New Estes chamber leader hits the ground running

ESTES PARK — When Colorado Springs-based leadership coach Donna Carlson applied for the job of executive director at the fledgling Estes Park Chamber of Commerce, she knew she could be a business manager. She’d been doing it for 30 years. But neither she nor the board members interviewing her realized the extent to which she’d also have to be a crisis manager.

Crisis is on the top of the to-do list for Carlson, who started Monday at the helm of the 11-month-old chamber that’s charged with helping hundreds of small businesses survive a coronavirus pandemic that has brought commerce in the scenic, tourism-dependent mountain town to a near standstill.

“When I first interviewed for this job, COVID-19 was a very real thing, but we hadn’t even anticipated this level of shutdown, this shelter-in-place order. Nobody could anticipate the level of impact this would have on business,” Carlson said. “As these events started happening during the interview process and negotiation over this role, I kept telling (then interim executive director) Keith Pearson the business community really needs the chamber more than ever. It’s not a time to say, ‘Sorry we’ll start the chamber after everything’s better.’

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“So I hit the ground running.”

Carlson, a native Texan whose resume includes owning her own consulting business, 360 Life Strategies, and work with Colorado Springs’ heralded Center for Creative Leadership and the Southern Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce, had enjoyed visiting Estes Park with her family for decades. When she spotted Pearson’s profile on LinkedIn, she said, “I reached out to say, ‘Hey, I’d like to get acquainted,’ and in the process of starting a conversation I realized they’d posted a job. He suggested that I apply, so I did. It really surprised me that they picked me out of all the candidates they considered, some with chamber experience and others with lots of time in the town.”

Carlson’s experience as a certified business coach with marketing, communications and leadership development won the board over, especially considering that the young Estes chamber didn’t really have a staff.

“It turned out to be the ideal combination to bring a higher level of competence to this business community,” she said, “especially now, more than ever.”

Carlson said she was grateful to the chamber board for retaining Pearson as an executive adviser for a few months “because he has too much institutional knowledge. He’s very well-known and liked in the town.” Pearson, an operations and supply-chain executive who is president of consulting firm Upslope Ventures Ltd., had been chosen last October by the chamber board to be interim executive director. “Part of his job,” Carlson said, “was to hire his replacement.”

Founded in May 2019, the chamber so far has signed up about 134 members out of Estes Park’s approximately 1,800 businesses.

For now, Carlson said, Pearson will fill more traditional chamber-of-commerce roles such as collaborating with the Estes Park Economic Development Corp. and Visit Estes Park, and helping to decide how best to use the $250,000 Community Relief Fund that was approved March 24 by the town’s Board of Trustees.

Meanwhile, she said, “my focus specifically in my first 90 days is not even really talking about Chamber business as usual, but more to ask companies how we can support them right now in the interim. What is it we can do to connect members to focus on recovery from this shutdown. We still don’t know how long the shelter-in-home order will stay in place; right now it’s April 30.  A lot of business owners would sure like to see us open on Memorial Day but we don’t know what’s possible because we really can’t see the future of this virus.

“My focus is going to be on connecting members to talk about a couple of different contingency plans so we can be ready and agile and equip them with the skills they need for the interim. Some have the burn rate to sustain in a crisis like this while others really live month to month. So we have a lot to do to equip them to stay afloat and weather the storm.”

Carlson said she sees the EDC, Visit Estes Park and the new chamber as a “three-legged stool,” each with very distinct functions.

“The EDC is a counsel to startups and businesses that need to grow, and works to bring new commerce into town — especially important in a town like Estes Park where we have a very heavy tourist economy but need more year-round business to sustain that economy,” she said, “and the visitors’ bureau does a fantastic job of getting visitors here.

“But the chamber specifically serves the needs of business from an education and collaboration perspective, helping to connect them, providing events where they can meet and support one another, setting up councils where they can work together in specific industries where they can share ideas and best practices and strengthen one another. We’ll do things like ribbon cuttings and networking events that you see in a typical chamber that didn’t exist here.”

Carlson has found a place to rent in the hills above Estes Park until her husband and the rest of her family can join her. She considered working at her new job from home in Colorado Springs during the shelter-in-place period, but decided that “even though I can’t get out and shake hands with business owners, I feel like being here shows we have boots on the ground.”