In March, the Montgomery Area and Conroe/Lake Conroe chambers of commerce announced a merger. Shannan Reid, the former president of the Montgomery Area Chamber, said she made that initial call proposing the merger in January.
Reid said the needs of the Montgomery Area Chamber’s 240 member businesses, which include desiring more resources and a larger network, drove the decision.
“The key component to all of this merge working out is that we put our members’ needs [at] top priority,” Reid said. “And what brings value to them was the 100% heart of our conversation and our motivation behind this.”
Now a single organization comprised of 1,174 members, the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber’s upcoming initiatives include creating a welcome/visitor’s center in Montgomery, taking a trip to Washington, D.C., and preparing for re-accreditation.
“It wasn’t a takeover,” said Scott Harper, president of the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber. “It was a collaboration, and you don’t see a lot of that nowadays.”
Zooming in
Reid said the Montgomery Area Chamber did not have many long-term binding agreements or anything like that prior to the merger.
“Really, we were dredging through, trying to prepare for a year of unknowns with a lot of timing question marks when we could just go ahead and move quickly,” Reid said. “And once we had a good understanding of the legal and the financial sides of it, it was really simple to pull that trigger.”
Within 90 days of the initial phone call, both chambers’ boards unanimously voted to merge. As part of the merger, the Montgomery Area Chamber’s two staff members joined the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber, with Reid now serving as its director of community relations.
The Montgomery Area Chamber’s member businesses will also retain their membership rates through the end of this year before being transitioned to the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber’s membership rates, Harper said.
“It’s fun to see [Montgomery businesses] appreciating the value and resources that came out of the end result of all of this,” Reid said.
The Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber is not the only local chamber experiencing changes. The Greater Magnolia Parkway Chamber has a new president in Laurie Clifton, who began serving Feb. 1, according to prior reporting. Meanwhile, The Woodlands Area Chamber appointed an interim CEO after J.J. Hollie, who served as president and CEO since 2015, resigned on April 9, according to a news release.
“That’s just kudos to our chambers to be able to work through this as seamlessly as it can with all those other things that are going on in the surrounding areas,” Harper said. “I think that’s something to be proud of for the group of people we work with.”
What they’re saying
- “A lot of our members are already having to be universally around in every place in order to do all the things. So it just made a whole lot of sense," Reid said.
- “I envision us being the largest chamber in Montgomery County in the next two to three years, just because our growth rate and what we’re seeing compared to others is mirroring the growth we’re seeing come to this area,” Harper said.
What’s next
One of the larger initiatives for the merged chamber is creating a welcome/visitors center in Montgomery. Reid said the center was always on the Montgomery Area Chamber’s to-do list.
“It was a piece that’s been missing from Montgomery for always, and everyone has wanted to see that come to life and was really hoping that we would get there,” Reid said. “So this made that opportunity possible.”
The Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber has signed a lease for 21499 Eva St., Ste. B, Montgomery, a space the chamber anticipates opening in mid-May and occupying for the next three to four years, Harper said.
“Everyone we’ve talked to, they want us downtown, they want us to be visible,” Harper said. “They’ll want that even more so with what we’re going to be able to provide as that one-stop shop of all things Montgomery.”
