I’m Caitlyn Cooper. I am the 2010 and 2011 Chair of Emerge Albany. Emerge Albany is the young professionals’ arm of the Albany area Chamber of Commerce serving both Albany and counties that touch Albany, so it’s the Albany MSA we serve. We started off in 2007 with about five members around a table at C & J’s downtown, and we have currently about 400 members that attend our events. So we’ve seen a large surplus of young professionals that come to the Albany community.

Just in Albany, 33 percent of the population is young professionals, so it’s a very large amount of young professionals that need a place to network. We have five arms of Emerge Albany: Government Involvement, Community Affairs which is our philanthropy arm-charity arm of Emerge Albany, Interact which is our social which young folks love to socialize, our Recruitment Arm where we recruit young professionals that have come in through industries and other jobs, and our Professional Development arm.

To become a member of Emerge Albany, you can call the Chamber of Commerce at 434-8700. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter. And again, I’m Caitlyn Cooper, the 2010-2011 Chair of Emerge Albany.