During the first few months of 2023, we are realigning some of the staff roles at the Chamber. Often, when we make staff changes, there are a lot of questions and rightly so; members want to know who is doing what, so they can contact the right person. Before we make too many changes, I’ll get out in front of it here. First though let me say, just as in your business or organization, it’s best to always be assessing your talent to make sure you have the right people on the bus as author Jim Collins says in Good to Great. It’s also important to have those people in the right seats. We’ve got the right people on the bus, but we are going move around the seating just a bit. Below I highlight the major areas of staff roles and future changes.
Core Staff
Kathy Stevens, Business Director. Kathy’s title will remain the same but will include new responsibilities as assistant to the CEO and an increased role with our building as we embark on renovations to the Chamber building. The Safety Group program with Pinnacol, Education Committee, and Chamber Student Network will go to other members of staff.
Karen Stallard is moving into a new Business Development Director role. Karen’s relationships with many of our businesses will be able to grow as she focuses on developing partnerships to support the Chamber’s events, program and advocacy efforts. Part the expanded role will include the Chamber’s long time Workers’ Compensation Safety Program with Pinnacol Assurance. Karen will also oversee the new Associate Membership Director role as they work with our small and entrepreneurial members.
The Associate Membership Director is a new hire position that will as said, give more specialized attention to small and entrepreneurial businesses. They will attend to the Networking groups and ribbon cuttings as well as bring back our Member Mentor program, the new name for the previous Advocate Program.
The Program & Event Coordinator role, held by Ruby Black has changed to a Program Director role. In addition to well known events such as Unity in the Community, Jubilee and monthly networking events, Ruby will focus on increasing the Chamber’s educational offerings. These include events covering key topics as workforce development, economic vitality and other matters that result from the Business Climate Survey. In addition, Ruby will keep previous roles with Ambassadors and Nexus Young Professionals.
Our Communications Director, Leah Winkler will keep her same title and role. You can see Leah’s work whenever you are on the Chamber website, social media, read the Enews or any other communication coming from the Chamber. Leah is also our “chief data analyst” as we collect data from our now live Business Climate Study.
Contractors and Volunteers
Stacy Cornay with Communication Concepts leads much of our Public Policy work and takes on special projects. Stacy represents the Longmont Chamber on various statewide policy committees. She recently wrote a blog piece where her role is further detailed.
Sherry Bellet has served for many years as our accountant. Sherry is incredibly talented and we get lots of calls for her to work with other organizations and businesses (and that’s fine as long as she has enough time for us!).
Victoria Pankey is our Social media person. Over the last year and a half our social media presence has grown greatly and our followers have doubled on Facebook and tripled on Instagram. Social is a great way to follow Chamber happenings. If you message us on social, Victoria will be sure to reply.
Genevieve Clayton is our new person in charge of the Chamber Student Network (CSN). You may have seen Genevieve at CSN meetings as a student, but now she leads the show. If you are curious to know more about CSN, click here.
Gay Hampton serves as our Front Desk Volunteer on Wednesdays. She is now joined by our new volunteer Juana Mendoza on Fridays.
You may also see from time to time, our Silver Creek Leadership Academy (SCLA) intern, Ming Yao Liew. Ming is working on his capstone project with our Business Climate Study.
Though we still have a relatively small core staff, our team is growing. With that growth comes an expanded capacity for us to bring even more value to our members. This is only possible through the ongoing investment our members have in our organization, and we are so grateful for your support of not only our mission, but the services we bring to our entire community. If you would like to know more about how you can further strengthen our operations, contact me at scook@longmontchamber.org.