The Belmond Growth Alliance has a new executive director.
Ronnie Carlos Martinez, a 2016 graduate of Belmond-Klemme, replaced Julie Hegge, who retired in May.
As executive director, Carlos Martinez says she’ll work to retain businesses as well as recruit new businesses to Belmond.
*Carlos Martinez #1
“Not only do we help promote the businesses, every business here in town gets an opportunity to become an investor. That’s what we call our membership essentially. They become investors and we help promotion through our Facebook page, which gains a lot of traction, especially here locally. That’s like 90% of where we do. So yeah, we do promotion and we promote to other investors. We get our newsletters every month that gets given to our investors, any events, anything that they have coming up. They can send it to us and we will promote them through either email or our newsletter or on Facebook.”
Carlos Martinez says the new job was a good fit from the beginning.
*Carlos Martinez #2
“I really liked the position and of course being able to help my hometown in any way that I could and promoting all local businesses like that’s something I really strive for is like shopping local, shopping sustainable, was something that I was really drawn to.”
Established in 2020, Belmond Growth Alliance combined the efforts and resources of the Belmond Area Chamber of Commerce and the Belmond Industrial Development Corporation.
You can find our full interview with Ronnie Carlos Martinez here:
Pictured: Ronnie Carlos Martinez, who is also a Buena Vista University and Drake University graduate.
