GUILDERLAND — Michelle Viola-Straight, owner of the Route 20 Cafe & Newsstand, is the new president of the Guilderland Chamber of Commerce, replacing Cheryl Lasher, who resigned in April after just a year at the helm.

Viola-Straight, who started in the position July 5, hopes to establish more direct lines of connection between the chamber and the school district, offering students in Guilderland’s high school and even in its middle school opportunities for internships, job shadowing, and community service, she said this week, and had already spoken with the district superintendent about it. Superintendent Marie Wiles confirmed that the two had had a “very promising conversation.”

The new president also plans to establish similar connections with the University at Albany’s career development program.

Viola-Straight also hopes to expand the chamber’s reach. Despite the Guilderland name, the chamber already has members from Voorheesville and Slingerlands, she said, and hopes to “really do a big push” into more outlying areas such as Berne, Knox, Westerlo, Delanson, and Duanesburg, which she said currently “don’t have a voice.”

“Economic growth in our Hilltowns is definitely much needed,” Viola-Straight said, and the needs of businesses in more rural areas are “very unique.” Her plan is for the chamber to work closely with rural companies, helping them to thrive, and also encouraging the growth of new business.

Viola-Straight worked in real estate for 10 years. She then took a position with Living Resources, teaching life skills to adults with disabilities, and eventually moved up to a management position, where, she says, she was able to focus more on lobbying. She would teach lobbying skills to the program’s clients and would travel with them to Albany, where they would voice their opinions about why they did not want funding for programs cut, and how cuts would affect them.

Viola-Straight raised three children in Altamont, with her husband, Scot Straight, who is a police officer in Philmont, in Columbia County, and a salesman at DeNooyer Chevrolet. Their oldest child, son Christian, is a Marine. Daughter Nicole studies at Oneonta and son Anthony attends Schenectady County Community College. All attended Guilderland schools.

What Viola-Straight brings to the post of president, she said, is enthusiasm.

“When I came to town 20 years ago, my first stop was the chamber,” she said. She felt welcomed there, and came away with her “arms filled with information” about area schools, towns, businesses, and hospitals. She wants other people to feel the same way.

Viola-Straight will be working full-time at the chamber.

One of her passions is her volunteer work with veterans and military families. “There’s a special bond between parents that have raised military children,” she said.

She was able to go on a Patriots Flight last year, she said, to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D. C. She went as “guardian” to an 80-year-old veteran, which means, she said, that, “You stay with the person all day and make the experience as good as you possibly can for that person.”

As for the café, she is blessed, she said, to have an “amazing group” of employees who are “very well-trained in pretty much every aspect.” On Saturdays and any days off, she can be found at the café, cooking.

Her husband apparently shares her stamina, because on Sundays he works at the café with her.