By By Melissa Johnson • 06/23/2021 08:30 a.m. EST
How many people can confidently say they have their dream job? Michele Call, for one.
After more than a decade serving in the chamber world, Michele was recently appointed executive director of the Madison Chamber of Commerce. Her predecessor, Eileen Banisch, moved to South Carolina but is working remotely as the chamber’s director of operations. Michele worked under Banisch for the past two years as assistant director, and Banisch suggested her for the job when she decided to move south.
Michele, who has lived in Guilford for 23 years, also worked for the Guilford Chamber of Commerce and, when it merged with Branford, the larger Shoreline Chamber. Her first official day at the helm was June 15, and she says running the Madison Chamber is her dream job.
“It’s very fulfilling for me,” she says. “I love supporting local business, so it’s been a passion of mine for the whole 10 years I’ve been in the chamber world. To be here and to work with this chamber is just a dream.”
A Series of Coincidences
Michele describes the journey to her current role as serendipitous.
“It was a series of coincidences,” she says. “The chamber world is a very small world; there’s not a ton of us in the state of Connecticut, so we all know each other.”
Michele knew Banisch, who had run the Madison Chamber since 1993, throughout her time working at the Guilford and Shoreline chambers. Michele had left the Shoreline Chamber about a year earlier to do something else and that venture was wrapping up.
Michele recalls, “When Charon [Squitiero], who was Eileen’s assistant, left [about two years ago], she reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, is there any chance that you’d come to Madison?’ and I was like, ‘Well, when do we start?’ because I already knew her, I knew her personality.”
Michele was also familiar with Madison, both as a town and as an environment, partly because her two children attended Our Lady of Mercy Preparatory Academy in Madison for about 15 years.
“I spent a lot of time in Madison even though I live in Guilford,” she explains. “I knew the Madison feel. From a chamber perspective, when I was with Guilford and then we merged with Branford, we were busy trying to keep three towns happy and Madison just focuses on Madison, so it’s very nice to not have to think, ‘Oh, if I do this for this town, then I have to do it for the other town.’ It’s like having three kids versus one kid.”
Michele has plenty of praises to sing about the Madison Chamber. She says she feels embraced, supported, and empowered.
“The board of directors is very active and engaged, and they understand the mission of the chamber...All of the businesses that belong to the chamber know what they want from their chamber, so it’s a very easy position to be in when the members have a definitive idea of what they expect us to provide for them. Eileen did a great job of saying, ‘This is who we are, and this is who we’re not,’ she says. “The businesses absolutely have an expectation that matches what we deliver.”
One Change
Asked if she had any big plans, Michele said the chamber has been very well run and there wasn’t much she felt she needed to come in and change—but one idea spoke to her.
She says, “When I first decided to take the position, one of the things that I had noticed in town that I felt could be something I could start was a nonprofit council where all of the nonprofits would have a place to network and could come together and do some learning and attend seminars.”
She hit the ground running.
“Right away, I just so happened to have an appointment on the books with (Library Director) Sunnie Scarpa from the (E.C. Scranton Memorial Library) and she was saying that she wanted the library to be more involved with the businesses in town, and to really embrace the local retailers and restaurants and everything.”
Michele pitched her idea for the nonprofit council and says Scarpa loved it.
“She was thrilled. They have the space. We’ve already contacted the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. We already have our first event planned and I couldn’t be happier about it. She and I immediately clicked on it.”
Michele says the nonprofit council’s first meeting is currently planned for Sept. 14. The chamber will share more details over the summer with local nonprofits “to let them know that we’re looking to help them out and figure out ways that we can all collaborate and work together,” she says.”
Personal Life
Michele and her husband, Kevin, have been married for almost 27 years. Their daughter, Megan, is 25 and works for Guilford Savings Bank. Their son, Colin, 22, is studying neuroscience at Providence College. Their Pekingese-Chihuahua, Ben, sometimes accompanies Michele to the chamber office.
Michele and Kevin met at Home Depot, where Michele worked at the time. She was 21 and he was the sales rep for Behr paint. They were friends for about a year before going on a date.
“That was it,” Michele says. “We were done. We’ve been together ever since.”
As a couple, they love to entertain, something they had to put on hold during the pandemic. Kevin, who is now a regional vice president for Behr, was usually gone a few days a week canvassing his territory for work. The pandemic stopped his work travel as well, and Michele and Kevin found themselves together seven days a week for the first time in their entire marriage.
“We really quickly fell into a different rhythm,” she says. “We both looked at each other, like, ‘Wow, we still really like each other!’ I was used to him leaving and then coming back and having a lot of my own downtime.” Instead, since they couldn’t entertain friends, they entertained each other, taking turns cooking dinner and making drinks for each other.
“It was kind of getting to know each other after 27 years,” Michele says.
Getting to Know the Chamber
Michele likens joining the chamber to joining the gym.
“The more you do with us and the more you network and the more you put into being a part of this business community within the chamber,” she says, “the more you get out of it. Just like a gym provides you with the opportunity to work out, we provide you with the opportunity to meet people and make connections and have your business be exposed to the general public or to other businesses, but we can’t do it for you. So we’re very much like a gym membership.”
Michele acknowledges that every business owner has a different amount of time and energy available, if any, to devote to the chamber.
“I think that people who are out there owning their own businesses are superheroes,” she says. “It’s a huge risk and the only person you have to rely on is yourself, and so a lot of people don’t have that extra five minutes to even put into the Chamber of Commerce, so I’m never judge-y about it. But I always hope that people see the difference when they belong to the Chamber of Commerce and they see what kind of community they can be a part of, but I can’t make it happen.
“So that’s where I think we always try to match expectations with reality. Just like when you join a gym, like, ‘Here’s all the equipment and if you do it three times a week, you get results,’ but the gym can’t make you come in any more than I can make a chamber member participate,” she continues. “We’re just something you join, and the more you use it and the more involved you become, the more beneficial it is.”
Michele also thinks the chamber can serve as a place for business owners battered by the pandemic to commiserate with one another and, for many, celebrate their survival.
“I think sometimes, especially after COVID where everybody felt very isolated, it’s very comforting to be able to talk to a community of other people who also own businesses, even if it’s just, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe we’re finally out on the other side and our businesses survived and we managed to do it,’ and whether it’s celebrating that success or it’s a shared frustration, it’s a community of people that are all doing what you’re doing. There’s comfort in that.”
Learn more about the Madison Chamber of Commerce at madisonct.com.
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