By Delainey Muscato – St. Bonaventure University
Adam Jester is stepping up to fill the shoes of Meme Yanetsko after her 15 years as the Greater Olean Area Chamber of Commerce (GOACC) Chief Operating Officer (COO).
Jester, an Olean native and former GOACC board member, is acting as the interim executive director while the board searches for Yanetsko’s permanent replacement. Jester shared that he has worked closely with Yanetsko on many initiatives over his four years as a board member.
Jester began his contract in February just after Yanetsko retired in January. Before beginning his interim position, Jester has held several positions on the board: treasurer, secretary, and vice president the last two years.
Jester and the board are redesigning several roles within the chamber itself. He said the executive role, his interim role, is undergoing a bit of change to increase efficiency of marketing and event planning. Where previously the executive was responsible for business management, marketing, and events planning, they will now split up those responsibilities a bit more.
“I see the chamber as kind of having a dual mission. One half of the mission is to promote and encourage commerce for our member businesses in a variety of ways. The other half of that mission is to create high quality events that will promote tourism and overall community value,” Jester said.
Because event planning is not Jester’s area of expertise, he has contracted Southern Tier Event Planning to oversee event planning, execution, and promotion of chamber events. The receptionist role at the chamber has also been reimagined to increase help with event planning.
“We’re working to have everyone lean into their strengths,” Jester said. So, what are Jester’s strengths? He comes from a business development and marketing background. Jester owns a consulting business. For the past 13 years, he said he has focused mainly on the business development side of consulting but also has experience in IT consulting and electric vehicle charging consulting and sales.
Jester is excited to bring his knowledge to the table, even if it is just in an interim capacity. So, in addition to eight chamber events hosted each year, Jester wants to help the chamber advertise more of the member events.
“Almost every day we get submissions from our members about events that they’re having,” Jester said. These events can be small, like a special or sale a business is running to bigger events like a festival or live music.
Jester plans to look into ways to market these events across multiple channels and forms of media. One way he plans to do this is through a calendar on the GOACC website. Jester wants to make the calendar more usable and put it where it will gather more traffic.
“The ultimate goal is to combat the ‘there is nothing to do here’ mantra that we’ve been hearing for so long. It’s amazing to me how much there really is to do here. You just have to go look for it,” Jester said. He hopes the calendar will help put all those “things to do here” in one place and help bring in folks from out of town to increase tourism.
Another focus Jester has for his time as executive director is to increase communication and collaboration between the chamber’s business members. The chamber currently provides a few member networking opportunities, like their Lunch and Learns or the chamber clambake.
“Our members can get together in a scenario they might not have otherwise been in and connect on business opportunities,” Jester said. But the chamber wants to expand on this collaboration and communication for their members. The member connecting programs like Lunch and Learn or their after-hours program ends in May and does not start again until October. Jester said, “We [the chamber] can provide value all year round. We don’t need to wait for October”. In addition to the extended time frame, Jester said the chamber could potentially provide virtual learning and connection opportunities for their businesses.