Bruce Wallace, long-time Director for the Murphysboro Chamber of Commerce, announced today that he will be leaving his position with the chamber to join Affordable Gas & Electric (AGE) as an Energy Consultant.

Wallace has been the chamber’s director for the past 5 years and has led the chamber in marketing, branding and technology utilization allowing for greater visibility and awareness.  Bruce was also a former member and past Chairman of the Jackson County Economic Development organization, Jackson Growth Alliance.

Mr. Wallace was also instrumental as one of the original chamber directors, bringing the Murphysboro Chamber of Commerce into the Southern Illinois Chamber of Commerce Bulk Electricity and Natural Gas Buying Group.  The Buying Group is coordinated by AGE, aggregating and negotiating bulk electricity and natural gas rates for chamber members from several chambers including Carbondale, Marion, Herrin, Jefferson County, Carterville, West Frankfort, Benton and Wallace’s Murphysboro Chamber of Commerce.  Wallace has guided a number of his members to significant savings on electricity through their participation in the buying group, including City of Murphysboro, Jackson County Government, 17th Street Bar & Grill, Murphysboro Schools and many others.

“Our relationship with our chamber partners is extremely important, so hiring Bruce away from the Murphysboro Chamber was initially a concern, but was outweighed by the opportunity for Bruce personally” said Jeff Haarmann, Managing Partner of AGE.  “Bruce will continue to support the Murphysboro Chamber but will now become deeply involved in supporting AGE’s relationship with all of our chamber partners.  We are extremely excited to have someone of Bruce’s knowledge and experience as part of our team.  He has demonstrated a sound understanding of the benefits our program brings to chambers as well as to our customers.”

Wallace added, “I still plan to remain active in community and economic development issues.  My role with AGE encourages time for me to work more closely on these types of specific issues, but will now allow me to provide a private-sector perspective as well.  I’m very excited about this new opportunity to become more involved throughout Southern Illinois economies.”

Affordable Gas & Electric is based in Mt. Vernon, IL and serves over 600 commercial and industrial customers throughout Southern Illinois and represents over 60 community residential aggregation programs.