Ashland Chamber celebrates growth, prepares for 2025 at annual meeting

ASHLAND — The Ashland Area Chamber of Commerce has grown in membership by over 100 businesses in the past two years.

That’s according to outgoing board chair Jody Allton, director of behavioral health at OhioHealth. Allton offered comments at the Chamber’s annual meeting Thursday afternoon.

In 2024, the Chamber added 59 new members. Those new members came from both the city of Ashland and other communities in the area, like Mansfield.

“It’s just an exciting time to be in Ashland,” Allton said.

The annual meeting served as a chance for the Chamber to highlight its activities from the past year. It also recognized two individuals and two businesses with awards and shared updates about what’s to come in 2025.

A recap of 2024 and a taste of 2025

Amy Daubenspeck, the Chamber president, gave a rundown of the Chamber’s biggest achievements from 2024.

Among them, she named a partnership with North Central State College to offer certificate opportunities to Chamber members; the Ashland Connected podcast; and a record 99 nominees so far for the Chamber’s annual member awards.

The annual member awards will be held in 2025.

Daubenspeck concluded the meeting by sharing several of the Chamber’s upcoming projects for the next year.

The Chamber is offering a trip to Italy for community members to participate in.

Daubenspeck also shared the Chamber plans to make upgrades to its website, along with the Explore Ashland website. The upgrades will aim to enhance users’ experience with both sites.

A cost-of-living survey the Chamber has worked on will also launch in 2025.

Awardees

The Chamber handed out annual awards at Thursday’s event, too. Each year, it gives out a “Spirit of the Chamber” award to both an individual and a business; an Ashland Young Professionals “Rockstar of the Year” award; and the Jim Lingenfelter Service Award.

This year’s award recipients were the following:

• Spirit of the Chamber, individual: Kristin Flickinger, Main Street Bank
• Spirit of the Chamber, business: Bill Harris Dealerships
• Ashland Young Professionals “Rockstar of the Year” Award: Emily Pauly, Ashland Christian School
• Jim Lingenfelter Service Award: Jim Cutright, Ashland County Community Foundation