What Does the Chamber Do?

5/16/2018 (Permalink)

The Chamber logo

As a member of the Brown County and Green Bay area communities, SERVPRO of West Brown County likes to make sure it is fully involved in those communities. That means forming meaningful relationships with some of our fellow community organizations.

One particularly important and rewarding relationship is the one we have with the Greater Green Bay Chamber of Commerce.

For those who are curious about the Chamber and what it does, we decided to get together with the organization’s director of membership and retention, Renae Schlies. In addition to answering some of our questions, Renae did a little video with us explaining the Chamber’s work. You can watch that video here on our website, or on our social media pages!

But back to the matter at hand, what does the Chamber do? Well, the short answer is…a lot!

Renae tells us there are several arms of the Chamber from government affairs, to economic development, to workforce development.

Perhaps most importantly, she says, the Chamber brings people and businesses together. The organization has nearly 1,200 member-businesses, representing about 86,000 people. That means there are many opportunities for networking and marketing business to business.

To help facilitate these connections, the Chamber offers several events throughout the month from a Power Networking Breakfast, to after hours get-togethers. The Chamber also promotes and facilitates ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings for members.

Under the government affairs arm, the Chamber has a lobbyist on board who can look out for local business interests as political decisions are made.

When it comes to economic development, Renae says the Chamber has a strategic plan for keeping the area business climate vibrant and growing. One example of the work it does is that it has an incubator program through Northeast Wisconsin Technical College for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

As for workforce development, according to Renae, the Chamber has a mission to keep good talent local and to attract new talent to the area. The Chamber works on this mission through programs like the Young Professionals group and the youth apprenticeships with area schools.

These are just a few examples of the work the Greater Green Bay Chamber of Commerce does.

As for SERVPRO of West Brown County, we find being a part of the Chamber is beneficial to our team. Membership makes us more credible to potential clients. Customers know we’ll be able to provide quality work, because we have such a large network backing us up.

The connections and relationships we’ve been able to build with fellow, local businesses and organizations are extremely valuable. We are able to get our name out there and market ourselves, not only at networking events, but with every individual connection we make as well.

Our sales and marketing manager, Jim Knopf is very involved with the Chamber. He is actually an ambassador for the Chamber.

We spoke with Jim and Renae about the ambassador program and we’ll bring you a video and blog about that for this week’s Profile Friday. Be sure to check back in for that!