WHITEHALL — When Amy VanLoon was first approached about the possibility
of interviewing for the White Lake Chamber of Commerce executive
director position in 2004, she really wasn’t that interested. While she
was doing some part-time work for White Lake Area Community Education at
the time and had had a career prior to becoming a mom, she was focused
on being a stay-at-home parent while husband John served as Whitehall
High School principal.
“Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said,
‘You should apply for this position,’” VanLoon said. “I said, ‘I’m
really not interested, nor am I looking for a job.’ (But I) interviewed,
(became) mildly interested, and as I learned more about the role and
the organization and what it did, I said, ‘OK, I’ll give this a try.’
Here we are 20 years later.”
VanLoon has poured countless hours into
the Chamber in those 20 years, and she still has plenty more to go, but
she has decided to retire in December.
In that time, she said, her
role has evolved considerably as the area has grown and the business
community has grown right along with it. So successful has the Chamber
been that in November 2021, it brought on its second full-time employee,
current director of events Stephanie Ware, to help handle the growing
schedule that now includes so many staples, such as the Holiday Walk,
Feet on the Street, Pumpkinfest and more.
“It became more and more,
and we built it from the grassroots up, not only fiscally but also our
role in the community,” VanLoon said. “That grew as well as we built
those relationships with the city of Whitehall and Montague.”
Ware
said she has learned a tremendous amount from VanLoon even in her
relatively short time as part of the Chamber. She said part of what has
made VanLoon such a considerable asset to the area is her attention to
detail, even down to making sure she’s choosing good times of day to get
in contact with her business connections.
“Whenever she makes a call
to somebody, she’ll go, ‘OK. What’s the nature of their business? Is it
their busy season or their busy time of day? Should this be an email?
Should I wait until the end of the day?’” Ware said. “She just puts a
lot of thoughtfulness into everything.
“It’s taught me a lot. I’ve
thought, ‘If I send this email right now, is this going to get buried?
Because this is their really busy season. Maybe I should stop in. Maybe I
should wait a month’. I think about it because she’s taught me to do
that by example.”
VanLoon said she looked at the 20-year mark as a
good one to retire in part for family reasons. She is looking forward to
spending more time with her parents as well as her growing family - her
two children are both married and she has three grandchildren, with a
fourth scheduled to arrive in January.
“I look at the past two
decades, and I’ve dedicated my life to this position,” VanLoon said.
“Now it’s time for me to take the next two decades, to dedicate it
toward my family.”
Because of the work VanLoon, her colleagues and
local businesses have done, she is confident no matter who takes over
her position in the future - the board of directors will “do their due
diligence” in selecting a candidate, VanLoon said - the Chamber will
continue to thrive.
“I feel wonderful about where the organization is
today and that makes me feel even more confident as I step away that it
can be taken to the next level,” VanLoon said.
Ware agreed. She said
she will miss “everything” about working with VanLoon when the time
comes for her to step away, but that the organization is well-positioned
for the future.
“Amy truly is leaving behind a really good
organization,” Ware said. “The organization’s been around for 53 years,
and it’s got a lot of credibility, but for 20 of those years it’s been
her. She has done so much to help build and maintain trust with our
business community, and trust with our members and our community members
and tourism partners and everything. She’s done so much to set this
organization up for success and continues to do so. She’s definitely
going to be missed, but I think that she’s left it in a good spot.”
