20 years at the Chamber and accolades to spare. President Lisa Johnson celebrates a landmark

There’s something that may surprise you about Bossier Chamber of Commerce President Lisa Johnson. It’s not the fact that 2024 is her twentieth anniversary leading the Chamber of Commerce or that before that she spent 20 years in tourism and marketing, most of that as the vice president of tourism at what was the Shreveport Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau.

It is that, when she was 12, she was already banking the proceeds of her babysitting income and other odd jobs for her wedding. She laughed as she said she did not have a husband picked out, but she knew — already— that she eventually wanted to get married and have a family. “Family was important,” Johnson told the SBC Advocate during a freewheeling discussion at the Bossier Chamber. “I wanted a family! My upbringing, faith, and family was very strong.” When she did get married at age 20, her babysitting savings helped her parents pay for her wedding. “Now,” she said, “I have two beautiful grown boys and five grandchildren.”

That story shows Johnson’s strong single-mindedness of purpose, a strength she has exhibited many times at her current job. Somehow, though, the story also felt incongruous with this professional businesswoman sitting across the table. It was not. Johnson had decided at a young age that she wanted to be married and have children. She wanted a career outside the home. She wanted it all.

“I like to call myself a professional mom,” she said. “I’m not a professional mom in that I am a stay-at-home mom which I title a ‘domestic engineer’, I’m a professional mom meaning that I have my career and my family, and I find the way through God’s grace to make both of them work. That’s what I’ve done all my life.”

If family and faith are important to Johnson — and they are — so, too, is her work ethic. In high school and college she said she worked “all the time.” She worked in retail, she set up and ran a modeling agency, she put on fashion shows, she taught etiquette to young men. She was also committed to staying in Shreveport-Bossier. She remembered that when she graduated from LSUS, she was interviewed on TV. “They (her classmates) were all leaving, going someplace else. I was the only one who said, ‘I’m not leaving, I’m going to stay here in my hometown and make a difference.’”

The Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate asked if she was a walking, talking “We are Bossier” promotion. “I had no intentions of ever leaving, none. You don’t consider that to be lack of ambition, SBC Advocate asked? “I don’t. I call it a strong sense of care and pride and wanting to give back and to make a difference and to understand that this is where I grew up.” “For whatever reason I was ‘I’m not going anywhere.’”

Johnson has lived that early pledge. When she came to the Bossier Chamber in 2004, it was a place in need of a refresh, a cleanup and upgrade, she said. She was the change agent. “We did a full realignment, I got us all automated, upgraded the website, pledged to get to know our members. We did all that.” Once she completed the long internal punch list, she turned outward, looking at better ways to communicate with the Chamber’s customers and provide value to member businesses.

“Back in 70s and 80s it was almost a civic duty for a business to be a member of the Chamber. Then it became us just pushing the envelope (for membership money). Well, businesses are looking for a return on investment and so we really sell on integrity and what is that you need. Who are your markets? Who are you trying to reach? What can I do to help you? We’re the connection agency.”

Over the years, her job has morphed to include not only those Chamber basics but advocacy and public policy that — more and more — includes outreach to Baton Rouge and Washington, DC.

She has also recognized unfilled needs in the community and pushed to fill them. One was in assisting incoming military families navigate the Bossier school system. “I raised money to hire a military transition consultant for a two-year pilot program that partnered with the school system to help military families as they were coming in.” That position was retained as a school-system funded employee.

Johnson also led the push to win a military friendly Chamber designation, led a letter-writing campaign to fund the I-20/220 interchange going into Barksdale Air Force Base, and supported the missions of BAFB, the National Cyber Research Park and BRF — heavy hitters, all.

She believes there is a partnership role between local education and the Chamber. “K through 12 education is our future work force, it is an element of the Chamber of Commerce. We want to keep these children here, to stay, work and build their families here. We have such a large out-migration it’s going to take all of us to change that.”

At the same time, she is proud of how the Chamber supports small and local businesses, which make up 80% of her membership, and is thrilled that 38% of her members are from Shreveport, proof, she feels that “we can continue to grow and prosper if we work together.”

She and her staff of five recently jumped into important community development by creating a community development institute. They are handling a large survey on quality of life, knowing that phrase means different things to different people. They are working to support businesses affected by I-20 construction. She is filling the voids. “We’re never not busy,” she said with a smile.

When asked, she said she has no plans to leave in the short-term. What about the long? “Well, I’ve been here 20 years,” Johnson said, “and you never know what the future holds.”

The work of the Chamber is important, she repeated, but reminded businesses they have an obligation, too. “It’s kind of like a gym membership- you get out of it what you put into it.” With that, this “professional mom” walked to an employee’s office to prepare for her next meeting.