Business leaders from around Northwest Indiana came together on Thursday, March 7, for Crossroads Chamber’s Annual Business Excellence Awards Ceremony. Hosted at the Dean & Barbara White Community Center, the event celebrated the businesses, nonprofits, and individuals that help make the Region what it is.
First hosted four years ago, the event features nine different awards with the nominees decided by Crossroads Chamber members. Each award honors a different set of accomplishments and categories, from spearheading remarkable sales growth to championing a philanthropic cause throughout Northwest Indiana.
“We have chamber members encompassing all different sizes and types of businesses, so it’s really important for us to find ways to cover all of those bases,” said Deann Patena, president and CEO of Crossroads Chamber. “These are people in this community who deserve to be recognized and honored for their work.”
This year, the chamber added a new award to the ceremony – the Rising Star Award. Given to an employee rather than a business owner, director, or other leader, it is meant to recognize excellence in individuals early in their careers.
“It’s meant for up and comers in their organizations or companies,” Patena said. “We’re really excited about it because it offers another perspective. You don’t have to be a top-level leader to be recognized and make an impact.”
Crossroads Chamber board member and chairman of the Business Excellence Awards, as well as Merrillville town councilman, Shawn Petitt spearheads the awards each year and served as MC for the evening. He stressed that the awards are one way of celebrating the large role the businesses recognized play in the Region – economically and beyond.
“I’ve always said, for myself here in particular with Merrillville, that businesses are the backbone of the community,” he said. “The impact that the business community has is astronomical, we go from 36,000 people to a daytime population of close to 100,000 people because of the business community. Those workers coming in and working in Merrillville – we greatly appreciate that.”
The winners of this year’s set of awards were:
- Business Leader – John Jordan, owner of CertaPro Painters of Northwest Indiana
- Business Success – Superior Air-Ground Ambulance Service
- Non-Profit – MAAC Foundation
- Corporate Responsibility – Purdue Federal Credit Union
- Legacy – The Pangere Corporation
- Volunteer of the Year – Ryan Peterson, Chicago Title Northwest Indiana
- Minority Business – Sons of David
- Young Entrepreneur – Jacob Kiefer, This is Jacobs Rugs
- Rising Star – Linda Rosas, Town of Merrillville
Jordan, who is also the chamber’s current chairman of the board, said the recognition came as a total surprise.
“Over the years, you do a lot and hope that you can make an impact somewhere,” he said. “You don’t really do it for an award, but it’s an honor to be recognized. It’s kind of like a path. You do good things, you make investments in your community, you hire good people, you create opportunities for others, and you benefit from that. You take care of all those things in between, and the outcomes take care of themselves.”
Sherry Sink, director of business development Indiana division at Superior Ambulance, echoed similar thoughts – with tears in her eyes as she accepted the award.
“It’s a great accomplishment, we’ve been in business for 65 years and expanded to five states,” she said. “It’s a hard road. Coming back from COVID especially – with everything we’ve done to enlighten the community about it, doing tests for them. It was a long road, and we’re still working to find EMTs and paramedics every day.”
To learn more about Crossroads Chamber, visit crossroadschamber.org.
