All About Progress For Local Chamber Head

Claire Louder knows she should probably cut out caffeine, but that would just slow her down.

There are meetings to host, a barrage of emails to return, and a couple of teenage boys to keep fed and happy.

As president and CEO of the , Louder has filled roles ranging from business advocate to development expert, while also staying up on issues relating to education, public safety and neighborhood squabbles.

In a wide-ranging interview in her Odenton office and over lunch at , Louder offered a broad overview of her last three year’s at the chamber’s helm, while laying out her priorities for 2011 and beyond. 

“It’s something different every day,” she said of her role as the chamber’s top executive. “So you never get bored. It’s an opportunity to help businesses, particularly small business, and to make a contribution in your community and make it a better place. 

Louder, who resides in Crofton with her husband and two boys, took over as the chamber’s top executive in February 2007. In the three years since, she has been credited with expanding the chamber’s membership while playing key roles in big decisions affecting Odenton and the rest of west Anne Arundel County.

Perhaps her biggest role has been as an advocate for the formation of the Odenton Town Center, a sprawling set of more than a dozen development projects planned over 1,600 acres in Odenton. While talk of the town center has gone on for more than 40 years, new developments in the last year suggest the grand vision is slowly becoming a reality.

Louder deflects some credit for the town center’s progress, but it is no secret that she was part of the group that helped write the master plan for the area. She now serves on a committee that reviews development plans.

Louder also advocated for plans to build a new sewer line to serve projects in the town center core, and helped form the Odenton NOW Coalition, which has allowed developers, community leaders and others in Odenton to speak with clarity on matters affecting the town center.

“We were all batting around ideas and said ‘you know, maybe it’s better if we’re all speaking as one voice,’” she said. “We decided to bring everybody together to see what they think.”

Louder’s colleagues described her management style as friendly but direct, and praised her ability to connect with people in different areas of the community.

“She’s a sounding board for so many people and has a credibility for telling it like it is,” said Todd Popham, the chamber’s chairman.

Most of all, Louder is credited with growing the chamber while others have shrunk in the slow economy.

“Around the state and probably nationally, chambers of commerce today are fighting tooth and nail just to keep the members they have,” Popham said. “She’s really strong on the growth vision, and that’s exactly what we need right now.”

At times, Louder has pushed for things that, at first glance, would make many businesses cry foul. Her push for the sewer line in Odenton required developers to agree to a special surcharge on sewer usage, for example. And last spring, she testified in Annapolis in favor of higher gas taxes and fees to help fund transportation improvements in the area. (She also has pushed for a constitutional amendment to keep money designated for transportation not to be spent for any other purpose.)

“What I try to do is bring the business community around to the side of seeing the value in things,” she said. “I find it’s a matter of educating people as to why it’s in their best interest.”

In the case of the push for transportation funding, Louder has pleaded with lawmakers to find new money to pay for road upgrades around Fort Meade, where more than 5,000 new workers are expected to arrive this year alone and thousands more will come by 2015. Estimates show that nearly $1 billion is needed for the expansion of roads just to accommodate new Fort Meade traffic, and little of that work has been funded.

“With everything that’s happening at Fort Meade, we have to pay attention to how that impacts our local community,” she said. 

Her concerns over traffic are multi-layered. As a chamber executive and member of the Fort Meade Regional Growth Management Committee, she has expressed concern over whether congestion will make Odenton and the immediate area a less desirable place to live and own a business. But, she is also working to ensure that solutions to the traffic problem–buses, carpooling and public transit–don’t inhibit Fort Meade workers from frequenting shops and restaurants in the area.

“I look at it from a different perspective, which is ‘how are you going to get them out and eat lunch in my restaurant?’” she said. “We are meant to have that interchange with that community. We want them to know what we have out here, but if they come in by bus and leave by bus, they don’t have a car to get out into Odenton.”

The location of the West Anne Arundel Chamber of Commerce office could be viewed as a microcosm of Odenton. It is nestled into a busy strip along Piney Orchard Parkway, but is adjacent to space that was recently vacated by previous tenants and remains unfilled. Louder is among those fighting a perception among retailers and other business that Odenton has not yet “arrived” as a place to do business. 

Louder has talked informally with developers about creating a branding campaign for the town to help overcome stubborn negative perceptions of the area. She also said that stakeholders in Odenton must do a better job of explaining the location and scope of the Odenton Town Center.

“We need to create a better sense of the town center in peoples’ minds,” she said. “We need to figure out how to brand it and show it’s really coming.”

Louder’s familiarity with Odenton and the rest of Anne Arundel County suggests she’s been here for a long time. But as the wife of an Air Force officer, her travels have taken her from Germany to Mississippi and Oklahoma. She grew up in Anchorage, AK, but migrated east to attend school at the University of Virginia. Her education credentials also include a two-year stint at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where she earned a master’s degree in public policy.

Louder found herself drawn to chamber of commerce work early on in her career, when she realized it offered a chance to work with businesses while having a direct impact on the community. As a 24-year-old, she found herself heading the chamber of commerce in Jackson County, MS. Now, she heads not only the chamber for West Anne Arundel County but serves as president of the Maryland Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives.

“That’s a sign of being a true chamber of commerce junkie,” she said.