Highland Chamber of Commerce Office Relocates

The Highland Chamber of Commerce recently relocated its main office, and Executive Director Dorothy Stephenson spoke with us about the reasoning behind the move.

“We are located now on the second floor of the Highland Crafts building.

“It was not an easy decision – I really enjoyed being on the Main Street office. The bottom line is that, it did not make sense for our budget, when we looked at what we could do with the money, whether it be have a Main Street office versus member benefits, building the organization up for the future, having the organization be more sustainable for the future, putting money back for special projects, putting money back for big advertising or co-op advertising opportunities – there was just so much more we felt we could do than have a Main Street office. So, with that, in addition to there was going to be a visitor’s center at The Highland Center, and we wanted to support that, all the way around it was a no-brainer.

“Obviously we wanted to stay on Main Street, we liked that office, but when you really got down to the facts of it, and really got realistic, the best thing for us to do was to move that office, open up that location for a second business, use our money more efficiently elsewhere, and support the visitor’s center that’s located at The Highland Center now that we’re getting ready to staff.”

She was quick to assure that the move would not affect the Chamber’s core services of promotion and support of the county and its businesses.

“Our services from the Chamber for our members remain the same – in fact, now that we have a strictly administrative office, we are able to put even more time into more incentives for our members, and able to concentrate a lot harder on projects that we’re working on.

“I do believe we made the right decision in moving the Chamber office, and I know there are probably questions in the community about it. One thing that I know is a concern out there is the Chamber isn’t as accessible as it used to be. That is definitely not the case – we are still absolutely accessible. We encourage anybody who wants to talk to us to call our office, make an appointment – we are happy to sit down and talk to anybody and answer absolutely any questions you have. We want to be pro-active in letting our community know what our thoughts are, what we’re planning. We’ve got a lot of really great plans, and we definitely want to be as communicative with our community as we can be.

“If people want to make an appointment, or have anything to discuss with the Chamber, call us- 540-468-2550, or they can e-mail me at findyourescape@highlandcounty.org.”