Executive director leaving Chamber

Friday will be the last official day on the job for Wahkiakum Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jennifer Johnson.

She has announced she is taking a job in Wilsonville, Ore., after two years with the Wahkiakum Chamber.

“This has been a really hard decision,” she said this week. “I love it here. I love my job.”

Johnson will join the Mt. Hood Regional Tourism Alliance, which has branch offices in several northwest Oregon cities including Wilsonville. She will manage a visitor center and do tourism marketing.

Besides joining a business offering career advancement, she’ll be relocating to an area where many of her family members have settled.

“That’s very important to me now,” she said.

She imagines she’ll be able to remain anonymous in Wilsonville, which highlights one of the major differences between the two jobs.

“Everybody knows you when you walk down the street here,” she said. “While you’re more accountable, you’re also much more connected and you can see your projects make some difference.”

Johnson joined the Chamber on a 3-year economic development grant. As a full-time employee, she took over fund raising duties, event coordination, and promotion and marketing. She established a website for the Chamber and its members; she helped form a Chamber group in Naselle, and she saw Chamber membership swell.

Johnson said she wasn’t looking for a new job when the new employer contacted her last June.

“I told them I wasn’t interested, but they called back six weeks later and I heard them out,” she said. “It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure, but I had to be realistic.”

Johnson said she’ll be back in Cathlamet to help her replacement get going.

The Chamber is throwing a party November 13 to bid her farewell and welcome the new executive director. The event will be at 5:30 p.m. in the River Street Meeting Room.