secondchancepathways.com dba rezconnect.store
Proud member · Chamber of Commerce Grand Haven · Spring Lake · Ferrysburg
A portfolio prepared for
Mark Allen
President & CEO, Chamber of Commerce Grand Haven, Spring Lake, Ferrysburg
What one exhibitor brought home from BOOMERANG — and what it could become.
Prepared by Michael Rutherford, Founder · secondchancepathways.com dba rezconnect.store
THE WALKTHROUGH
The seat is filled — now the system that makes the first year count
1
THE SEAT
The Chamber has filled its Director of Membership & Sponsorship Development seat. The first year in that chair sets the pattern for everything after it.
2
THE SYSTEM UNDER THE SEAT
One Director can only be in so many rooms. The RezConnect platform carries the follow-up, the member visibility, and the sponsorship proof between them — a system, not a hope.
3
THE STUDENT WORKFORCE
Trained local students do real follow-up and build work for member businesses — the pipeline those businesses can hire from.
4
THE CONVERSATION
Twenty minutes to walk through the support system — starting with BOOMERANG next year.
The ask: the conversation — and a first year that counts.
BOOMERANG · Tuesday, October 13, 2026 · Grand Haven High School Field House. I spent the day at my table talking with students about direction, service, and a better way to learn. Here is what the day produced:
“I found students who could use more direction, more opportunities to serve, and a better way to learn. That's the mission in one sentence — and it's what I spent the day sharing with them.”
~20students took a first step and signed on
1résumé handed to me at the table
50handouts taken home by students
And here is what I came home without
I don't know who attended, what they were interested in, or what a survey might have told us — and I suspect every exhibitor went home the same way. The investment is real: $350 for the event, plus $85 in materials — materials I get to use over and over again. The big exhibitors work this circuit from show to show; for a small business starting out, follow-up is where that investment either pays off or evaporates.
Follow-up is where the value lives — and follow-up is a system, not a hope. That is the opportunity in front of the Chamber, and the rest of this portfolio is about it.
The Working Sample
The BOOMERANG Passport
Rather than just describe the fix, I built a small working sample of it — from the real event, in an afternoon. One QR code at the entrance opens a living directory of every participating business. A student taps an exhibitor's logo and that business's own door opens: its website, its appointment booking, its application, its contact. Nothing gets lost on a folding table.
The event's “visit five booths” card, digitized: each stop earns a passport stamp toward the prize drawing — and every visit is captured, every interest sorted. When the fair ends, each exhibitor leaves with the list of students who stopped at their table and what those students were looking for.
Tap an exhibitor's logo to see how each business gets its own door.
Built in an afternoon, from the real event, as a sample of the fix — imagine it run as the Chamber's own system, for every major event on the calendar.
The Proposal
The seat is filled — here is the system that makes the first year count
The Chamber has filled its Director of Membership & Sponsorship Development seat — the person charged with recruiting and keeping members, selling sponsorships, and working the Chamber's programs and events: exactly the work BOOMERANG showed breaking down at follow-up. This proposal is the support system under that seat.
My proposal: give the new Director a running start. RezConnect is a proud member of this Chamber, and this is what we bring to the partnership: a working platform, a trained student workforce, and follow-up done in the open — so the Director's first year builds on a system instead of starting from a blank desk.
What this support puts on the table
Event passports & exhibitor follow-upA Passport directory for every major Chamber event, with each exhibitor's follow-up list — who visited, what they wanted — delivered after the event, not lost to it.
Member visibility in the age of Advanced IntelligenceMembers found and chosen when customers ask Advanced Intelligence search where to go — each member business given its own door on the RezConnect platform: its story, its booking, its contact, kept current.
Membership & sponsorship activationOutreach, onboarding, and lapsed-member re-engagement running on the RezConnect platform — the follow-up work done consistently, visibly, and on schedule, so the Director's own recruiting starts warm.
Packaged sponsorship tiersSponsorships sold as clear packages with fulfillment sponsors can actually see — what ran, where it ran, and who it reached.
A trained student workforceLocal students, trained and coached, doing the real follow-up and build work — the Chamber's events become a training ground for the community's own young people.
Monthly reportingA plain monthly report to the President & CEO: activity, results, and what's next. No black box.
How the partnership runs
A member, not a vendorsecondchancepathways.com dba rezconnect.store belongs to this Chamber — a member bringing its own platform to the partnership, and grateful for how this Chamber supports its own members.
Starts with BOOMERANGThe first job is already on the calendar: next year's BOOMERANG, with exhibitor follow-up that no longer evaporates — the working sample is on this page.
Counted, in the openThe proof standard is evidence: one Walk the Beat season, counted — 2,761 votes and 1,125 neighbors joined. The same counting applies to everything we run together.
What the new Director walks into
Systems already built. The event passports, member doors, and follow-up workflows on this page exist today — the Director steps into a running system instead of building one from a blank desk.
Follow-up that doesn't depend on memory. Every exhibitor list, member touch, and sponsor fulfillment is captured in the platform — visible to the Chamber, not carried in one person's head.
Local students do the work — trained, coached, and earning — which is the Chamber's own talent mission, in action.
The Alignment
Already rowing in the Chamber's direction
This isn't a cold pitch. In October 2026 I delivered a one-pager to the Chamber — “Investing in Northwest Ottawa's Future” — mapping Second Chance Pathways onto the Chamber Foundation's own pillars. The alignment was written down before BOOMERANG ever happened:
Building Talent
Professional development pathways through the RezConnect Affiliate program — real-world skills in CRM, marketing automation, and Advanced Intelligence, guided by human coaching. Our founding belief: many times people fail because they are not coached.
Classrooms to Careers
Exhibiting at BOOMERANG at Grand Haven High School — showing students how Advanced Intelligence and automation are reshaping local business careers, with live demonstrations.
Youth Leadership
Mentorship is the product. Our human-plus-technology model pairs every tool with coaching, so young people build confidence, communication, and decision-making skills — not just software logins.
Community Impact
Walk the Beat, our live-music community project across the Tri-Cities, doubles as a working proof of concept. Our GHHS Alumni Group keeps 1,000+ graduates connected and giving back.
From “Investing in Northwest Ottawa's Future,” delivered to the Chamber, October 2026.
The Wider Picture
The other angles, on the table
The proposal above stands on its own. But the Chamber should also know what else is already built and running around it — each of these is an asset the Chamber and its members can plug into.
Walk the Beat
A live-music community project across Grand Haven and the Tri-Cities, built around local venues, local bands, and a youth pipeline. Its sponsor tiers are open now — from Community Screens at $500/yr up to the Shared Impact Partner tier.
A digital-display network going into local venues — sponsor inventory on real screens in real rooms across the community, with artwork and messaging created and managed for the sponsor. A new, visible way for members to be seen locally.
A wider vision — “One Engine. Many Front Doors.” — bringing local radio, service organizations, and the student engine together around kids, music, and community, each partner independent and united by the cause.
The engine under the workforce in this proposal. A $97/mo membership pays the student affiliate $40 and sends $7 to the local mission — students earn by doing real work for real local businesses, coached as they go.
The same ecosystem is already in front of the schools. Mary Jane Evink, Grand Haven's Director of Curriculum, holds the Education Pipeline Portfolio: eighth graders as the builders who make the technology and content, seniors in the field introducing it to local businesses — students learning by doing real work and earning in the open. Spring Lake has its own edition, built in its own school colors, shared with its Work-Based Learning lead — because this Chamber serves Grand Haven, Spring Lake, and Ferrysburg together, and the talent door opens in all three.
Walk the Beat is the community's music mission: founded by Dave Palmer and carried forward by its president, Becky Newman, it puts 49 bands into 25 venues across town each August and raises money for public school music programs through the Spread the Music Foundation Fund. This fall the work runs year-round — Out on the Beat visits the rooms where the town gathers, finds the bands, and brings them into the directory. It is the part of the picture that makes the rest worth doing: the town's music, funding the next generation of it.
Here is the whole picture in one view. The Chamber's members are the business door — the merchants who come on. The schools are the talent door — the students who build, introduce, and serve. Walk the Beat is the heart — the music that gathers the town around both. And the money is in the open: of every $97 a business pays each month, $40 goes to the student who brought them in, $7 goes to Walk the Beat, and $50 keeps the platform strong. Business, education, and music are not three projects. In this town, they are one circle — and the Chamber sits at the crossing.
It is one pathway, walked from both ends — the pathway for the willing learners and the merchants. Willing learners climb it: eighth-grade builders, seniors in the field, students earning and growing toward expert. Merchants walk it too: a business comes on, is introduced and served by those students, and grows on the same platform. The two pathways meet in the middle — learners need real work to learn from, and merchants need people they can trust to do it. Each side gives the other what it needs.
The First Step
NEEDS ASSESSMENT
Create your Path Plan.
This is it — let's start it. A few questions about your business — the kind only you can answer. Answer them now, at your own pace — or we'll walk them together, your call. Either way, your answers become your Path Plan, and our Path Panel goes to work on them — so when we sit down, we're not starting from zero. We're starting from YOUR words.
A standing Sunday in a local room — live music, the venue keeps its food and drink, and the door raises money for the cause: school music, or a nonprofit's own night.
The pathway runs on a coached method. Michael was trained in Miller Heiman and The One Minute Manager — and every student is coached the same way: clear one-page goals, praise when they get it right, and a redirect that corrects the work without tearing down the person.
“Many times people fail because they are not coached.”
You welcomed a conversation about my work through RezConnect, and about how the Chamber and I can best support each other as members. This portfolio is the homework for it — twenty minutes, starting with BOOMERANG next year and the new Director's first year.
