LAPLACE — The River Region Chamber of Commerce will hold its annual banquet and installation of officers Jan. 13 at the St. John the Baptist Parish Community Center, 2900 U.S. 51 in LaPlace.

Registration and networking will begin at 11 a.m. The program will begin at 11:30 a.m. The cost is $40 for members and $60 for non-members.

Those interested may pre-preregister at riverregionchamber.org.

Under  “Events” on the left side of the page, scroll to “2016 Annual Banquet and Installation of Officers” and click “Register Now.”

Call 985-359-9777 for more information.

This year’s guest speaker is economic consultant Dr. Loren C. Scott, former chairman of the Economics Department at LSU and a well-known speaker on the state of the economy.

Among the officers to be installed are Annette Wray of Cox Communications as the 2016 Chair, Kim Bourgeois of Louisiana Federal Credit Union as the Chair-Elect, Aaron Cancienne of Postlethwaite and Netterville as treasurer and Perry Waguespack of Preferred Home Mortgage as secretary. Chassity McComack will continue as the Executive Director of the River Region Chamber.

Bourgeois said 2015 was a good year for the organization.

“One of the highlights was a membership expansion we did, which brought in 60 new members in a three-day period,” Bourgeois said. “It was a very successful year for us.”

Wray said the focus for 2016 will be on serving those members, old and new.

“People don’t always understand what we do,” Wray said. “We really don’t want people to see us as an event organization. We are a support and a resource for our members. We want to make sure our members really get that value out of their membership.”

One of the ways the group intends to do that is through a new business development initiative to help local businesses, especially the smaller ones.

“We want to raise awareness for both young adults as well as local residents,” Wray said. “One of the things we find is that business owners don’t really have a lot of time because they’re working in their business rather than working on their business.