Michael Mahler fills economic director position at Alpena Area Chamber of Commerce

ALPENA, Mich. — If you’ve patronized M–Bank over the years, you may be familiar with Michael Mahler and his work in the community. Since his retirement at the bank, he’s stepped into a new role at the Alpena Area Chamber of Commerce. Mahler left his position as the executive vice president of M–Bank in June of 2019. He’s now serving economic development director for the area. When asked what brought him out of retirement, Mahler said,

“I knew there was only like two things that would maybe interest me enough to come out of retirement and this happened to be one of those two things.”

Mahler’s no stranger to the job. He’s worked closely with the previous economic development director while in his previous position. He says now that’s he’s taken the job, he has big plans for growth in the area.

“Anything we can do to help spur economic investment in this community and job creation in this community, and not just in this community, but also outside of this community.”

Some of the first things on his to–do list include occupying the John Henry building with retailers and apartments, and developing the empty space downtown where an alpena power building was once situated, to name a few. Overall, he looks forward to what the job has in store.

“There’ll be no shortage of effort expended to try to get these things to move forward.”