Cape Girardeau's next chamber leader on growth, other matters

Robert "Rob" Gilligan, who in less than four weeks will become president and chief executive officer of Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce, repeatedly uses the word "resiliency" to describe assuming the mantle of chamber leadership April 11.

"Anytime you've been through a change, resiliency is the ability to recover from the change and move forward," said Gilligan, 44, who takes over a job held for nearly three decades by John Mehner, the new assistant vice president for the Office of Economic and Workforce Development at Southeast Missouri State University.

"My goal, my first task, as I come in will be to do my best to connect to the community, including the chamber membership, by listening and learning -- and then building on the 28 years of (Mehner's) success."

Skill set

"A strong suit of mine, I think, is consensus-building and coalition-building. I'm a big believer that organizations only have so much capacity to move things forward. It is through partnerships, through collaboration and cooperative effort, that we can do bigger and better things," Gilligan said.

Regional mentality

"Cape is certainly the anchor of southeast Missouri. (Cape) is the health, education and retail hub and also the major job hub but success can be counted wherever it happens within the region. If we support economic growth in a broader strategic sense, Cape Girardeau will be a beneficiary," said Gilligan, the current No. 2 executive for Emporia, Kansas, Area Chamber of Commerce and director of the chamber's economic development arm known as Ignite Emporia.

Why Cape?

Gilligan admits he has spent his entire life in east central Kansas.

"I wasn't necessarily looking for a new job opportunity," said Gilligan, a city commissioner and former mayor of Emporia, his hometown.

Robert "Rob" Gilligan, second from right, is seen in this 2017 group photo at the State Capitol building in Topeka, Kansas. Gilligan becomes president & CEO of the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce April 11.Facebook

"When I received a phone call from the executive search firm Waverly Partners, I was aware of the innovative activity going on in Cape through such organizations as Codefi. The more I considered it, the more (Cape) seemed like an interesting opportunity to grow my career in a community that in many ways is similar to the one in which I grew up," he added.

Emporia, according to the 2020 Census, had a population of 24,343, compared to Cape Girardeau's 42,917.

A more in-depth interview with Rob Gilligan may be found in April's issue of B Magazine.