Farewell from Peter Rumble

First, I am grateful to you, the members of the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber. Without your membership, this organization couldn’t exist. With your membership, a dedicated, smart, and endlessly energetic team has the support to work on your behalf, to make your business even more successful and to improve the community and economy where we live and work.

The Santa Rosa Metro Chamber was founded following the 1906 earthquake to harness the power of the business community to rebuild and grow our city and region. That’s a fitting origin story for the work we have done since I joined the organization. Our community has made it through floods, fires, Covid, and we continue to work through a challenging economic recovery.

A hallmark of our work has been action. We don’t need to examine or talk about our challenges, we need to do something about them. During floods, fires and the pandemic, the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber was the first organization – government or private – to make financial assistance available to small businesses. When our membership told us that housing and childcare were its two greatest needs, we created the only housing fund run by a Chamber in the country and became a national leader on private investment in the childcare system as an economic development strategy. These efforts have created new homes for hundreds of our residents and expanded childcare opportunities for employees and the community.

We saw the need to revitalize our city’s downtown, so helped to form the creation of an organization, the Downtown District, to clean up sidewalks and storefronts, invest in art and beautification, and coordinate events in the square. During the pandemic, the district led the charge to bring outdoor dining to the downtown. Post pandemic, we brought an ice rink downtown, launched a series of summer concerts and movies in the square, and supported countless cultural events and markets. We even helped bring the Rose Parade back.

Knowing the bedrock of a vibrant economy is small business starts and growth, we brought the Small Business Development Center back to Sonoma County. Hundreds of new small businesses have launched thanks to the services provided through the Small Business Development Center, employing hundreds more.

Through it all, we continued and expanded our signature efforts – programs like the Mike Hauser Academy, Leadership Santa Rosa, tourism promotion through Visit Santa Rosa, our monthly mixers, the annual Business Showcase, our Advocacy Committee, Young Professionals Network, ribbon cuttings, and lunch time trainings, just to name a few.

Operationally, the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber is in a better position than it has been in many years. While I am leaving, an incredible team remains. And the success of the organization over the last 7 years is due to them and to our membership far more than it was ever dependent on me.

There have only been a handful of Chief Executives who have led the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber. I leave feeling honored to be a part of that line of stewardship for the organization, grateful to you and to an amazing team, and blessed for the opportunity to make a difference.