Looking forward Our “why” is our focus Laurie Radke, president/CEO, Greater Green Bay Chamber
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s I enter my 10th year as Chamber president and CEO (where has the time gone?), it gives me reason to pause and reflect on both where we have been and where we are headed.
for my 10th fiscal year with the Chamber, we are listening to what you are telling us you need and working hard to fill any gaps. Our assessment process always begins with that simple but powerful question, “Why?”
I suspect I’m like a lot of you in that I am always looking forward – which is an absolute must! But sometimes, we must stop and look around us at what we have accomplished and celebrate that as well. It is a must for us to report out to our boards of directors and other stakeholders as well as our hardworking staff members.
As we prepare to celebrate the Chamber’s 139th Annual Dinner, we posed that question as part of our planning process for it. Given what we have endured – and overcome – this past year and a half, we wanted this year’s Annual Dinner to be a celebration for our community. To that end, it will be even more of a celebration with the Brass Differential band; after the formal awards program, we will kick up our heels alongside you, celebrating the grit, resiliency and tenacity it has taken all of us to reach where we are. Something that has become very apparent to me through my tenure at the Chamber is how collaborative and caring our community is; we want to take this night to simply unite and celebrate.
After 10 years at the Chamber, and an introspective look, I can say our mission statement – as we head into a new fiscal year starting Sept. 1 – is relevant and reflective of our goals and work. This is an important fact as our mission statement guides us, acting as a beacon we look to when assessing whether to add something new or in reevaluating an existing program for its continued relevance. On the flip side, our vision statement is – as vision statements are intended to be – more aspirational. It’s like this article: a focus on looking to the future and anticipating what we need to do as the state’s second largest chamber of commerce to serve all our members. I can assure that, as we plan
4 Collective IMPACT | Summer 2021
As I look to the new fiscal year, there is so much for us to celebrate as a Chamber. In late fall, we will provide an update to the powerful and action-oriented Greater Green Bay Economic Development Strategic Plan. We also are in the thick of work with the first cohort
of The Blueprint Green Bay, powered by the Chamber and New North. This accelerator program is geared to minority-, women- and veteran-owned businesses and entrepreneurs to encourage, and retain, innovative new businesses in the Greater Green Bay area. We recognize startups are an integral part of our economic development, and these entrepreneurs are a fundamental piece of that alongside continuing to bolster use of our Startup Hub (the front door to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Greater Green Bay) and the Urban Hub co-working space and entrepreneurfocused programming. In that same vein, our Tundra Angels angel investor group is helping to make entrepreneurs’ dreams a reality by infusing much-needed capital into several startup businesses. On our talent forefront, we are excited to expand the work in our talent and education programming, something we had the forethought to add to our mission statement in the inclusion of the phrasing “workforce development” about 10 years ago. For the coming year, that will include building on our Youth Apprenticeship (YA) program by adding a second Youth Apprenticeship manager to serve even more businesses seeking YA students.
