DETROIT, February 11, 2011 -- Today, the Detroit Regional Chamber announced Timothy L. Nasso has accepted a special assignment with the Chamber as senior advisor to the president for economic development. The purpose of this assignment is to help launch the Chamber's newly re-energized economic development portfolio focused on domestic and global business investment in Southeastern Michigan to support job creation and capital investment.

The Chamber is aggressively moving to emphasize economic development as a core function with new priorities including:

• Detroit Regional Economic Partnership 2.0, a regional collaboration in economic development to focus on domestic and international business attraction as well as presenting the region in a unified manner;
• Open Innovation, a supplier diversification effort;
• MICHauto, an automotive accelerator focused on attraction and retention of the automotive industry cluster to Michigan.

Nasso has more than 25 years of corporate public affairs and international business development experience. His previous roles included Vice President of Corporate Executive Affairs for The Dow Chemical Company, reporting directly to Dow CEO, Andrew Liveris, and Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Dow Automotive. Before joining Dow Automotive, Nasso was the Director of Public Affairs and Trade Development at the Consulate of Italy.

"Nasso will play a critical role assisting in ramping-up the Chamber's new and more aggressive focus on economic development, said Sandy K. Baruah, president and chief executive officer of the Detroit Regional Chamber. "He will also lead the Chamber's Open Innovation project and assist with the launch of MICHauto."

The Chamber is in the process of making additional hires to support its growing economic development program, including a new Senior Vice President for Economic Development.

About the Detroit Regional Chamber
With over 20,000 members and affiliates, that employ over three quarters of a million workers, the Detroit Regional Chamber is one of the largest Chambers of commerce in the country. The Chamber's mission is carried out through business attraction efforts, advocacy, strategic partnerships and valuable benefits to members. For more information please visit, detroitchamber.com.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jaime Patlevic
313-596-0344
jpatlevi@detroitchamber.com