Meet Your Neighbor

Nate Pederson

March 18, 2007

General Manager, Sentry
President, Sun Prairie Chamber of Commerce

When Nate Pederson became president of the Sun Prairie Chamber of Commerce in January, he was well prepared for the role. After all, the third-generation general manager of Conrad's Sentry Foods has repeatedly demonstrated the importance of community service throughout his career.

Sun Prairie Today recently sat down with Nate to learn more about the family business, his chamber involvement and what he sees for our city's future.

Your family's grocery store has been a significant part of this community for many years. Tell us about how it got started.

We're in our 60th year in business. I've been physically working here for 16 years. Going way back, when my grandpa (Joe Conrad) came back from the war, he and his brother bought a small grocery store that was Conrad's Supermarket. This was way downtown ... where Glass Nickel Pizza is now. And then they moved into the shopping center down here (adjacent to the store's current location). At that time, this was considered country. He started from there ... and eventually moved to this site here (1052 W. Main St.).

This week, Copps is opening its doors on the West Side. Will Sentry change its approach at all?

As everybody says, competition is good. As far as how we are going to work with that, we're going to do what we do best: provide excellent customer service; have a clean store; and have a friendly store. We feel we need to do what we've been doing this whole time. It all comes down to the basics -- treating the customer how you'd like to be treated.

Sun Prairie is experiencing rapid growth, with many news businesses expected to follow. How is the chamber responding to this?

With the community getting bigger, hopefully we will play a part in that. I know the business park is getting bigger and bigger. It's great to have some of these businesses that are known nationwide -- for example, Budweiser. As communities grow, it promotes growth for everybody. It goes hand in hand with the businesses that have been here for a long time. As the new businesses come into town, we try to recruit them (to join the chamber).

Is the chamber seeing a growth in membership?

The membership is at an all-time high and it keeps going up. We have roughly 365 members.

What does the chamber stand for?

We like to promote other businesses in town -- that's our main goal. The greatest value is to promote the businesses; to connect them through e-mail; to educate them through seminars; and to advocate for our members. I want to encourage anyone moving into town to join the chamber and look at all the things we have to offer.

How does the chamber raise money for its programs?

Corn Fest is our biggest fundraiser of the year. It is run very well. We've had a lot of practice. The committees have pretty much stayed the same. We get a lot of great volunteers. It's like a well-oiled machine. We know when to start and we know whom to contact. So far everybody has been great about participating.

How well is the chamber functioning as a whole?

We have a great board of people. We have a nice mix. We get a lot of good input from a lot of different sized businesses. There are small businesses and large businesses -- we have people from those all mixed together. Having the meetings and the variety of people that we have, somebody always knows somebody who's coming into town. We try to recruit them that way.

To learn more about the Sun Prairie Chamber of Commerce, visit its Web site.