Clay Gillham has been selected as the next president of the Henderson Chamber of Commerce.
Gillham, 34, takes over for Lindsay Locasto, who left the position shortly before the new year to take the deputy mayor position for new Evansville Mayor Stephanie Terry.
Gillham said she’s “very excited, obviously” about the new position and is enthused to continue to work with the current team in place at the chamber, including Madison Krampe and Donna Warren, who had been serving as interim president.
Gillham said she wants to help continue the Henderson renaissance that has seen numerous new boutiques and restaurants locate here, many of them downtown.
She also wants to balance that new with some of the established businesses, helping to keep “some of the things that make Henderson Henderson.”
That means attracting new, different and inclusive businesses and programs while also supporting and promoting longstanding businesses. She mentioned Rookies and Thomason’s Barbecue as a couple of the veterans.
Gillham will move into the president position on Monday. She is moving over from her current role with the chamber as the downtown events and communications coordinator. She’s been in that role for two years.
According to a chamber news release, Gillham has worked to promote downtown businesses and help organize community events including the Independence Day Fireworks Celebration, Porchfest, and Market on Main. She also contributed to beautification efforts for downtown and helped to coordinate collaborative projects like the launching of the Sunset District and the Downtown Dog Park, which will open later this spring, said the release.
She said she has some ideas for the chamber to pursue but doesn’t want to implement them right away. For the first few months, she said she plans on spending time studying the chamber’s operations, finances and bylaws.
In that time, she’ll also try to talk to as many chamber members as possible—by last count there were 489 members—to gather input, she said.
Gillham is a Henderson native and a University of Kentucky graduate. She lives in town with her husband, Jesse, their 4-month-old daughter, Jett, and dog, Tuck.
