Chamber job was spark for life-sciences leader

Who: Mike Brooks, chief executive

of the Indiana Health Industry Forum

I got my first big break not long after I graduated from Purdue University. I just didn't know it at the time.

I received a degree in education and ended up working for the Sagamore Council of the Boy Scouts of America as an executive of the Exploring program. I was working in Kokomo, then I was transferred to a job just outside Cleveland.

I came back to work for Penn Dixie Steel Corp. in Kokomo. Herman Stein, who I knew from the Boy Scouts, became a chamber executive in Kokomo. When he was promoted to president, he offered me the job he'd been promoted from: membership director.

The steel company was on its way down and ended up going out of business. The position with the chamber was exactly what needed to happen, because I would have been out of a job anyway.

At the time, I didn't even know what chamber of commerce management was, or that such a career path existed, until my buddy took the job as membership director at the Kokomo chamber.

I was 23 or 24 years old. I'd never had any involvement with a chamber of commerce.

From Kokomo, I went to Mount Vernon for two years and then on to Bloomington, where I was president of the chamber for nine years, then to Lafayette as president of the economic development corporation for 14 years.

I left Lafayette in September 2004 for Utah State University, where my job was to engage the university as part of the state's economy. Kermit Hall, who was president of Utah State, was to Utah what Purdue University President Martin Jischke has been to Indiana.

He saw the university as a partner and engine for the state's economic growth.

But four or five months after I got there, he left, and the dynamics there changed.

Fortunately, Wade Lange decided to move on from this position at the Indiana Health Industry Forum, which provided me the opportunity to come back to Indiana. Fundamentally, the jobs are very, very similar.

Like a chamber of commerce, we represent the life-sciences and health industry in Indiana. We were one of the first across the country. There are now 42 or 43 state-based organizations focused on the life-sciences and health-based industries around the country now.

When I went to Utah, I never expected to be back in Indiana. You feel very fortunate when you find an occupation that's fun, exciting, challenging and rewarding.

________________

MIKE BROOKS

Age: 58.

Job title: President and chief executive officer.

Employer: Indiana Health Industry Forum.

About the Forum: Economic development organization that promotes Indiana as a premier location for the health industry.

Personal: Wife, Kitty, and four children.