Iowa Transplant Flourishes in Career Promoting Rogers

A native of Iowa, Dana Mather has not only made Northwest Arkansas her home, but has become a tireless ambassador for the region, and for Rogers in particular.

After 12 years working for the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce, Mather recently segued into a new job as promotions and events coordinator for Main Street Rogers.

“I’ve been a volunteer with Main Street since I moved to the area” in 1997, Mather said. “I was spending a lot of time with Main Street work, volunteer work, and I kind of worked my way into the job. That’s kind of what I did at the chamber too, actually. If you become a good enough volunteer, I guess they decide they might want to hire you.”

She first visited Northwest Arkansas to stay at her grandparents’ timeshare in Bella Vista. While enjoying the area’s climate and beauty, she saw an ad for a job opening at the Rogers Hometown News and, on a whim, went in to interview.

When she got back home, she mailed a resume, and within a week was heading back to take the job of managing editor.

During her 2 ½ years at the paper, she did a lot of volunteer work with the chamber, which led to her taking a job there in community development in January 2000.

By the time Mather was named to the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class in 2002, the 32-year-old was the chamber’s vice president of community development and communication. In March 2010, she was promoted to senior vice president.

Reflecting on her years at the chamber, she notes some highlights such as working on a strategic plan called Vision 2025 and working with chamber president and CEO Raymond Burns to gain re-accreditation as a five-star chamber by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“I learned a lot about working with the community there and managing a nonprofit organization, and just met a lot of people there,” Mather said. “I still kind of think of them as my chamber family, the staff and the members that have been around for a long time. So it was hard to leave and try something new, but it was a career opportunity for me too.”

Last year, the board of Main Street Rogers, a nonprofit organization that works to preserve and revitalize Rogers’ downtown historic district, decided it needed to focus on raising awareness of downtown Rogers and of MSR, Mather said.

“They rearranged things so they could hire someone to do promotions,” she said.

Mather started her new job Dec. 27, and has plunged into planning new events for 2012 as well as beefing up MSR’s annual events.

The biggest of these is the Frisco Festival, held each August. This year, Mather said, there’ll be more emphasis on food, live music and and “family fun activities.”

MSR raises money for the festival with an annual golf tournament, but Mather has added a second fundraiser this year — a ladies luncheon April 4 at Serendipity Event Center, in the space that was formerly Belle Arti restaurant.

And to promote the historic district’s restaurants, Mather’s planned a Restaurant Week for April 1-7. Eateries will have three-course menus at a fixed price to encourage people to come sample their fare.

“Most people don’t know we have about 20 restaurants down here,” Mather said.

In fact, 27 new businesses opened in the district last year, she said, and about 95 percent of the space is occupied.

“There’s still open spaces,” she said. “We just have to find the right people for them.”

Despite all the community work her job entails, Mather also volunteers as a board member of Mercy Home Health. She remains active with Northwest Arkansas Emerging Leaders and First Leadership, a program for sophomores and juniors at Rogers and Heritage high schools.

Still, Mather admits she’s trying to find more balance in her life. Her idea of “slowing down” includes getting back into running. Last fall, she ran her first marathon in 20 years, and she’ll run in the Bentonville Half-Marathon on March 31.

She’s also exploring her creative side with photography and painting.

Mather said she and her husband still love their hometown of Cedar Falls, and enjoy visiting — in the summer.

But after nearly 15 years in Northwest Arkansas, “we kind of feel like we’re natives now,” Mather said. “We like the weather and the scenery, it’s beautiful, the people are friendly. It’s just a fun place to call home.”