President, Katy Area Chamber of Commerce

Since joining the Katy Area Chamber of Commerce in 1999, Ann Hodge has assumed the challenge to grow the chamber into a sound business organization. Her goals include ensuring the entire business community is represented by the chamber.

"I consider myself extremely blessed to have the opportunity to represent the Katy community and tell people what a fabulous community Katy is to raise a family and build your business," she said. "I have enjoyed meeting so many fabulous people throughout our community and learning more about what each of those folks do to make Katy such a great place to live."

Before joining the chamber, Hodge worked as divisional vice president of external affairs for Browning Ferris Industries. In addition, she served on the Texas Workforce Investment Council for 18 years. Hodge is married to Robert D. Hodge, has one son and five grandchildren.

What has been the driver of growth for the Katy area?

The No. 1 thing is the school district. Families in the community want that quality of life for their kids, and you are seeing that being provided by the school district and through security. We also have tremendous medical facilities. People who live here commute to the Texas Medical Center, the Galleria and downtown Houston. They are willing to travel back and forth to the location of their job—taking that extra travel time—because they have a good place to raise their families.

What is a part of your job that people are not aware you do?

They don't really know how much work behind the scenes we do at the local, state and national levels to be the voice for the community. Being in three counties, we are sort of lost and overlooked. The City of Katy has a population of 14,000, and the Katy ISD boundaries—which are the same as the chamber—have a population of 265,000 covering three counties, all unincorporated. That creates some unique challenges to ensuring we are out there working on those issues. I don't think people know how much we have worked on Segment E or the expansion of FM 1463, the number of different infrastructure projects or education issues.

Does Katy have the potential to be a hub of industry?

You are already seeing that with the medical center. If you look per capita at the number of hospitals and health care facilities, we far exceed any other community. Even Sugar Land and The Woodlands don't have the number of facilities we do. We were the first to get a satellite campus for Texas Children's Hospital, which is a good story to tell. People just have to go minutes away to get first-class care for their children.

What are some of your goals for 2013?

Working to bring more resources to the community is critical. We have a strong partnership with KISD, the City of Katy and economic development council. We are also passionate about Katy doing business with Katy businesses. We have had a project underway for eight years to increase and enhance the ability for people to shop locally.