First off, I’d like to thank the Chamber staff for their dedicated and diligent hard work day in and day out. Secondly, a heartfelt thank you to the Chamber’s Executive Board and the full Board of Directors who serve as representatives of all industries in Shawano and Menominee counties.
A shout out to our Chamber ambassadors! With Vaughn Bohm as president, the ambassadors were a joy to work with as they came up with fun and engaging ideas for our events and represented the Chamber at every ribbon-cutting.
We also saw 2023 as fulfilling our goal of working together in our region. With the Shawano School District and the City of Shawano, we organized a well-attended 2023 homecoming parade. We partnered with Shawano County Economic Progress Inc. (SCEPI), Northeast Wisconsin Technical College (NWTC), Shawano Community Education Department and the Shawano Area Young Professionals (saYPro), offering educational events focused on the importance of employee benefits, the state of the local economy and how businesses are choosing Shawano Country as the place to be!
We continued to support the work of the Wolf River School to Work Youth Apprenticeship program, the Wittenberg Chamber, the 8th Grade Career Fair and our area nonprofits.
A highlight of this summer was hosting Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez as we were able to show her just some of the assets in Shawano Country. We also learned more about the culture of all the tribes represented in our region through the Native American Tourism of Wisconsin (NATOW) conference, where we gave the lunch welcome address and represented Shawano Country with a booth full of resources.
To further encourage those to “shop local,” we helped market our retailers by creating the “Shop Small, Shop Shawano Country!” promotion, which occurred around and during Small Business Saturday in November.
To end the year, the Chamber, our tourism department and Leadership Shawano County (LSC) were represented at Downtown Shawano’s Holiday Stroll and Tree Lighting event. We are so proud of the LSC program and all that is gleaned during these sessions. Ask an LSC alum about their experience, and you will surely hear nothing but glowing praise for all that they learned and accomplished.
As we look to the future, we are already envisioning a year where we are engaged and eager to serve our Chamber members. Thank you to all our members who continue to support our endeavors year after year.
Annual report highlights successful year
