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Lorraine Clarno, president of the Beaverton Area Chamber of Commerce, likes to give out a top 10 list of reasons why it’s a good idea to join the chamber. Those reasons, she says, include: political and legislative advocacy, economic devel-opment, networking (virtually and in person), pro-motion and publicity, tourism programs, informa-tion (about issues impacting your ability to do business), discounts, referrals, community involvement and credibility.

And Nancy Bruton, of the Sherwood Area

Chamber of Commerce, takes a completely differ-ent approach.

“When I began my position as executive director at the Sherwood Chamber of Commerce, I was plagued by the best way to respond to this question,” she says. “That is because the chamber of commerce benefits so many unique types of organizations — large and small businesses, nonprofit organizations, city entities — that there is no perfect response to this question.

“At the Western Association of Chamber Executives Academy that I attended in the summer of 2010, they answered it in a unique way,” she says. “Ask yourself why you shouldn’t join the chamber.”

And some of those reasons not to, according to Bruton, might include these: “You have too many clients.You don’t support the community.You have no need for cost-effective advertising and promo-tion opportunities. You don’t like referrals. You are never affected by political decisions regarding business. You have no need to meet others. You know everything there is about operating a suc-cessful business. You make too much profit. In other words, she insists, “There is no short-age of benefits to being a chamber member in any community.”

All local chambers have a lengthy list of pro-grams designed to give the owner of a small busi-ness more exposure to and contact with his or her community, to other business owners, to local gov-ernment and to potential customers. There are enough breakfast, lunch and dinner networking opportunities to fit into any busy person’s sched-ule, not to mention the important business and pol-icy meetings, the awards banquets, golf and bowl-ing events, fundraisers, the directory of chamber members, and countless kinds of educational and mentoring opportunities.

“You don’t have to be ‘social’ to get your mem-bership working for you right away,” says Clarno, confronted by the prospect that a business owner may not be as interested in the fun and games as the opportunities to learn from others. “Our web-

t wasn’t all that long ago that the Baby Boom Generation, when it wasn’t being called the Me Generation, was also known as the Sandwich Generation, because its members were often caring for their parents — of the Greatest Generation — at the same time they were raising their children, the Gen-Xers. Now, as the Boomers grow older (the Pew Research Institute says 10,000 of the oldest Boomers will turn 65 every day for the next 19 years), the filling inside that “sandwich” is changing to fit the evolving needs of its namesake.

And, businesses that cater to Baby Boomers are pop-ping up almost as fast as the Boomers themselves did between 1946 and 1964, when 79 million babies were born in the U.S. in the years just after the end of World War II.

There are insurance companies hawking new products that cover the long-term care needs of plan-ahead Boomers, vitamin companies whose wares promise Boomers that, yes indeed, they can keep the fountain of youth flowing, and travel agency packages for Boomers who want to cruise the world along with their same-age cohorts.

In Washington County and beyond, Boomers are in good hands when it comes to at least two aspects of their lives: their carefully preserved health and their inevitable demise.

Even though Boomers have often self-identified as a demographic that’s afraid to age, they are aging anyhow — and as they inch ever closer to the Great Beyond, there’s at least one Oregon business that’s interested in tapping into those with a wizened penchant for environ-mentalism.

“We Baby Boomers have the education and the vocab-ulary, unlike our parents, to articulate what we mean when we say we want to live in harmony with the world around us,” said Cynthia Beal, 52, owner of the Natural Burial Co. in Eugene, which sells biodegradable caskets and urns to individuals and morticians specializing in “green” funerals.

Most Boomers, Beal acknowledged, aren’t naturally predisposed to the idea of crossing over in anything less than a traditional coffin or box. But as the practices of recycling and composting have gained popularity, so has the mindset of a generation that’s not particularly known for its earth-consciousness.

“As far as natural burials go, many Boomers still don’t know it exists,” noted Beal, who’ll be speaking on the topic at the 2011 Northwest Freethought Alliance confer-ence at Portland State University on March 26. “They think it’s illegal, so they haven’t gotten any information about it.”

Still, as Boomers increasingly watch their elders face end-of-life decisions and as word spreads that they have

more choices than ever before about how to negotiate their final exit, many will choose to go naturally, Beal believes.

“I’m catering primarily to the Baby Boomers who are planning ahead for themselves while helping to plan for their parents,” she said, adding that she works with 30 to 40 cemeteries within a 40-mile radius of Eugene that offer vault-free interments, including River View Cemetery in Portland.

She also does business with a smattering of funeral parlors in the Portland area, including Mt. Scott Funeral Home, providing them with woven urns and coffins made of all-natural materials.

“Even though the funeral industry has been extremely slow to work with us, nine out of 10 now offer the basics of a natural burial — no embalming and a biodegradable casket,” noted Beal.

A website, naturalend.com, lists all the cemeteries cur-rently making space for vault-free burials, she added. “Death happens every day,” Beal said. “If we want it a certain way, we need to plan it. No one else is going to do that for us.

“Baby Boomers never met an institution they didn’t want to change or improve, and that includes those sur-rounding death.”

But what can Boomers who still feel and look as good as they used to — thanks to good genes or synthetic solu-tions or a combination of both — do to keep on living the dream?

Head on over to Baby Boomer Fitness Solutions on Cedar Hills Boulevard in central Beaverton and talk to owner Belinda Balogh.

“I’m a Boomer, too . . . I had my kids a little late,” noted Balogh, whose daughters, teenagers Chelsea and Kaitlyn, help around the studio when they’re not in school. “What we want is to be healthy, because most of us are really looking forward to doing more than our par-ents were able to do.

“It’s a fear we have — we look at our parents and grandparents and say, ‘Wow, I’d like to feel better than that, be more active than they were able to be.’” To that end, Balogh and her staff offer one-on-one fit-ness training and group exercise classes tailored to the goals of individual clients. The most common complaints she hears are back and knee pain, shoulder pain, fatigue and sciatic nerve pain.

“In this particular age group you want to be on top of their pain issues,” said Balogh. “So the first thing we do is talk about what’s bothering them and try to discern where they want to get to.”

Balogh, 55, worked for Intel Corp. and American West Airlines before opening her own company in 2009, just as the recession was gaining momentum. “It was a terrible time to start a business, but for me it was a natural thing,” she said. “I really wanted to help people in my generation to realize their dreams of continuing to move, to travel