Chamber executive director resigns

Pat Schmoranz's decision prompts the Greater Seminole Area Chamber of Commerce to re-examine its role and the kind of leadership it needs.

By WILMA NORTON

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 5, 2000

SEMINOLE -- Local chamber of commerce leader Pat Schmoranz has resigned, and board members say they will re-evaluate the organization's place in the community as they search for her replacement.

Schmoranz's husband, Larry, has a new job in Texas, so she will leave July 1, ending an involvement with the Greater Seminole Area Chamber of Commerce that stretches back 20 years. Schmoranz was executive director of the group for the past six years.

"It's tough to leave all the people you've worked with for so long," she said.

Chamber officials said they will miss Schmoranz, who brought stability to a position with a history of turnover. She also was the chamber's director for two years in the early 1980s.

Her departure, however, gives the 375-member chamber the incentive to look at its role in a changing community, board members said.

The past few years have seen steady growth of the city and of St. Petersburg Junior College's Seminole campus, along with planning for a $6-million city recreation center and city policies aimed at annexing the property of thousands of residents. The chamber's membership and programs, however, have remained fairly constant.

President Larry Cunningham said the board will need "to decide who we want to be and which way we want to go. . . . Who do we want to help get us there?"

Cunningham said the chamber also needs to remember who its constituents are. "We're not a tourist destination. There's not a lot of industry," he said. "We're a small-business organization."

Cunningham said he and board member Jim Olliver, provost of the St. Petersburg Junior College's Seminole campus, already have talked about where the chamber fits in the community's needs.

"In my business, when somebody leaves, you take stock of where you were and where you're going," Olliver said. "My vision has always been that the community is strongest when you partner the business community, the education community and the city government. One of our real long-term visions is (to find out) how to solidify those partnerships."

Schmoranz agreed that the next couple of years are going to be critical for the small chamber, which has an annual budget of $114,000.

The ideal size for the chamber, she said, would be about 450 members. "But I can't tell you the last time we had 450 members."

It has been hard to increase and retain membership, especially with just two paid staff people, Schmoranz said. "It's not a complaint. It's a fact of life. Every small chamber is in the same predicament."

Bob Sims, a past president who has coordinated the chamber's volunteers for about 10 years, said he thinks the chamber is going to have to develop new leadership and enthusiasm in the community.

"I've noticed in the last few years -- and I see it in my Kiwanis Club, too -- people who have been the leaders are getting older and no one seems to be stepping into the void. I guess it's just a sign of the times," Sims said. "Are people not joiners anymore? Is that the thing we're going through?"

Schmoranz, who earned about $33,000, said almost all of the chamber's members and potential members are businesses with fewer than 10 employees. When people start small businesses, they often think they can't afford to join the chamber, she said. Then, if they survive, they think they don't have time to participate.

Sims said the chamber needs to make sure small business people understand the value of knowing other surrounding business owners.

Schmoranz said she has tried to make things run smoothly within the chamber.

"I don't know if I've left a legacy," she said. "I'm just basically the coordinator."

She said she hopes the Seminole chamber is on the verge of a breakthrough.

One of the things she is proud of, Schmoranz said, is that the chamber finally got a non-profit education foundation set up in January after years of work. That will be a vehicle for the chamber to raise money for scholarships, small-business seminars and continuing education and assistance programs for people in the community, she said.

"We're just starting to crawl," Schmoranz said. "Hopefully, in the next couple of years (the chamber's programs) will be up and walking."

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