MetroWest Chamber Hires Rastad as Deputy Director of Diversity & Member Retention

By Jim Giammarinaro

President & CEO of the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce

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FRAMINGHAM – We are very pleased to announce the hiring of an additional position at the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce, Deputy Director of Diversity and Member Retention. We recently completed our posting process and interviews and are extremely pleased to be adding Towma Rastad to our team!

Towma comes to us from Wegmans where she has been employed since 2014. Towma has advanced in her career at Wegmans, moving from Catering Customer Service to Catering Team Leader to Café Manager, to her most recent position of Business Marketing Group Account Representative. Prior to Wegmans

Towma worked for 5 years at Pet Source as their Director of Retail Operations.

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Towma is completing her second year on our Chamber’s Board of Directors. In 2021 she joined the Board’s Executive Committee as Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. She has led the growth of that committee to over 20 participants. In addition, she has led numerous webinars and programs related to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

Towma will be joining the team at our chamber which consists of Stephanie Hirshon (Deputy Director of Marketing and Training), Phyllis Lord (Accounting), Shannon Giordano (our contracted resource for Social Media from Serendipity Social Media) and myself (Jim Giammarinaro, President & CEO).

Our team is dedicated to serving our membership in the four major areas of service requested by our members which are advocacy, networking, training, and marketing.

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We have a busy schedule at the chamber throughout the remainder of the year and have many plans for 2022. We believe our chamber members will benefit from collaboration with business owners from underrepresented populations. In addition, our chamber businesses will benefit from being more inclusive in building their workforces. Our business and non-profit community organizations are looking to fill open positions. The solution to this problem is multi-faceted and will certainly require more diversity in the workplace.

Having a diverse workforce will not only be the right thing to do but the smart thing to do.

The following demographic information provides the data to back up our belief:

1) For the first time in our nation’s history, we have more people over 65 than under 18.
2) By 2030 the over 65 population in our country will increase by 20 million people.
3) When baby boomers are fully retired, the percentage of non-white individuals in the workforce will be 40%.

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Towma will help lead our chamber’s efforts to assist member organizations in adjusting to their more diverse workforces. Specifically, this means connecting with individuals and groups from many races and ethnicities. It also means connections to other groups like veterans and individuals with disabilities.

Creating and implementing plans to increase diversity in the workforce as well as collaboration with diverse businesses will be a big part of our chamber’s future and we are happy to have Towma onboard to help achieve our goals in these areas.

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Editor’s Note: SOURCE and the MetroWest Chamber have formed a partnership. The Chamber’s column will run on Tuesdays on the digital news media outlet.