April Stone said she made herself a promise years ago that when Bill Powell retired as executive director of the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce, she would inquire about the position.
And now, she said, she’s so glad she did.
“I’ve really enjoyed meeting an entirely new sector of the business community,” Stone said. “Hoover’s had tremendous growth over the past 50 years, and I’m so excited that the city is looking at where we want to go from here. The chamber is excited to be a part of that conversation.”
From the Riverchase Galleria to its small businesses and from its great restaurants to the Moss Rock Preserve, Hoover has so much to offer, she said. “I love how nice everyone is and how invested they are in the community.”
Stone, who earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Montevallo, said she’s loved all things local for years, but at first she thought she wanted to be a local television anchor.
“I worked in TV for a couple of years after college and soon knew without a shadow of a doubt that I didn’t want to be in TV after all,” she said. “So I researched and thought long and hard about things. I did some soul searching about what I wanted to do and the work I wanted to do, and I liked the idea of helping people and businesses.”
So she reached out to the Greater Shelby County Chamber of Commerce. And through 11 years of serving there, plus an additional five years as the executive director of the South Shelby Chamber of Commerce, she had the opportunity to work with fund campaigns, volunteer boards and a plethora of other activities that she says prepared her for her work in Hoover.
Stone said she thinks being a woman gives her a skill that helps with chamber work, too: multitasking.
“Not that men can’t do it — they can — but I do think that women can multitask very well, because we have to. We have a lot of practice at it,” she said. “[Multitasking] has helped me in this work because with chambers, you have to think about more than one thing at a time. We have small businesses in Hoover, and we have headquarters and large entities. Each business has its own needs, so you have to really multitask to keep all of that in mind.”
She’s one of three women who make up the staff of the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce, and she said all three of them are excited about the future of Hoover and working with the city and the school system.
“We want to make it the best place to do business and have a great quality of life,” she said.
► WHERE: 3000 Riverchase Galleria, Suite 375
► CALL: 988-5672
► WEBSITE: hooverchamber.org
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