It was a busy year for the Southwest Michigan Regional Chamber.
Throughout 2024, the chamber worked with communities like Bridgman to strengthen its chamber and growth alliance, and it began talks with Stevensville about setting up its own CGA. Southwest Michigan Regional Chamber President Arthur Havlicek tells us the organization also promoted the region and sought to improve its workforce.
“We had another aggressive year in terms of the programs and initiatives that we put out into the marketplace,” Havlicek said. “We held over 70 events this year and hosted cumulatively over 6,000 attendees across those events.”
Havlicek says the chamber graduated 30 new leaders from its Leadership Accelerator program, it held its first ever pitch competition to award more than $60,000 to new entrepreneurs, and it held more than 30 ribbon cuttings for new businesses.
Heading into 2025, Havlicek is looking forward to the next breakfast and awards ceremony in February.
“We plan to not only award some of the region’s best businesses with some hardware, we’ll be looking forward to rolling out some new programs and initiatives that we’re excited to share with the community.”
Havlicek says they’re expecting to break their attendance record for the event. He says the chamber is also excited about announcing new initiatives and programs to the community. Havlicek is expecting 2025 to be “the biggest year for the chamber to date.”
