As a special addition to our member promotion services, the Chamber is now offering a free Featured Member Profile, which will be printed in the Chamber View and posted on the website for a month, then moved into a prominently-placed online archive for the remainder of the year.  To win this free publicity, just drop your business card into the Featured Member Fishbowl at each monthly Networking Mixer and be present for the drawing.  For more information, call the Chamber, 410-719-9609.

Featured Member

November 2010

Smart Choices? Kirby Spencer Rises to Prominence
On Catonsville's Main Street and Beyond

"I sometimes wonder if I'm making the smartest choices," muses Kirby Spencer in the  new conference/dining room upstairs in her flagship property at 815 Frederick Road. The sun is blazing through the wide window behind her, reflecting off the gleaming table made of timbers reclaimed during the demolition of Ship's Café's new parking lot. Downstairs, there's a restrained hubbub of midmorning business at Atwater's.

"I've been making decisions from my heart, based on the love of this community," she adds with a smile. "And heart and head don't always agree."

From the results she's gained over the past few years, however, it would seem her decisions have balanced the two in building prosperity for local businesses, including her own.

It's been quite a ride for this Alexandria, VA native who "was warmly welcomed by the people of Catonsville" upon her arrival in the 1987. She jumped into getting involved in the community, starting with the school systems her three children attended.

Later, she earned her real estate license and her commercial real estate certification with Catonsville's local Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. Her passion for environmental responsibility led her to earning the Green Real Estate Professional Leadership Certification.  She now serves on several planning committees that help determine the future of her adopted town.

Kirby continued to further her community involvement in 1990, when she helped to form the Old Catonsville Neighborhood Association, later helping to build the OCNA's residential wind energy co-op (the first of its kind in Maryland) through Clean Currents.

Catonsville's business district was her next focus. With the help of low-interest economic development loans, she rehabilitated her historic commercial property in cooperation with Ned Atwater, providing Catonsville with a local coffee shop and a local home for Clean Currents' 100% renewable energy program.

Then, in July 2010, she says, "through my passion for leaving a better environment for our children, I discovered a company with similar goals: a third party electricity (and soon to be gas) service providing 20% renewable energy, saving customers from 10% to 15% annually, working within the BGE/Pepco market, with no contracts and no fees to sign up or cancel." The company is Viridian, which Kirby hopes, between its direct marketing model and her own high-powered  drive, will soon take the Catonsville business district and Mid-Atlantic region by storm.

What's next for Kirby Spencer? "I want to keep the positive energy that I'm seeing in Catonsville moving forward," she says. "I'd love to bring more retail to the village, continue participating in the long-range planning work of the Catonsville 2020 committee, and continue working within my current board appointments for the UMBC Research Park and the Old Catonsville Neighborhood Association.".

"The secret is out and I believe Catonsville is "the" place to live. I can only imagine what the future has in store."

 Past Featured Members