St. Cloud Chamber of Commerce CEO retiring Sept. 30
There’s no bad time to move to Florida, unless it’s during a hurricane warning.
That wasn’t the case in 2019, when Dirk Webb came from his native Indiana to bring stability to the St. Cloud Chamber of Commerce and be its CEO and President.
He came when the market was exploding, but less than a year later the COVID-19 pandemic put a lid on that.
But after seven years of helping the local business community steadily recover, he’s passing the torch and retiring to play the role of grandfather to his five local grandchildren.
Dirk’s last day with the Chamber will be Sept. 30, but he’ll take in his last big event Saturday at the Chamber Gala at Osceola Heritage Park.
It will wrap up a seven-year tenure in St. Cloud after serving the same role at the Chamber in his hometown of Anderson, Ind.
Back then, his son was finishing up as a student at UCF, so he had prior exposure to the area; what quickly came next was experience.
“I’d heard of Kissimmee, but to my mind it was the amusement parks and all that sort. One of the things that surprised me was the (agriculture) and cattle … had I known I wouldn’t have gotten rid of my Ostrich Western boots.”
It led to the job of leading a Chamber that had a number of leaders in the three years before Webb came from Anderson, a town going in a different direction as St. Cloud from a business community standpoint.
“I got to be the same face (to the business community) for many years,” Webb said—before quickly turning the conversation to his team, which now includes Director of Operations Heather Kitner, Events Manager Rebekah Hogue and Administrative Assistant Sharayah Austin, and the pronoun changes to “We.”
“We’ve accomplished stabilizing the Chamber making in an attractive place to do business,” he said. “We brought back the ‘Coffee Co-Ops’, a meeting place for job seekers and office seekers.
It was a meeting place to do business and ask the question, ‘How can we help you?’” Over the years, Webb made sure to, for example, hang around at a ribbon-cutting for a new business instead of leaving when the ribbon hit the ground.
“I perceived my job as the ‘Chief Connector,’ so when a company comes in, I want to know about your company and learn about your story. I want to know about your journey. Then let’s get you signed up so we can help go out and tell that story.
“It was a little bumpy at first thanks to COVID, but we got a lot of people settled in place after that, and I think we’ve been pretty solid.”
He turns over that settled St. Cloud business foundation over to Dana Wells, who’s operated as the Interim Executive Director since Sept. 1, a designed overlap.
“She’s got a great background for us, she’s served on the Board of Directors for three years and has planned a lot of economic development. She was actually instrumental in the Chamber going out and visiting other communities so it’s not a ‘stranger chamber.’” Webb said he’s staying in town and will always be a phone call away.
“I’m just grateful for the opportunity I’ve had here,” he said. “The Chamber and this town took a chance on an unknown guy from Anderson, Indiana. And I think it worked out well.”
