Summit aims to help women in the Four Corners flourish in their careers

FARMINGTON, N.M. — Four years ago, the president and CEO of the Farmington Chamber of Commerce were chatting with some community members about what type of event Farmington was missing the mark on.

“We started talking about the idea of a professional women’s summit and realized there wasn’t really an event in the Four Corners region that was specifically designed for professional development for women,” Church said.

Church added that professional women have a lot on their plate.

“Especially when you have childcare that you’re think about or what’s going on in the home life and how are you transitioning or working with that in your career life,” Church said.

So to help busy women make connections in their professional career, Church helped organize the first Four Corners Professional Women’s Summit in 2019.

“We really want to make sure that every year when we get our speakers that people are really taking away information of knowledge that they can use in their work place but also in their personal life and also in their community,” Church said.

This year’s theme is teaching women all about how to re-invent themselves.

“It’s sort of focused on how we re-invent ourself in our personal lives but also our professional and our career lives but also how communities sometimes re-invent themselves,” Church said.

Church added that the event has grown in the last four years. The attendance of the first one was just 75, and now she expects this year’s summit on Oct. 12 to exceed 250 attendees.