people. I worked my first job was two and a half people. I was the half as an intern. I think there’s so many skills that transfer from small and larger chambers. I mean, it’s different challenges, but at the end of the day, if we all can just listen to our community members roll our sleeves up and try to get after it. And really, I know it’s hard sometimes to pause and work on your chamber instead of just in it, but I think that’s so important to step back, and this process has helped us to really, like I said, audit what we’re doing. Where are our gaps? What can we improve? And I think if you take that time to do that, those those retreats, or whatever it may be, it really sets you up for success. And your community will see that, and your businesses will will invest in you.

Brandon Burton 27:17
Yeah, I think that’s wise. So I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?

Mark Owens 27:29
Yeah, this is a great question, and it’s actually something that I think about a lot and read about with the horizon initiative and other things a lot, and it’s chambers are evolving. We’ve been around for a really long time, and I think we’ll be around for a really long time, but we all know that, as you know, Zoom has changed what we do. Let’s just call what it is we used to be in person all the time. You got to adapt and how you engage. And I think the future of chambers really, really is going to be focused around talent. And I really believe that networking and marketing and membership, activities and events is the bread and butter, and it’s crucial. But if we can figure out as an industry how to maximize our value as it relates to talent, attraction, retention and development, that’s an area that’s so important for our businesses across the country right now, we all know that shortage and how hard it is to do it with our own teams. Think about our businesses and what they’re facing in this if we can help solve that problem, or even just ease the tension around talent development, how can we continue to adapt? But I do you know, honestly want to it’s going to be harder and harder to get memberships. You know, companies are tighter, especially post pandemic, it’s tighter membership numbers take more effort to do. And I fully believe in selling a vision and why you’re doing things, not just what you get back for it. And I think that’s been the area that I think if our industry can continue to push forward on selling the vision and selling the balance of Community and Economic Development together, that’s where the future of successful chambers are going to go. And you know, we can’t be all things to everybody, but we can guide a community forward and try to be catalytic leaders in our community, get everybody on the same page. So it’s going to be a challenge. We’re going to be learning from each other. And can’t wait to listen to more episodes, to steal ideas from from my colleagues, for sure.

Brandon Burton 29:30
That’s right. It’s your your weekly R and D resource, right

Mark Owens 29:34
here. That’s right.

Brandon Burton 29:36
Well, Mark is as as we wrap up, I want to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who want to reach out and connect to learn more. How about about how you guys are doing things? Where would you point them? What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect? Yeah, I

Mark Owens 29:51
would be honored to connect just when, when you email or LinkedIn message, we know I’m going to have questions for you too. So prepare for a two way conversation. But it’s Mark Owens, markowens@winstonsalem.com or I’m on LinkedIn as Mark Owens with Greater Winston Salem Inc, those are the two I’m probably monitor the closest, and would love to reach out, connect and and really appreciate the opportunity to share what our team and our communities doing. I love this industry as somebody who’s been in it since an intern, and hopefully we can continue to to open the doors for future people to come in and be a part of this. But look forward to connecting

Brandon Burton 30:33
absolutely I’ll I’ll get that in our show notes for this episode make it easy to find and and shoot that email or click that LinkedIn link and connect with you, but Mark, this has been great having you on the podcast again. Congratulations to you and your team. I wish you guys the best of luck in Dallas as chamber of the year.

Mark Owens 30:52
Thanks, Brandon. Appreciate being with you. If

Brandon Burton 30:56
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