The region's business voice is between leaders right now.

The Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce is running a nationwide search for a new President and CEO. Jim Roche is interim President after Matt Baumgartner's summer departure.

The Chamber speaks for Northland business in rooms you and I never enter. It endorsed the $12M school levy and backed the Hermantown data center. Those positions shape your taxes, your energy costs, your hiring pool. A new CEO inherits them and sets the next ones.

The Chamber says the search will seek stakeholder engagement. Transitions are when an organization is most shapeable. If the Chamber speaks for businesses like yours, the search is when your voice counts, not after the hire. Show up now.

Your business is about to get 160 new neighbors.

Sofidel is finishing its $200 million expansion of the Duluth paper mill this year. 160 new jobs, triple the old workforce, in a 600,000-square-foot plant with an automated warehouse. The state backed it with $5 million in incentives.

Meanwhile on the Range, Mesabi Metallics is hiring 200 operators for a new mine built around advanced automation and digital controls. The new industrial jobs arriving in the Northland come with software running the floor.

The question for your shop: what do you sell to, hire from, or supply into a region where the big plants are new and automated? The jobs multiplier is real, but the supply chain it creates looks different. Watch who wins the contracts.

Hi, I'm Jennifer Hale. How do other small business owners manage their bookkeeping challenges? Owning Straight Arrow Bookkeeping, I've seen many unique approaches, and I'm curious to learn about yours!