All Advocacy, All the Time
business, chamber, era boardwalk real estate, gillete campbell county,
Joe MorrisIt’s hard to sum up the various activities that a multifaceted organization like the Campbell County Chamber of Commerce does, but it usually boils down to one thing: strength in numbers.
“When people ask me what we do, my short answer is that we provide an atmosphere in which business can thrive,” Chamber President Julie Simon says. “But by that, I mean several things. We provide access to other chamber members through networking, and we provide advocacy for our businesses by standing up for them in local government and the state legislature. We give them access to legislators and others that they might not have time to pursue on their own.”
With more than 600 members, the organization wields considerable clout in the halls of government, something that’s appreciated by its members who are interested in the legislative process, but can’t close up shop to go and attend subcommittee hearings.
“There are a lot of demands on my time, so having them represent the business community is very helpful,” says Tony Klamm, owner of the Wyoming Work Warehouse. “We don’t have time to lobby for ourselves, and they do it very well.”
On the local scene, Klamm points to the chamber’s other area of expertise, which is crafting and implementing campaigns that help various business sectors. As a retail owner, he points to the “shop Gillette first” promotion to keep retail dollars in town.
That and other efforts make the community stronger, adds Sherry McGrath, broker/owner of ERA Boardwalk Real Estate.
“They do a good job of marketing Gillette and Campbell County, whether it’s the retail and business or the community side,” McGrath says. “Businesses normally can’t handle that sort of thing, and they do a good job of promoting Gillette as a good place to live or visit, a place with a lot of opportunity, which is very beneficial to all of us.”
In the end, that’s the goal of the chamber, whatever the specific program, workshop, networking event or lobbying effort, says Simon.
“We focus on the things that give our members a voice in the community and in the state,” she says. “We have events where we bring people together and talk about the legislative agenda, or have a community forum to get information out about something else that’s going on here. We have a leadership program, which our businesses support so that we can develop new leaders for the community, and we have developed a program for young leaders, so we can keep our future leaders here in our community.
“We always ask our members for their ideas, how we can make ourselves better, and then we implement those ideas and continue to stand up and be that voice for business,” she says.
Story by Joe Morris
