Soon, the exhaustive search for Montgomery County’s Chamber of Commerce president should be over, business leaders said Friday.
Lester Coffey, chairman of the chamber’s board and a member of the search committee, said the plan is to whittle down the applicants to a manageable number of finalists, who will be interviewed early this month.
The hope is to nail down the final person as quickly as possible, he added.
The need for a new chief officer arose in early September when Richard Parsons, who has been in the job for five years, quit to head up Rodgers Consulting Inc. in Germantown.
Coffey was not sure of the exact number of applicants, but said there were numerous from within the community and other parts of the country.
“We were really impressed with the candidates,” he told The Examiner.
The board chargedwith sorting through the applicants is composed of about 10 diverse members of the business community.
Coffey said the group is looking for someone passionate about not only supporting county companies, but enhancing the overall Montgomery County community.
Parsons was widely credited with transforming the chamber into a thriving organization, quadrupling the staff to 12 and tripling the number of member businesses to 750.
Now the goal of the chamber is to continue with that growth, Coffey said.
Georgette “Gigi” Godwin, former vice president of public affairs for the chamber, has been the group’s interim president.
