Building Stronger Together with the Gallup-McKinley County Chamber of Commerce

By Peter Campos, Vice President, Gallup-McKinley County Chamber of Commerce

Economic Development Week is here, and this year’s theme is “Building Stronger Together”.  The Gallup McKinley County Chamber of Commerce exemplifies this theme through the incorporation of our three core values, which are Commerce, Collaboration and Community.  Through our advocacy at the city, county, and state levels, the Gallup Chamber is helping to strengthen not only our local businesses, but all small, rural businesses across the state.  Our involvement with numerous local projects shows that we are willing to help build a better and stronger community.  The Gallup Chamber exists to help our business members by making connections and promoting legislation that benefits our community.

The mission of the Gallup McKinley County Chamber of Commerce “is connecting businesses, strengthening leaders, building Gallup/McKinley County.”  We provide direct connections to our members through our website, as well as to people who contact the chamber looking for goods or services.  We keep our members updated with events that allow them to promote themselves, and we provide business outreach by sending out information from individual businesses to the rest of the members when they are having training, events, etc.  The Gallup Chamber provides leadership training through our annual Leadership McKinley program, and through some one-day trainings and events.  These things help us build stronger relationships between our members and our community.

One of the most important things the Gallup McKinley County Chamber of Commerce does is to advocate for our business members.  Every year, the Gallup Chamber represents our members in Santa Fe during the New Mexico legislative session.  We contact our local legislators, as well as legislators from around the state, and we testify for or against bills being proposed by our legislators, that will benefit not only our members, but also small rural businesses across the state.  We work closely with the City of Gallup and McKinley County to address issues that could affect our members.  One example of advocacy at the city level is when we had talks with city officials about a water rate increase that the city wanted to impose on business and residential customers.  We were able to talk them down from increasing the water rates, and this benefitted both our members and every water customer in Gallup.

The Gallup Chamber believes that a connected business community promotes strong business growth, and we encourage our members to participate in local community events, such as the Route 66 Freedom Ride, Flight, and Cruise, the Red Rock Balloon Rally, and numerous others.  We sponsor several city events that improve the quality of life in Gallup and the surrounding areas, and we also put on our own events to help connect our members with the community at large.  Through these efforts, the Gallup Chamber helps to bring our community together for both fun things and serious things.

The Gallup McKinley County Chamber of Commerce is involved with numerous things around our area, with the sole purpose of building a stronger community.  Through our relationships with other entities such as the Greater Gallup Economic Development Corporation, Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments, UNM-Gallup, and many other entities, we are able to positively impact our community.  We have a strong board of directors that provides some guidance on the things we’re involved with, and this board is made up of members that truly care about Gallup and McKinley County.  The board has updated our vision statement, which is “To be an advocate for positive change – driving business growth and empowering leadership in Gallup/McKinley County.”  The Gallup Chamber falls in line with this year’s theme of “Building Stronger Together”. We’ve done this in the past, and will continue to do this in the future.

Peter Campos is the Vice President of the Gallup-McKinley Chamber of Commerce and will be taking over as CEO and President when the current CEO Bill Lee retires at the end of 2025.  Peter was born and raised in Gallup and has been involved with the Gallup Chamber as a board member for the past 4 years before becoming a staff member.  He has been involved with community organizations for numerous years, such as the American Cancer Society Relay for Life, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and others.  He and his wife Tomi have raised two sons (both now adults) and love living in Gallup.