BRANDON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
BRANDON CHAMBER WELCOMES NEW GENERAL MANAGER
As the recently appointed general manager of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce, Connor Ketchen has big shoes to fill following former GM Carolynn Cancade’s 14-year tenure.
Thankfully, he is a big teddy-bear footballer with size 12 feet, and he’s definitely up to the challenge of working for a community to which he feels so connected. “I moved here from Winnipeg when I was five years old, so I’m pretty much a lifelong Brandon kid. I grew up in the community. I grew up all around organizations here participating in sports and clubs and activities, so I have deep roots in Brandon,” says Ketchen. He played sports in high school, culminating in four years of football with the University of Regina. That’s where Ketchen says he really started to understand the bigger picture from a community sense, and developed an appreciation for the importance of cooperation, teamwork, and building towards something. “When you have 60-plus players on a team who come from all walks of life, all coming together for the same goal, you learn a lot about perspective and teamwork. You win together or you lose together — this experience really shaped who I am today.” When Ketchen moved into his professional life following his degree, he started out in the not-for-profit community working in a group home with Child & Family Services, following a role with Life’s Journey as a clinical case manager, and then with Career Connections as an employment counsellor. “In 2018, my spouse and I, along with our then three-year-old daughter, had an opportunity to move out to Halifax for two years. I gained private business experience working for Manulife as a long-term disability case manager and return-to-work specialist, which was a total change of pace, and then we found
our way back to Brandon.” Ketchen is naturally drawn to leadership roles and took a regional manager role with the Brandon office of Workplace Education Manitoba (WEM), a provincial government agency. “WEM is focused on adult education through the lens of apprenticeship, pre- employment social services, and helping Manitobans become better equipped to be employed. This was such a reward- ing role, and it grew into a director of operations position where I was overseeing eight regions including some of the North and Winnipeg. Unfortunately, that meant that it was taking me away from Brandon quite a bit.”
According to Ketchen, it was a Brandon Chamber of Commerce luncheon on boosting economic development in the region that sparked his deeper interest in the network. “Two weeks after this lun- cheon, I saw the GM job post- ing come up for the chamber, and I started exploring how this role could align with my goals to invest in Brandon and make a difference in my community.” Over the winter, the chamber had completed an updated strategic plan that will extend to 2025, so Ketchen says he has a great framework to leverage while he dedicates some time to listening in the short term. Meeting with members and touring businesses has been educational for him, and he says there is never a shortage of input and ideas to consider.
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WINTER 2022
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