For Paul Hayes, moving around the world hasn’t changed the fact that Brown County has always been home.

Now, he’s back living in the community and ready to serve businesses and tourists as the administrative and outreach professional for the Brown County Chamber of Commerce and the Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau. He is the first person to fill this newly created job.

The two organizations hadn’t worked jointly together before, but Hayes, 33, said it’s inspiring to see a drive for both to be “huge advocates” for the community.

On the chamber side, he’s working on organization, completely revamping the website, working on effective membership communication and development advocacy. With the CVB, he’s working on marketing strategies and to eventually get the Visitors Center open again. The Visitors Center, at the southern entrance to Nashville on Van Buren Street, has been closed since December because of funding constraints.

This shared CVB-chamber position was created by chamber President Greg Fox and CVB Executive Director Jane Ellis. It’s funded by both entitities.

“We’re curators of this destination,” Hayes said about both organizations.

Officially, Hayes’ duties include serving as “the administrative and marketing face of the Brown County Chamber of Commerce” and providing administrative support to the chamber and CVB, under the direction of Ellis, according to the job posting. He’s also responsible for the administration and marketing of chamber membership, and communications with the business community.

He hopes that as the pandemic releases people “back into the wild,” he will become an ambassador for businesses, going door to door and gaining their trust. He also aims to do more with social media in the near future to reach tourists.

Hayes was raised in Brown County, then he and his family moved around quite a bit, living in the northern Indianapolis suburbs, Arizona and the Ukraine. They returned to Indiana for his senior year of high school. He lived in Indianapolis for eight years and then moved to Brown County last summer.

“I feel like I’ve lived a bunch of places, but have only ever been able to call Brown County home,” he said.

Hayes spent five-and-a-half years at the Indianapolis Arts Center, where he got involved with the nonprofit world, which he was looking at getting back into when he moved back to Brown County. He saw the job positing on the chamber’s Facebook page and decided to apply. He was hired in January 2021.

“I’ve moved around so much, this being the place I call home, I saw the importance of needing leadership in this town and area as we came out of the pandemic,” he said. “I was really excited to get back here, get involved and see what could be done.”

To the community, Hayes wishes to stress the point that he loves what he’s doing. He said the joint leadership of Fox and Ellis has been incredible, and he hopes to give some of their great focus back to the county and tourism communities.

“I love this town and area. I always have,” he said. “I hope to work tirelessly and for many years for the land and people here. I can’t wait to see where this goes and what I can do.”

CONTACT HIM

Paul Hayes can be reached at [email protected].