New officers for Katy Area Chamber of Commerce include from left, Troy Maxwell, board chairman, Richard White, treasurer, Beth Nightingale, secretary, Tad Adams, immediate past board chairman and in front, Kerry Gilbert, incoming vice chair and Ann Hodge, CEO. Suzanne Rehak photo

J. Troy Maxwell, founder of WoodCreek Development Co., is serving a second consecutive term as chairman of the board for the Katy Area Chamber of Commerce. He was inducted Jan. 20.

“Serving two consecutive terms, I get to continue helping the community,” he said. “It’s a time-consuming project. It does eat into my time. I do it because I care.”

“He’s experienced with the chamber and doesn’t have to learn the ropes,” said Chamber president and chief executive officer Ann Hodge. “Equally important is we have a strong business leader who understands what it takes to run a business and is very sensitive to the needs of the business community.”

His team includes Kerry Gilbert of Kerry R. Gilbert & Associates as vice chairman, Beth Nightingale of Absolutely! KATY as secretary and Richard White of Granite Harbor Advisors as treasurer. Tad Adams of Adams Law Firm is immediate past chairman.

What Adams, who served two consecutive terms as chairman from 2006-07, likes about Maxwell is that “he understands the challenges faced by many people trying to balance family and work and he does it as well as anyone I’ve seen.”

Maxwell, 39, and his wife, Keri, have two children, Tyler, 10, and Lauren, 4.

Adams sees Maxwell as “a very important figure in Katy’s history.”

“As a community-minded visionary, he looks to see what a community is all about and helps take it to the next logical level,” Adams said.

A Houston-area developer since 1994, Maxwell founded WoodCreek Development Co. in 1999. It has projects throughout the area, including Katy, Magnolia and Port Arthur.

Maxwell said he fell in love with Katy and moved there in 1999. He grew up in the Lufkin/Diboll area where he said “people cared and gave their time but not like Katy.

“I wasn’t used to a chamber doing what this chamber does,” Maxwell said.

The chamber is unique because of its geographic area, both Adams and Maxwell said. The chamber includes not only the city of Katy, but also the surrounding area that’s part of the Katy Independent School District and in three counties — Harris, Fort Bend and Waller.

Because of the diverse governments, there isn’t one voice that can speak for the greater Katy community, except the chamber, which gets involved in issues and projects, Adams said.

Maxwell said the only other group that promotes the entire area is the Katy Area Economic Development Council, which the chamber brought in.

“In early 2000, before I became a member, I started learning about it and this is not a normal chamber,” Maxwell said. “It helps with the quality of life and helps members get more people come in and purchase things from them.”

He noted, for example, that the chamber advocated for the Katy area when Fort Bend County had a bond election for road improvements, which included Katy-area roadways.

Maxwell said his top goals are to attract new members, retain current members and continue promotion of the greater Katy area as the best place in the region – and possibly the nation – to live. The Gadberry Group announced earlier this month that Katy is fifth on its list of nine notable high-growth areas in the United States in 2009.

Having traveled and lived throughout the country, Maxwell called Katy “a very special place with a great bunch of people.”

But he cautions that chamber membership is more than just paying dues.

“If you just pay dues and don’t get involved, you’ll not see it,” he said.