Greetings fellow River Heights Business Community,

As I end my year as the 2019 Chairman of the Board for the River Heights Chamber of Commerce, I would like to share a few of the River Heights Chamber’s achievements within our business community over the past year.

2019 was all about connections. As I look back on the year, I am most proud of the connections we’ve made that align with our mission. Whether that be working with educators, interns or the TriDistrict programs, the cities of South St. Paul and Inver Grove Heights, participating in grand-openings, groundbreaking ceremonies or tours to highlight our expansions in development, or the work we have done to connect the resources in the community to needs of the business owners in the community.

One of the goals set by our Board was to identify and assign actionable solutions related to the growing talent shortage. In 2019, the River Heights Chamber hosted an intern from St. Thomas University who worked on Chamber placemaking and directing our communication messaging to portray cities that are attractive to people wanting to come and live and work in the area.

We brought together schools and students to help draw in kids and educators to understand the future needs of our community workforce through the Business and Education Bus Tour.
The River Heights Chamber helped the TriDistrict create an Entrepreneur pathway and Trades pathway to compliment the already existing Transportation and Healthcare programs.

Our board and staff focused on tools to assist developers at City Hall through the development process. We worked with new and current developers to update development agreements and work through the process in both cities. A once stagnant development is building what will be a 3-phase industrial park in IGH. We continue to work on publishing, with the help of Progress Plus and both cities staff, an Opening or Expanding a Business Guide.

We continued to invite legislators to Local Issues to connect their state policies at the local level. There was weekly communication about the legislative activities sent out to members to keep them informed of policies being discussed about their industry to industries important to Minnesota’s economy.

We are on track to add 40 more businesses to the Chamber’s network – 75% of goal as of Oct. 2019.

The River Heights Chamber of Commerce exists to ensure that local leaders have a reason and a place to connect.  Showing up and making the most of your Chamber membership is the key to success.

This year, it was my pleasure to celebrate all the things our members and community is doing to make the River Heights Chamber area such a great place to live, work and play. I look forward to connecting with you at a Chamber event soon!

Sincerely,

Jake Sedlacek
2019 Chairman of the Board of Directors, River Heights Chamber of Commerce
Manager, Community Relations and Economic Development, Xcel Energy