Inver Grove Heights/South St. Paul – The River Heights Chamber of Commerce is proud to announce that Colleen Murphy Roth has been named Interim President by the Board of Directors and commenced her role officially on June 15, 2020.

Colleen has been employed with the River Heights Chamber for two and a half years as the Director of Membership Development which has provided a solid building block for this transition. Previously, she worked in development with various nonprofits in the Twin Cities. Colleen also currently serves as the VP of Squirts for District 8 of MN Hockey.

The transition of roles came after former River Heights Chamber President, Jennifer Gale, announced that after 16 years of service she made the difficult decision to resign from the position and move to the private sector. Jennifer stated, “I wish to thank the Board members, both present and past, the membership for investing in the River Heights Chamber during my tenure and to the community leaders who have partnered with the Chamber to make our community a great place to live, work and play. I take great pride in the staff and the work plans we accomplished together to solidify the Chamber as the premier local advocate for business. It has been my greatest pleasure serving our business community and I am blessed to have had the chance to work with, learn from, and partner with the amazing leaders in the River Heights community.”

Colleen is excited for the challenges that lie ahead with the ever-changing business landscape and is committed to continuing to position the River Heights Chamber of Commerce as the premier resource for business in the community.

At a planning conference in November of 2019, the Board put together a work plan for 2020. Even with COVID-19, the Chamber has made a lot of initiatives into a new way of doing business in our regions.

Some highlights include:

• FOCUS ON DEMOGRAPHIC CLUSTERING – We have structured Chamber programming on demographic clusters to position the Chamber to be out front of the needs of incoming or elevating demographic subsets. Group involvement and participation is hardwired, regardless of the generational angst we feel in any given decade. We have an innate need to belong. Through weekly webinars we are providing programming in specific categories such as working from home, investments, tourism, retail, real estate, legal, HR and managerial staffing. We have seen more levels of staff participating because of the variation in our new virtual programming.

• INVEST IN TECHNOLOGICAL COMMUNICATION – Chambers are small business enterprises and, as such, must try to keep up with members and the world at large. Interpersonal connectivity and human relationships, especially if enhanced and maintained through electronic channels, will have more impact than ever. The River Heights Chamber has utilized platforms such as Facebook Live, Zoom and Microsoft Teams for meetings and group communications and events. The information availability has opened to members and community leaders that possibly couldn’t attend before.

• BRIDGE THE POLITICAL FRAGMENTATION Chambers have the potential to employ their considerable consensus-building experience and position of trust to provide workable alternatives to fringe dogma and out-of-hand dismissal of compromise. The Chamber acts as the convener of those who can find solutions, resources and political will. Articulating shared values, rather than divisive talking points, will be needed more than ever in the coming decade. The Chamber moderated a town hall meeting with Rep. Craig this spring to discuss the PPP and EIDL Small Business Loan programs. The Chamber has worked with our state legislators on all sides to secure additional unemployment, grants and state loans to assist local businesses in the pandemic. We are also working with the local governments to relax city ordinances while keeping in line with state policy to assist businesses in reopening in a safe, yet profitable, way. The River Heights Chamber of Commerce has positioned itself well in the middle and is advocating on behalf of all business in the community, regardless of political preference.

We invite businesses and the community to learn more about the resources and benefits the River Heights Chamber has to offer and see how we can help you during this challenging time by visiting our website at www.riverheights.com or contacting our Chamber staff. Colleen can still be reached at the River Heights Chamber at colleen@riverheights.com.