Meeting: Paradise Update

Katie Simmons I was hired in 2008 as the executive director of the Paradise Ridge Chamber of Commerce. I was from the Bay Area, and I left because my parents had moved to Chico a few years earlier and I wanted to slow down. I had the opportunity to live and work in Paradise and work with Chuck Rough and Lauren Gill. I really fell in love with it. I also went through the Humboldt fire with the town both as a resident and on the periphery of the emergency operations at the town. We as a chamber had the opportunity to assist the community with messaging and connecting them with resources. I then moved down to Chico and spent seven years as president and CEO of the Chico Chamber of Commerce. During those seven years I got to know economic and social fabric on the region, and the importance the region serves for the North State in terms of supplies, services, homes. I was actually chair of the urgent response task force, at the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, and I helped coordinate a lot of across chambers in the country when they were dealing with disasters, school shootings to floods to hurricanes. Then, in 2018, I joined the Associated General Contractors of California, and I really got a great view on what it means to be in construction. With economic development, community awareness, and construction, I think I really have a lot to bring to Paradise.