By Judy Clabes
NKyTribune editor and publisher
The NKY Chamber held its annual dinner tonight, and the leadership baton for its volunteer board passed to David Heidrich.
He assumes chairmanship from Stephen Harper of Harper Oil Products.
Now CEO, Heidrich has been with the Zalla Companies, a commercial and residential development company, for 15 years.
But he’s also an entrepreneur and investor with interests in real estate, law, construction, transportation and special events. He is a partner in both Stewart Iron Works and Four Seasons Tent Rentals.
For nearly a decade, he was president of Oldenberg Brewing Co., founded by the late Jerry Deters who built the Drawbridge Inn and other enterprises – and was the consummate community-engaged businessman in Northern Kentucky.
He is Deters’ son-in-law and spent his early professional career with various Deters enterprises. He is married to the former Paula Deters. They have four children and two grandchildren and live in Villa Hills.
It was under Jerry Deters’ tutelage that Heidrich got a graduate-level education in giving back to the community and getting engaged. Deters, who died in 2013, was one of the forces behind the formation of a united Northern Kentucky Chamber, as well as the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau and Tri-Ed.
A graduate of NKU’s Salmon P. Chase College of Law, Heidrich also holds a degree in finance from Xavier University.
He gets praise from colleagues for “seeing the big picture” and building “positive relationships.”
“My company has enjoyed an extremely positive relationship with David for over a decade,” says Brent Collins, president and CEO of Commonwealth, Inc. “He understand the value of long-term relationships and works hard to achieve mutually beneficial deals.”
Heidrich is founder and fund manager for the Northern Kentucky Growth Fund 1, the region’s first angel investment fund approved under the Kentucky Investment Fund Act.
He is also a member of a group of friends who call themselves ‘The Patio Boys,” who enjoy hiking, running – and hanging out at the pub afterwards.
As incoming chair of the Chamber, Heidrich assumes one of the most influential positions in the region – and has plans for making an impact.
Q: You’ve been involved with the Chamber for many years. Now that you are chair, do you have specific initiatives you want to concentrate on?
A: I want to continue all the Chambers’ impactful work. I want to organize the business community to have a cohesive voice in the “big picture” of Northern Kentucky. As a region we haven’t always acted in a unified way, but we’re bigger and better together. We can have a lot more impact.
Q: How do you see the Chamber’s role as a leader for the region?
A: Our role as a Chamber is unique because of our region’s plethora of jurisdictions and taxing authorities. We lack the cohesiveness that has elevated others over us because we have so many jurisdictions. For a bigger voice, we have to address that. The Chamber can be the convenor to make a unified voice happen.
(Heidrich says that in his speech at the annual dinner, he plans to ask the crowd, “When you are out in the rest of the state how do identify where you’re from, ‘What do you say?’” The answer to that suggests the issue.)
Q: When you accept the gavel Thursday night, what will you tell the crowd that they can expect from you?
A: We went through a strategic planning process last year, continuing this year, to re-affirm the role of the modern-day chamber in this community. It will always be about creating a great environment for people to do business. It’s private investment in jobs that provides the fuel for all other things.
The community can expect me to be a strong, relentless advocate for a cohesive and vibrant business culture on the premise that education, arts, health care, diversity – all of those things make a great community, but none of them can happen without a strong business community.
Q: What work has the Chamber done that you are most proud of?
A: That’s hard to say because the Chamber has done so much. It has has worked to keep some initiatives together than might otherwise have fallen apart, like an Area Planning commission or airport board restructuring.
Q: What work would you most be proud to accomplish during your year as chair?
A: As I look at some of the standard problems of our community — transportation, heroin, jurisdictional silos and others – the solutions all require political leadership. The business community needs to step up to protect and encourage courageous officials — time, energy, money, votes — then we are entitled to ask for their courage. We have to have political leadership that will make the right decisions for the right reasons. That requires support from the business community – and others – when they do that.
We are not Cincinnati or Frankfort or Lexington or Louisville. We are a unique regional community with our own very different challenges. We leave opportunity laying on the table.
Our worst disease is provincialism. If we continue to think of ourselves as ‘Boone County’ or Covington or Ft. Thomas, we will continue to lose out. It just won’t work.
