It has been a busy year for Kelvin Heck.

Since he took over as chairman of the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce last April, the chamber has lost CEO Bill Sepic, gained economic development vice president Lynn Parman, started a fund-raising campaign to create an economic development endowment and created two groups — a manufacturer’s council and an agricultural committee — to bring together Douglas County’s leaders in those fields.

“It is the first time the business community has been asked to fund a portion of the economic development function involved in bringing primary jobs to Lawrence,” Heck said recently, “and so far they are responding in a tremendously positive manner.

Heck, a commercial real estate broker, discussed other highlights from his time as chair:

J-W: What kind of year was it for the chamber of commerce?

Heck: I think it was a year of transition when you try to settle it all down. The whole year we did a lot of good things, but we had several staff changes and that dictates a transition.

But it’s been an awfully exciting year. We accomplished a whole lot of our business plan for the year, 90 percent of it has been accomplished, and there were a lot of good things in there.

J-W: What were some of those things?

Heck: One of the highlights is, at that time we were without an economic development vice president. Our first goal was to hire a new person for that.

Outgoing chamber of commerce chairman Kelvin Heck says the chamber accomplished 90 percent of its business plan during the past year.

We fell into a situation with Lynn Parman — it’s been more than we ever thought it could be as far as her performance, the skills she brings to her job and the bridges she builds in her job. We are extremely fortunate to have her here.

That makes a lot of things better all by itself, within and without the chamber. It makes better relationships in the community. It makes members feel better about the due structure, that they’re getting value for their dues. And people generally like to see what they’re seeing right now.

Working with KU

J-W: Serologicals has probably been her biggest success so far. How did the chamber make that happen?

Heck: That happened with a really big network of people involved in it. … The chamber’s partnership with the Kansas City Area Development Council got Lawrence on the radar screen with Kansas City, and hence on Serologicals’ radar screen.

It’s really about relationships between Lynn, the chamber of commerce and KCADC that got us in that hunt for that company. I know Lynn did a tremendous job on selling Serologicals on Lawrence once she got in front of them.

J-W: What are some other top things that happened this year?

Heck: We had set a number of economic development goals for the year. One was to hire the new economic development director.

One was to work with the Economic Development Board to get the Horizon 2020 rewrite (of the economic development chapter) accomplished. We’re not done yet, but it’s approaching conclusion in the next few months. It’s getting done, a lot of community involvement.

We set a goal of the Economic Development Board, the University of Kansas, to try to build those relationships, in terms of technology transfer, incubation, those types of things, to try to have a more formalized, better relationship with KU. We think we’re doing that. Serologicals is an example of that.

Strong in numbers

J-W: The relationship between the business community and KU was a source of concern expressed by community leaders during a recent image survey.

Heck: We think it’s well on its way. The chancellor is one of the co-chairman for our (economic development fund) capital campaign, which is a very unusual development and we welcome that tremendously.

We’ve got such a tremendous asset in KU up there. And they do so many things so well that could transfer into the community. We need to facilitate that transfer. We have one of the best aerospace engineering departments in the country, and we ought to capitalize on that. There are opportunities there for private businesses to be spun out of research at KU.

Pharmaceuticals is clearly one of the strong shots. We’re, what, fourth or fifth in the country in pharmaceutical research. That’s something we don’t talk enough about, blow our own horn.

J-W: What’s left undone from this last year?

Heck: What’s left undone is getting our new CEO hired. I hope when this is all written, we have that person on board.

The chamber, in Lawrence, is really an unusual organization. I just saw the other day the Top 20 chambers in greater Kansas City, rated by some company that does those things. We’re the second-largest chamber by membership, only to greater Kansas City. We’re larger than Lenexa, Overland Park, all of those chambers of commerce.

Probably by population, we have a smaller community than any of those, which means we have a very involved chamber representing a diverse group of interests. So in some ways we become community builders — not just economic developers, not just convention and tourism, not just ribbon-cutters on new businesses. We get involved in more things than just that.