Joe Reagan Recruited To Lead St. Louis RCGA As Its New President And Chief Executive Officer

December 12, 2011
For more information, contact
Gary Broome at (314) 444-1171 or gbroome@stlrcga.org
For Immediate Release:

JOE REAGAN RECRUITED TO LEAD RCGA AS ITS NEW
PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Greater Louisville Inc.-Metro Chamber of Commerce (GLI) President and CEO
Recruited to Succeed Long-Time RCGA President and CEO Dick Fleming

ST. LOUIS -- Following a nine-month national and local search producing nearly 200 prospective candidates, St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association (RCGA) Chairman Tom Voss, chairman, president and CEO of Ameren Corp., announced today that Joe Reagan has been selected to lead the RCGA as the organization's next president and CEO, effective February 1, 2012.

Joe Reagan

Reagan succeeds Dick Fleming, who has led the RCGA as president and CEO since August, 1994. Fleming was instrumental in helping to transform the RCGA into a key driver of the metropolitan area's public policy, infrastructure and economic development. Fleming announced in January, 2011 that he would leave the RCGA at the end of this year to pursue his next career in the public-purpose nonprofit philanthropic sector.
Reagan, 48, has been president and CEO of the Greater Louisville Inc.-Metro Chamber of Commerce (GLI) since 2005. He has over 20 years of practitioner and CEO experience in private sector initiatives in community and economic development, public policy, and regional strategy and community problem-solving. Prior to his leadership roles in community and economic development, he worked in the business side of radio and was an entrepreneur, heading a marketing firm.
He is a native of Gary, Ind. and grew up in Ottawa, Ill. Reagan joined the staff of the Greater Louisville Inc.-Metro Chamber in 1998 as vice president for economic development. Reagan was named executive vice president for economic development two years later, advancing to chief operating officer in 2003. He was promoted to the top staff position at the chamber in 2005, where he has led a 50-person professional staff and assisted hundreds of volunteers in executing the chamber's purpose of transforming the community through economic and enterprise development, public policy development and advocacy, driving improvements in educational attainment, talent attraction, community marketing, business services and programming.
"In a nine-month executive search process, we had outstanding finalists from throughout the St. Louis region and the nation for this key position. But we were pleased to discover that the top candidate was little more than 250 miles from St. Louis, in Louisville, KY," Voss said. "Joe brings to the RCGA a strong professional background in successful chamber management, regional economic development, public policy development and implementation. His career accomplishments and integrity have earned him the respect of both business and governmental leaders in the greater Louisville region and throughout the nation overall."
"I'm energized about the prospect of working with Tom Voss, RCGA chair-elect Danny Ludeman and the entire Board, the accomplished RCGA staff and, of course, the highly-engaged, RCGA volunteers in moving the metropolitan agenda forward," Reagan noted. "I appreciate the opportunity to serve an organization that believes that results-oriented collaboration among business, civic and elected leaders is critical in driving economic development and improving the quality of life in the St. Louis bi-state region."
Ludeman, president and CEO of Wells Fargo Advisors, and RCGA Board chair-elect for 2013 and current RCGA chair for economic development, said, "Joe Reagan is, without question, one of the top chamber and economic development executives in the country. Finding a worthy successor to Dick Fleming has been challenging, but Joe has posted a very impressive track record in Louisville and in Illinois before that. He has played a key role in helping to reinvigorate the greater Louisville region."
Voss appointed a broad-based Search Committee chaired by former RCGA Chairman John Bachmann, senior partner at Edward Jones. The Search Committee's work over the past nine months has been supported by Korn-Ferry International.
Among Reagan's and Greater Louisville Inc.'s impressive list of accomplishments are:

• Leading a bi-state (Greater Louisville/Southern Indiana) 26-county regional visioning campaign focused on innovation and talent
• Forging the business leadership to make education attainment the top business and community priority
• Forming a coalition and strategy to secure funding and a plan to build two new bridges across the Ohio River
• Creating an effective approach to economic development that assisted hundreds of companies to expand, relocate or start in Louisville based on the region's cluster-based strategies
• Helping to create a robust corporate relocation strategy, an angel investment network, and playing a critical partnership role with the University of Louisville to help it build a research and innovation park
• Fostering an inclusive culture at the chamber and encouraging Louisville to become one of the most welcoming and inclusive cities in America for people throughout every neighborhood and across the globe
• Helping to create and Angel investing network, attracting more than 45 certified investors
• Most recently, Reagan served as GLI's project leader in the successful effort to retain and transform Ford Motor Co.'s Louisville Assembly Plant and modernize Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant, resulting in a $1 billion capital investment, 4,000 retained jobs and 2,800 new ones.

"I've been blessed to work alongside a tremendous team of leaders at Greater Louisville Inc., who together have delivered strong economic development, financial, and programmatic results for our investors and stakeholders," Reagan said.
Prior to joining the staff of the Greater Louisville Inc.-Metro Chamber of Commerce, Reagan was executive vice president of the Rockford Area Chamber of Commerce and Council of 100, in Rockford, IL, from 1996 to 1998. He previously served as vice president of the Chamber and Council of 100, and had joined that organization in 1993 as director of marketing & public affairs.
He owned and operated the Reagan Marketing Group in Rockford from 1990 to 1993. Reagan also formerly held several key positions at radio stations in Illinois and Iowa.
The St. Louis RCGA is similar to GLI in that it is both that bi-state region's chamber of commerce and economic development organization. At the heart of the RCGA's regional economic development mission is the commitment to market the entire region as a "neutral broker" as to location, and to generate as well as respond to economic development prospects by presenting every opportunity throughout the metro area to prospects to fulfill their needs.
The RCGA has major regional initiatives under way to improve the St. Louis region's talent base and further develop its distinctive industry clusters in Plant Sciences and Ag-Tech; Aerospace and Aviation; Health Sciences and Services; Financial and Information Services; and Multimodal Supply Chain Management.
Reagan holds a bachelor's degree in Communications from the University of Iowa at Iowa City and serves as a Trustee of Bellarmine University in Louisville. He is Chair of the Metro Chambers Council of the American Chamber of Commerce Executives and serves on the executive committee of ACCE.

About the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association (RCGA)Established in 1836 as the St Louis Chamber of Commerce, the RCGA is the chamber of commerce and economic development organization for the 16-county, bi-state region. The mission of the RCGA is to unite the region's business community, and to engage dynamic business and civic leadership to develop and sustain a world-class economy and community.