Mattie Kehl is the Marketing and Community Relations Manager at Homewood Chamber of Commerce. In this interview, she shares how she found her way to this role and talks about her love of coffee.
Q: Tell us a bit about you.
A: Hey, my name is Mattie Kehl and I am the Marketing and Community Relations Manager here at the [Homewood] Chamber.
I am from Alabama, born and raised. I've been in the Birmingham area for about three years now. I'm from, originally, a little town outside of Montgomery called Pike Road.
I went to the University of Alabama, where I studied news media. That's also where I met my husband, and we now have a new little baby. He is about to turn one year old, and his name is Grant.
Photo courtesy of Mattie Kehl
Mattie Kehl, picutred here with her husband and her son.
Q: What’s the best part about living here?
A: I think my favorite part about Homewood is that, although it's actually really quite big, it has this small town feel. I also really like how diverse it is and I think that drives the success of our local businesses, as well as our schools.
Q: How did you decide to pursue your career?
A: Going into college, I actually thought that I wanted to do something in the medical field. I took one math class and that quickly changed. I learned that my strengths were actually in English and reading comprehension, so I actually graduated with a degree in news media. I worked in broadcast news as a reporter for about three years out of school.
But, when we welcomed our first child, I decided to step away from that. But. I really missed being creative and connecting with the community, so this job here at the Homewood Chamber gives me the opportunity to do that.
Q: What’s something about you that people might be surprised to learn?
A: One thing you may be surprised to learn about me is that, although I come across as a pretty upbeat person, I credit that to my caffeine addiction, or, really, coffee addiction. I love coffee, and in Homewood we have some great coffee shops.
Q: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
A: I think if I had to change anything, I would change how I'm always looking for that next thing. I'm always thinking, "What can I do next? What can I get next? What new fun thing can I do next?"
But, I really want to appreciate the now, and I think I could do a lot better at doing that, and I'm excited for this opportunity to be in Homewood and to appreciate all of the nows here in this city in this new job.
