‘It’s about being a champion, a convener and a catalyst’

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

March 17, 2025

EAU CLAIRE – An organization that has strived to serve as a catalyst of connection and advocacy for the business community in West Central Wisconsin is celebrating its 110th anniversary.

David Minor, president and CEO of the Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce, said the now more-than-a-century-long mission of the chamber goes far beyond simply supporting business activity in the Eau Claire area.

Minor – who is “going on year 34 in the (chamber of commerce) industry” – said chambers across the country serve a much greater purpose that’s unique to the communities they operate within.

“One of the wonderful things about chambers, even though every community has one, (is that) every community’s chamber is developed and created for what that chamber needs and what that community needs (it) to do,” he said.

Over the last seven and a half years that Minor has led the Eau Claire chamber, he said it has defined its personal mission with four core pillars – advocacy, workforce, education and investor engagement.

Community advocacy

Similarly to other mission-based organizations and advocacy groups across the country, Minor said the chamber serves as “the voice of the business community” in two distinct ways.

Firstly, he said the chamber shares the stories of and advocates for small businesses in the Eau Claire area.

“Most people don’t realize, but when we look at our 1,000-plus investors in the Eau Claire chamber, about 72% of them are small business owners,” he said. “That means 20 employees or less.”

Those small businesses, Minor said, need someone to help level the playing field, as they may not have the time, money or resources larger businesses have to advocate for themselves.

“Somebody needs to be able to speak up for them, because they don’t always have time to go to the city council meeting or the hearings or the committee meetings,” he said.

Through its advocacy for the well-being of small businesses, Minor said the chamber, in turn, also advocates for the well-being of the business owners and the people they employ.

“Not only do we represent those businesses, but by doing so, we represent more than 50,000 working lives every day,” he said. “So it’s not just a business owner, it’s not just the CEO, but it’s all of the employees of that business that we represent.”

Minor said because the chamber’s actions impact the lives of so many in the Eau Claire area, they must make decisions carefully and consider all the effects they could have.

“As we position ourselves to take action, we are looking not only (at) how it specifically affects that business, (but) how it’s going to impact the 50,000 lives in the Eau Claire area that rely on those businesses to thrive and to flourish, at the same time,” he said.

Those responsibilities, Minor said, make up the Eau Claire chamber’s first pillar of advocacy.

Helping fill the workforce

Minor said the chamber’s second pillar lies in its responsibility to help businesses fill workforce gaps.

“Workforce for us here at the chamber is about, how do we help those 1,000 businesses understand where their next workers are coming from?” he said.

The way the chamber helps businesses fill their workforce, Minor said, is by assisting business leadership in discovering the best sources to find talent.

“Are they going to be training them from the K-12 system?” he said. “Are they going to be coming from the Chippewa Valley Technical College? Or the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire? Or are we going to import them?”

The answer to all of those, Minor said, is “yes.”

“So, for us at the chamber, it’s about developing programs that can help those investors best (find) where their next employee is coming from, and for any businesses, that means (utilizing) two or three of those (sources),” he said.

Minor said out of the chamber’s four pillars, the workforce pillar “is going to be the one that will be constantly evolving and changing.”

“Because that’s what the workforce does,” he said. “It never is static. It is never one thing.”

Talent development and retention

Working in tandem with the chamber’s second pillar, Minor said its third – developing the next generation of leadership and talent – also assists businesses in filling workforce gaps.

Equally important, he said the chamber’s development programs help get the younger generations involved in their community beyond simply punching the clock.

“One of the programs that we’ve been running here for 20-some-plus years is our young professionals group – it’s about getting them engaged in the community,” he said. “So as they’re growing in their business, they’re also growing and evolving and understanding that you can’t just go to work every day and go home. What’s in between those two things?”

The chamber’s young professional program, Minor said, supports the development and involvement of its nearly 400 participants in the Eau Claire area.

In addition to teaching the importance of volunteering in their community and providing opportunities to do so, he said the young professionals program also provides opportunities for the up-and-coming generation to intermingle with each other.

“There are social events for them – either (in the) morning or afternoon,” he said. “(We put on) mixers and mingles and (give them) an opportunity to network and understand the importance of networking – why you need to have colleagues outside of your office that you can talk to, that you can share information (with) and have someone that you can rely on as a mentor.”

These social events, Minor said, give the program’s participants a chance to learn about professional decorum and help them establish relationships and roots within the community.

Beyond the young professional program, Minor said the Eau Claire chamber also has adult and youth leadership programs.

“(Those programs are) aimed at education,” he said. “(We show them) what’s in our community, but also, at the same time, help them start to develop those leadership roles and show them opportunities within the community – whether that be a nonprofit board or running for political office or… opportunities for you to give back.”

Investor relations

The fourth and final pillar of the Eau Claire chamber, Minor said, is how it focuses on and supports the businesses that invest in the chamber and its mission.

“From the beginning of time, chambers have been about getting businesses together to form partnerships and work with each other (to) strengthen the community and provide products or services for them that we can,” he said.

Similarly to workforce, Minor said the chamber’s investor relations pillar is constantly changing.

“Because with more than 1,000 (investors), everybody’s got a different need and want,” he said. “So (we’re) trying to do our best to identify and serve all of those different areas that we possibly can.”

Beyond the chamber’s investors, Minor said maintaining its deeply rooted community partnerships is also top of mind for the organization.

The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC), he said, has had a long-standing relationship with the chamber since they were both founded in the 1910s.

“One-hundred-eleven years ago, as the chamber first formed, those business leaders at that time rented a train and went to Madison to remind the governor and the (Wisconsin State) Legislature at that point that they promised Eau Claire a normal school – i.e., the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire,” he said. “So, our first action – our first piece of life as an organization – was to go to Madison and lobby for a college, because they knew the importance of a university to a community and how integral it is to have that.”

For the next century and a decade, Minor said the chamber and UWEC – as well as the Chippewa Valley Technical College – have not only maintained their partnerships, but have worked together to help the Eau Claire area thrive.

“We’ve been able to maintain that partnership over all of the different business cycles and the ups and the downs of everything,” he said. “We have remained three very strong partners that rely on each other and work together truly to make sure our community gets the benefits of all three.”

According to its website (eauclairechamber.org), UWEC was a “proud sponsor” of the chamber’s 110th anniversary meeting held in mid-February on the university’s campus – further demonstrating the strength of the organization’s relationship.

Another 110 years

As the chamber looks to the future, Minor said Wisconsin’s Department of Administration reported that Eau Claire county is one of three in the Badger State that’s “projected to see double-digit growth” in its population over the next 25 years, while the state’s population, as a whole, is expected to decline.

The other West Central county expected to see significant population growth, he said, is Trempealeau County – Eau Claire County’s neighbor.

“So obviously there’s a correlation of something going on here,” he said.

In order to “make that prediction come true,” Minor said the counties, cities and townships in the northern West Central Wisconsin region are going to have to work together.

“One of the things we will be doing this year is starting to form a new coalition of partners to take a look at what the vision is for Eau Claire in the next 25 years,” he said. “If we’re going to go after this prediction and reach double-digit growth in population, (we have to ask) what road is going to take us there?”

In addition to its anniversary-themed 110th annual meeting, Minor said the chamber is planning additional activities to celebrate its more than century-long history of community service throughout the year.

“Our next big one coming in May is what we call the Chamber Royale, and that is simply an event to come out and have fun,” he said. “It’s a gambling night to come out with your friends and co-workers to just enjoy, but it’ll have a theme based around our 110th anniversary. Then in August, we have our big golf outing, and then we end the year in October with our final signature event, and that’s our business awards (celebration) – Bravo to Business. So, each of those will have elements of our 110th celebration.”

To learn more about the Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce and each of the events celebrating its 110th year, visit its website or social media pages.