In January 2005, the Chamber's proverbial goose came close to being cooked. Luckily, Sarah Nelsen came along to pull us from the flames. Let's hope she sticks around to help us put out the fire.

You may already know Sarah. She's worked hard around our community for nearly a decade. However, if you've never heard from her, the cause may lie in her own industriousness. Sarah often works so hard that she fails to toot her own horn.

Meet Sarah

Sarah comes to the Chamber with a background in accounting/bookkeeping. She has a degree in Tax accounting. So why does she want to take on the reigns of the Chamber office? Her motivation remains the same as when she went to help out the Fremont Sunday Market 8 years ago. Her plain interest in this cockeyed community brings her back, over and over, to help us in our hour of need.

Sarah went to high school with Ryan Hegeman, son of Jon Hegeman co-founder of the Fremont Sunday Market. Sarah told Ryan how much she liked the Market, and he told her Jon needed help.

Soon she spent her Sundays at the Market to help out and earn money for college. She quickly worked herself up through the ranks to run the Market, and then the Outdoor Cinema, for Jon. Now, many years later, she finds herself, through the Chamber, at work with many of the same people. She told me how she enjoyed revisiting old haunts as she wandered our sidewalks soliciting listings for the 2005 Walking Guide.

Taking Our Pulse

"So much has changed," she told me in February, "you feel like this old historical person," she mused, as she sat behind the Chamber desk. Sarah's professional and no-nonsense approach to work belies her young age, as does her wealth of knowledge of the area.

Physically, she lives in Ballard, as neighbor to many others of our movers and shakers who also found shelter a few miles off from the Center. However, after the last 5 years spent at work with Bold Hat Productions on the Chamber Oktoberfest, she can firmly claim Fremont citizenship.

She became acquainted with the Fremont Chamber as a representative from Bold Hat. A year ago she accepted a position on our Board. "How much history I have, how much I know and how many people I know," she mused about her time here. It led her, when she quit Bold Hat in January, to offer to help out in the Chamber office.

Sarah has come aboard temporarily as administrative aid. Board Member Anne Helmholz has worked this past winter to draft an application for an Office of Economic Development grant to pay for an Executive Director. Sarah expects to help out until the grant comes through and the Chamber hires someone. Until then, she attends to the basic tasks necessary to keep the Chamber running. (see Kirby's Korner Oct. '04 for examples)

Finding Cures

As for the Executive Director, she says we "need to enlist volunteers to help get things done." She hopes "someone can utilize the Board members." She praised our current President, Marko Tubic, for getting John Nordstrand and herself energized behind the Walking Guide - to get it done!

For now, Sarah plans to work about 12 - 18 hours a week in the Chamber office. "I want to reconnect everyone with the Chamber," she admitted. A lot of the questions she's heard ask about what the Chamber is doing and how others can get involved.

First, she's helped get the 2005 Walking Guide to the printer. After that, she gets the onerous task of relocating the Chamber office into shared space within the Fremont Neighborhood Service Center with coordinator, Antoinette Meier. Everyone sees this as a win-win situation - regaining income for the City and regular access for Chamber members who want to stop by the office.

Personally, Sarah admits to being in transition, just like the Chamber. "I'm figuring out what I want to do," she says. She takes it slowly, looking around to make it so it's "not overwhelming." She can see herself staying on with the Chamber for a while, at least until the grant comes through. She can't see herself taking a job doing accounting every day, all day long, sitting at a desk, slogging through numbers.

Instead, Sarah enjoys community work - talking to business people, solving community problems and dispatching the busy work of the Chamber office - which keeps her interested and alert. Whatever might have brought her to help us out, we've found our latest hero - some to put out our fires and, hopefully, help us to rebuild ourselves into an even stronger, statelier structure. A Chamber able to support the fun, frivolity and funkiness that Fremont foments!

March 2005