Joe Whalen

Thanks to our Chamber members and major kudos to them for participating in the election of the Class of 2011 for the Lehigh Acres Chamber of Commerce (LACC) Board of Directors.

When the final votes were tabulated, our members reelected two board members who were Jose Morillo, CEO of the Lehigh Regional Medical Center; and Nate Stout, owner of J. Nathan Stout, CPA.

They also elected three new board members – Laurie Jerriey of Preferred Community Bank; Cheryl MCConahy, Regions Bank, and Joe Pearson, of Max’d Out Fitness.

This month we also had two appointments to the board, Mike Arcentales, State Farm Insurance; and David Deetscreek of SDS Accounting, who are filling two recently vacated positions.

The remaining eight members of the Lehigh Acres Chamber of Commerce for 2010 are Celeste Buhl, Walmart; Cindy Dodd, Reliance Bank; Vickie Hay, Century 21 Sunbelt Realty; Karen Makowski, a banking consultant; Elsa Petrick, Coldwell Bankers Preferred Properties; Thomas Richard, Atomic Tom’s Pizza and Subs; Richard Thompson, RHT Engineering; and Edd Weiner, ETW and Associates/Planners Inc.

A final heartfelt thank you to Julie Camp of ABC Framing; Fred Elliott, Coldwell Banker Preferred Properties; and Bo Turbeville of Accent Business Products, who all served two consecutive three-year terms on our LACC Board of Directors.

Quick reminder: Next month we will announce our new LACC Membership Rewards Program whereby we will be offering “members only” discounts and specials to LACC members from our businesses as well as password-protected “members only” access to exclusive page on our website.

In short, the program will be utilized to recognise and reward those chamber members who make direct contributions to our organization (e.g., event attendance, committee participation, member recruitment, etc.)

There will be more information next month regarding the LACC Membership Rewards Program and it will be also be published in our Membership Newsletter.

I am very excited to report that your Lehigh Acres Chamber of Commerce and the Lehigh Acres Economic Development Board (EDB) have moved into our new office location. We physically completed the move during the weekend of Oct. 17 – 18 and opened for business on Monday morning, Oct. 19 at 9 a.m.

Thank you to the Lehigh Acres Rotary which helped us with the move, most notably Jere Carrick, Dick Gretchen, John Miller, Mike Swords, and Edd Weiner as well as the tireless efforts of our very own Inke Baker who spends her days serving as our Chamber’s executive assistant.

If you haven’t stopped by our new headquarters yet, please do so soon – we would love to show off our new digs. Again, we are located at 25 Homestead Rd., Suite 41 in the Lehigh Towne Centre (between Jack’s Market and Joe’s Cafe).

If you have questions concerning the Chamber of Commerce, you may contact me at 239-369-3322 or email to: JWhalen@LehighAcresChamber.org.

Joseph Whalen is president and CEO of the Lehigh Acres Chamber of Commerce whose mission statement is “to promote and advance the civic, economic and social welfare of the community of Lehigh Acres.”