HANCOCK COUNTY — The leader and two board members of the Fortville/McCordsville Area Chamber of Commerce are stepping down.
Among the leaders’ reasons are health issues, wanting to spend more time with family and a need to meet other obligations. But they also share a desire for ideas from younger members of the community to guide the chamber. Those members are already working to determine what the organization’s future will look like in the county’s fastest-growing area.
Nancy Strickland, who has been the chamber’s executive director going on 10 years, is stepping down at the end of February. Joining her are Phil Edwards, the board’s president, and board member Becky Davis. That leaves remaining board members Joey Claus, Ben Eades, Melissa Ham and Bretton Judy.
Strickland said she’s looking at undergoing back surgery, which would have a recovery time of months.
“It’s not like two weeks and I’d be back,” she said. “I just feel like it’s not fair to the chamber, or anyone, for that matter, that is involved, for me to be trying to continue on when it’s really pretty doubtful that I’d be able to do anything for several months.”
She also wants to spend more time with her grandchildren.
“It’s been awhile,” Strickland said of her decade with the chamber. “Let somebody else take over with some new ideas, and get a fresh start.”
Strickland said she grew the chamber’s membership of fewer than 40 to more than 200 in her first year as executive director.
Knowing little about chambers, she learned all she could from a state program to institute benefits for businesses in the Fortville-McCordsville area and organize events for the community, she said.
“I really would say the first 8½ years or so I really just put everything into it,” she said. “Then, when I started having health issues, it just became harder to do, and I don’t want to burden the chamber because of my health.”
Strickland said the chamber currently has about 160 members.
“We’ve just had the worst storm of events and everything happened at once,” she added, citing the COVID-19 pandemic and her health needs.
It came to a boiling point that demanded change, she continued.
“We don’t want to lose all our members, and we want to gain back the ones we have lost,” she said.
Edwards started as pastor of Fortville Nazarene Church about 17 years ago and joined the chamber about a year or two after that. He’s been on the board for about 10 years and said he views himself and the others stepping down as the chamber’s old guard.
“We say that in all respect for one another,” Edwards said. “We think it’s time to pass the baton on to the new guard and people that are a little younger who have more probably innovative and progressive ideas than what we have. These days, it is really tough, especially during COVID, to have a fluid-running chamber, and I think that’s going to take somebody with more energy than what we feel we have.”
Edwards was recently elected to the Mt. Vernon School Board.
“I am right in the middle of getting acclimated to all of that and know that for the next four years, that’s what I’ve committed to,” he said.
He also serves as the school board’s representative on the Fortville Redevelopment Commission.
Edwards was part of the chamber when Strickland was hired and recalled it as a time when the organization was in need of help.
“Nancy brought such energy and excitement to the chamber,” he said before going on to praise her recruitment efforts.
Davis joined the chamber’s board a couple years ago to help Strickland. She was elected to Fortville Town Council in 2019, which, along with working part-time, has taken up much of her availability.
“I just decided if they’re (Strickland and Edwards) leaving, I’m going to step down and let the younger generation take over,” Davis said.
Ham, the chamber board’s interim president, praised the outgoing officials’ service and said she and the other remaining board members are determining how to move forward.
“We’ve talked about not even necessarily having a specific executive director position, but just delegating those responsibilities within the board members,” Ham said.
She also said the chamber did away with its office space before Strickland announced her resignation, and that the COVID-19 pandemic was a factor in that decision.
“With today’s technology, it seemed like a good step financially to do as well,” she said.
Ben Eades, a chamber board member, said he’s looking forward to helping lead the organization into the future.
“With the growth that is happening in the area, I think it’s primed and ready for an active, involved and growing chamber,” he said.
