Ozarks Profile: Marlene Feisthamel

We incorporated in March. We got our nonprofit status in June, and we elected our first board of directors in September. We have 14 members to date – two individuals and 12 businesses. Membership fees vary and are annual. We have individual memberships, home business memberships, business memberships, all kinds of memberships available, any business or person that’s interested in promoting business in Battlefield.

What’s the purpose of the Battlefield Chamber of Commerce?

Basically, to promote the economic development of the area, and to promote our businesses in Battlefield and the surrounding area. We plan to do some community events, (but) right now, our main time-consuming (efforts) are fund-raising and the membership drive. We’re really hitting the membership drive hard right now. We’re looking at having a fund-raising soup and pie supper and auction to raise funds for the chamber probably the first week or so in February. One of our first priorities is to get a Web site up and running so that we can promote our businesses there, and of course, Battlefield as a community.

You’ve had your dental practice in Battlefield for nearly two years. Why is volunteering with the chamber important to you?

I feel like you get a lot out of the community with your business, and you always need to put some back. It’s a good way to get out and meet people, be a part of the community and do some good things.

What are some of Battlefield’s strongest selling points for businesses?

I think the demographics in this area are really surprising. I’m on the Economic Development Commission for the city of Battlefield as well, and we’ve just made recommendations to update our demographic information. The information that we have on the city plan is actually from the 2000 census, and we’ve probably doubled our population almost since then. We have a very high level of education in the area, a very high level of income. There’s a lot of building going on around here, and we’ve got some new businesses coming in. It’s a growing area, and in the future, I think it’s going to be a really bustling area.

What’s the biggest challenge in getting the chamber up and running?

Money. We’re working on that right now. It’s tough to get something up and running when you have no funds, but we’ve had some good people on the interim board and we donated our own funds … . Now that we’re getting the membership fees in, we’ll get some funds, and we’ll be able to get out and do some fund-raising (and) promote our businesses.

What’s the chamber’s membership goal?

Right now we have about 150 businesses licensed in Battlefield. Actually, there’s quite a few more than that, but a lot of those are from the tornado, and they came in to do repairs and that kind of thing. But we have about 150 in the Battlefield area that have had business licenses on a regular basis, and there are about 100 in Battlefield proper. A lot of those are home businesses, but we do have several regular businesses, too.

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