Eric Miller said he wasn’t surprised when he was recently elected vice president of the Greenwood-Leflore County Chamber of Commerce.
Miller, 38, who serves as the first vice president of Planters Bank in Greenwood, said he joked with those who approved him for the chamber position.
“I told them, ‘Y’all are voting on me today? Does that I still have time to back out? Y’all have already run an ad in the Commonwealth showing that I was the vice president coming up,’” Miller said.
Hank Reichle is the current chamber president. Beth Williams, now president-elect, will become president in 2018, and Miller will serve in 2019.
Miller graduated from the University of Alabama in 2001, majoring in banking and finance. He completed his master’s degree in business administration at Mississippi State in 2003.
For Miller, a native of Anguilla, Greenwood has felt like home for the past eight years.
“It’s kind of funny,” he said. “With the chamber helping out with the Christmas parade, we moved here in March of 2009. We went to our very first parade that December. When we left, my wife, Holly, said, ‘This feels like home.’”
Miller said his two daughters — Maggie, 9, and Ellen, 5 — also now consider Greenwood their home and are “involved in everything.”
The chamber, which celebrates its centennial this year, plays a valuable role in helping to foster that down-home feel. Miller said he also has seen how the organization helps new businesses get started.
“The main purpose of the chamber is helping with already existing businesses and obviously trying to help bring in new businesses by creating a better way of life for the residents of Greenwood and for those who would come here,” he said.
“But, I also think of all the different events the chamber puts on, while it is a small part of the chamber’s mission, it is a big part for the community, whether it be the 300 Oaks Road Race, Bikes, Blues & Bayous or the Christmas parade.”
It isn’t only the chamber’s leadership and staff that make it a force for good. The chamber also depends on volunteers to staff events and functions. “It takes a village,” Miller said.
In particular, he said, the chamber’s Ambassadors, who attend ribbon-cuttings and staff other functions, really “make it happen.”
In the past, Miller has served on the chamber’s board of directors. He served on its Golf Committee, which hosts the chamber’s annual golf tournament.
Miller said he is grateful that Planters, under the leadership of President Jim Quinn, has allowed him to take time to attend chamber meetings during the week.
Lending is Miller’s primary function at the bank, and he says he enjoys it.
“You get to know folks,” he said. “It kind of goes hand in hand with the chamber. When you get to help someone open a new business, that’s the most fun to me.”
In a sense it is an opportunity to make people’s dreams come true — and the chamber, by offering it support to start-up businesses, is doing the same thing, he said.
Miller, who also is the past president of the United Way of Leflore County, said he would like to see more volunteers come forward to help the United Way and the chamber.
• Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
