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He grew up in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, but Maury Burgwin is fast becoming a McKeesporter --- by profession and by choice.

"The perception out there is that this is a rusted-out, dead valley, and it's not," says Burgwin, who is about to wrap up his first year as executive director of the recently renamed Mon Yough Area Chamber of Commerce. "This is a very vibrant community with a lively citizenship. The people in this valley are quite grounded, and quite real.

"Quite frankly, this region has a different dynamic to it --- and I've fallen in love with it," he says. The chamber serves 35 communities, from West Homestead south to Jefferson Hills, and from Castle Shannon east to the Westmoreland County line.

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Burgwin came to the chamber in 2010 from the Institute for Management Studies, an executive training organization with offices in 24 international cities, including Pittsburgh. It wasn't an auspicious time to join what was then called the "Regional Chamber Alliance."

He took over an organization that some local elected officials (and the Almanac) viewed as adrift and even aloof from the communities it was supposed to serve.

Despite absorbing several neighboring chambers of commerce, membership in the McKeesport-based RCA had dwindled to 220 organizations and some longtime activities had been suspended. There were "wounds that needed to be healed," says Burgwin, a graduate of Washington & Jefferson College and Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College.

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Restoring the old name was one way that the chamber's board decided to heal some of those wounds, Burgwin says. Once known as the Mon-Yough Chamber of Commerce, the group went through a series of mergers before becoming the "RCA" in 2007.

"We wanted to rename and recommit ourselves to this valley," Burgwin says. "When I told people that we were the 'Regional Chamber Alliance,' they would say, 'What is a regional chamber alliance?'"

"Mon Yough Area Chamber" is a name that "clearly defined who we are and what we do," Burgwin says.

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What it is and what it does, he says, is "building consensus and building partnerships," between local companies and between companies and elected officials. (Burgwin's predecessor had a penchant for writing scathing editorials in the chamber's publications that attacked local and state officials and organizations --- often by name.)

The chamber needs to partner with local governments to promote the Mon Valley and make sure that business owners have a voice on important issues of the day, Burgwin says --- including the debate over drilling for natural gas in Marcellus shale.

"It's going to be a very big deal in this valley for the next five or 10 years," he says. "We are sitting on 100 years of energy, and we get our act together, we can capitalize on that and create a hub of activity to serve that industry. ... but let's work together and cooperate to do this (in a) smart way."

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Burgwin's own background includes stints at businesses large and small. He's built scenery for Broadway stage shows and sold bonds to major investors, and he worked closely with the late John Connelly as the founder of the Gateway Clipper Fleet opened riverboat casinos in Iowa, Missouri and Mississippi.

"Ninety percent of my members have five or fewer employees --- in many cases, they're classic mom-and-pop businesses," Burgwin says, "and I have that perspective, but I also have a corporate perspective and a political perspective."

Many success stories in the Mon Valley either aren't going reported, he says, or are under-reported. One such is Dura-Bond --- which operates the old McKeesport Pipe Coating plant in Liberty Borough --- and which recently announced plans to open a new, 55,000-square-foot plant in Duquesne.

Another, says Burgwin, is Book Country, one of the nation's largest book wholesalers, which wants to expand its warehousing operation in the city's Christy Park neighborhood.

"I admire the staying power of the people here," Burgwin says. "This is a very hardworking, grounded group of people who work their butts off to make a living."

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Membership has begun to rebound. The Mon Yough chamber now counts 360 businesses and has a goal of 700. Burgwin says he pitches prospective members on the idea that the chamber is both an advocacy group and a way for business owners to meet --- and do business with --- other business owners.

The chamber also wants to resume an active role in recruiting companies and entrepreneurs to the Mon Valley region, he says, adding that it may take someone who isn't from the area to appreciate what it has to offer --- including commercial opportunities along the rivers that have yet to be explored.

"This valley has been through hell over the last 30 years, but there is unbelievable opportunity here," Burgwin says. "I tend to be an optimist. I don't ask why --- I ask why not?"

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