A Puyallup-based executive search firm that recruited the CEOs of Tacoma Goodwill and the Economic Development Board of Tacoma-Pierce County has been chosen to select the next leader of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber.
Hagel & Company, which also has offices in California, Oregon and Idaho, was chosen over Kansas City-based Waverly Partners to fill the job David Graybill had for 27 years before he retired last fall. Mike Hansch is interim CEO.
The chamber’s search committee chairman said Thursday that Hagel’s outreach program was a major factor in its favor.
“Everybody kind of likes the guy who’s out of town,” said Don Johnson, who also is a commissioner at the Port of Tacoma. “After David’s long term here, the key part is doing a very good outreach program that covers the bases. This helps strongly support the new person because (everyone has) had the opportunity to play in describing the traits” they want in a new leader.
The outreach program will take a month and will survey past and present Chamber board members, staff, city leaders, members and ex-members.
“If they haven’t gone out of business, we want to find out why they’re not members,” Johnson said.
The search committee voted unanimously Jan. 12 to hire Hagel & Company, and they advised the Chamber’s board of that decision Thursday.
Frank Hagel, company CEO, said his business does human resource work but also has a recruiting arm. His company brought Bruce Kendall from Seattle to the EDB; Terry Hayes from Long Beach, Calif., to Goodwill; and Tammy Blount from Vancouver, B.C., to the Tacoma Regional Convention and Visitor Bureau.
“We’ll do direct contact and direct recruiting,” Hagel said. “We do direct calls into (national chamber leaders) to say, who are the best in the country? Who are the most representative chambers who have solved the kind of issues that the (Tacoma) chamber is facing? What we don’t do is we don’t open a file drawer and riffle through the usual suspects.”
Johnson said Hagel estimated the outreach and recruitment will cost $45,000-$50,000, and the search will begin in March and April.
“It’s a two-phase job here: We have to find the right candidate and we have to sell Tacoma to that person,” Johnson said.
Kathleen Cooper: 253-597-8546 kathleen.cooper@thenewstribune.com
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