A look ahead: Chamber of commerce looking for new director

The Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce has a big change ahead in 2018, with the task of finding a new executive director.

Bill Powell, who has been director of the now 1,200-member chamber for 22 years, was slated to retire at the end of December but has agreed to continue helping until a new director starts.

Jerome Morgan Jr., the owner of the Oncort Professional Services commercial cleaning company, was elected Dec. 21 to serve a second consecutive term as president of the chamber, providing some continuity during the transition.

Morgan said there is no way to replace Powell, who has helped quadruple the chamber’s membership and who has an extremely quick wit about him, but the board of directors is intent on finding the right person to move the organization forward.

“It is a slow process,” Morgan said. “But as the saying goes, you should be slow to hire and quick to fire.”

The chamber’s board hired the Rezult Group in Birmingham to help with its headhunter search and as of mid-December had more than 30 applicants, Morgan said.

A chamber selection committee planned to call in eight to 10 of the strongest applicants for interviews and narrow the pool down to three to five finalists for the full board of directors to interview, Morgan said. He hopes they can have a new director on board by March, he said.

The chamber’s board of directors also in 2018 wants to develop a closer working relationship with the Hoover mayor and City Council, Morgan said.

The city just hired a new economic developer, Greg Knighton from the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, so the chamber wants to work with Knighton to help bring more businesses into the city, Morgan said.

“Our mission is very clear — to support small to mid-size businesses,” Morgan said. However, the chamber also wants to do whatever it can to help lure larger businesses as well and play a bigger role in business recruitment, he said. “What that looks like I don’t know yet.”