Elizabeth Bernhard
Executive Director
Elizabeth Bernhard is on a mission to transform communities, one partnership at a time. Elizabeth proudly serves as the Executive Director of the South Haven Regional Business Hub. She was drawn to the organization to make Southwest Michigan a region where entrepreneurs want to start, grow and thrive, all while driving year round regional economic growth. Elizabeth has a wealth of experience in the non-profit and for-profit sectors, ranging from executive nonprofit leadership, to higher education instruction and administration, seminar facilitation, and ecosystem convening.
In her last role, she served as the Executive Director of the Manufacturing Growth Alliance, a statewide trade association supporting Michigan’s small to medium-sized manufacturers. In this capacity she distributed over $4.6M in grant funding from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, to more than 160 Michigan small manufacturers for Industry 4.0 Technology adoption. Certified by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Talent Pipeline Management, she is skilled at solving employers’ talent challenges. Elizabeth has extensive experience supporting Michigan’s most in-demand industries, including energy, healthcare, manufacturing, construction, and hospitality, including such companies as DTE, Stryker, Steelcase, Bronson Healthcare, Consumers Energy, Amway, Corewell, and the Lansing Board of Water and Light.
Elizabeth has successfully integrated her passions into her career, working with at-risk youth, post-9/11 veterans, Latino migrant farmworkers, and justice-involved individuals from around the state to establish a pathway for their career success. She believes that by building innovative and purposeful pathways between our citizens and employers, we can begin to address many of the challenges Michigan, and indeed the nation, faces today. She has a Master of Arts in Communication from Western Michigan University and has been a presenter on “Systemic Redemption – Untapped Talent in Today’s Economy” at the CHRO Executive Summit. She is also a Western Michigan All-University Graduate Research Scholar and has delivered a keynote on “Illuminating the Voices in the Shadows: How Inclusion Impacts Employee Participation.”
While a native of Michigan and fulltime resident of South Haven, Elizabeth has lived in both Spain and India, as well as several large cities in the United States. She is on the board of the Innovate Marquette Smart Zone and the South Haven Yacht Club, and she serves on the Lake Michigan College South Haven Campus Advisory Board. She held prior board positions with the Lake Michigan College Skilled Trades Advisory Committee, South Haven Boating Foundation, Kalamazoo County Office of Community Corrections and the Kalamazoo Covenant Academy. In her free time, you can often find her enjoying Lake Michigan with her husband, Bill, and their boat-loving dog, Pirate. They have four children in their twenties and a three-year-old granddaughter.
