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In Sarasota, chamber officials had to replace Steve Queior, who ran the organization from 2003 to 2016. Under Queior's watch, the chamber played a leadership role in causes from improvements to downtown Sarasota to recruiting the Baltimore Orioles to move spring training operations to town.
In Bradenton, meanwhile, Manatee chamber officials recently had the unenviable task of finding a replacement for Bob Bartz, a nationally known chamber chief executive. Bartz, who had run the Manatee Chamber since 1982, died Feb. 26 after a brief illness. He was 65 years old.
Both chamber boards conducted wide searches for their next leaders, ultimately finding them close to home. In Bradenton, that was Bartz's longtime No. 2, Jacki Dezelski. She was named interim CEO in the chaos after Bartz's unexpected death, and the board appointed her permanent CEO May 31. The Sarasota chamber's new CEO is Kevin Cooper, who had been head of public policy and Sarasota Tomorrow initiatives at the chamber from 2013 to 2015. Prior to his Sarasota chamber appointment, made official Oct. 7, Cooper had been director of community investment for the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
The following is a look at the careers, goals and objectives of each Dezelski and Cooper.
The days after Bartz died were grueling for Dezelski. She lost a mentor and a father figure. Employees and the board looked to her for guidance.
There were also logistics and day-to-day things to take care of, from a leak in the chamber building in downtown Bradenton to a faulty air-conditioning unit. “When Bob died, we were all falling apart left and right,” says Trudy Moon, past chairwoman of the chamber board. “And Jacki was really hurting, but she held us all together. She made sure we all had time to cry.”
Bartz had been working with the board on a succession plan for several years, and Dezelski was being groomed for the top spot. But the suddenness of his death threw even the normally super-composed Dezelski, 46, off her game. “For me, the loss was deeply personal, as well as professional,” she says. “Being in this position now, it makes me really appreciate how fortunate I was to be able to work with Bob all those years.”
On the flip side, Dezelski has put extra pressure on herself in the new role. “I was born and raised in the chamber from a professional standpoint,” Dezelski says. “I feel a deep sense of responsibility.”
That responsibility goes to the chamber's 44-person board, 16 employees and members, of which there are some 2,100 companies and entities. On members, Dezelski, like many others at the helm of membership-based groups, including Cooper in Sarasota, realizes the model has shifted. Members, like customers, want to know they are getting more, usually for less money.
One way to do that, says Dezelski, is to create an open, transparent environment where all kinds of issues are open for discussion. The chamber, for example, has 25 committees and task forces studying a range of issues, from housing to transportation. “I believe we have many opportunities and few barriers for people to get involved in this chamber,” Dezelski says.
Dezelski was born in Los Angeles and moved to the Bradenton area with her family when she was a young girl. Prior to California, her family and ancestors owned a farm in Michigan, near Traverse City.
The 2015 Florida Chamber Professional of the Year, Dezelski joined the Manatee chamber in 1996, when she answered a newspaper help wanted ad for a communications coordinator at the organization. A then recent University of Florida graduate with a bachelor's in graphic design, Dezelski says she didn't know much about chambers at the time.
She learned quickly.
Dezelski was named a Business Observer 40 under 40 winner in 2002, when she was vice president of community development at the chamber. She was promoted several times after that, up to her current role. At each stop, Dezelski impressed all sides with her preparedness on the issues and her empathy for all points of view, says Moon, who has known Dezelski more than a decade.
Board officials and longtime chamber members have also found they value another side of Dezelski. She has little, if any ego, and she's rarely, if ever, late to a meeting or appointment. “There was no question she was ready” to take on the CEO role after Bartz died, says Moon. “To know that we didn't lose a step, that's a big deal.”
This is the second time Cooper has run a chamber in the area. From January 2011 to December 2013, he was executive director of the Siesta Key Chamber of Commerce.
Cooper's approach there, somewhat counterintuitively, was to usually avoid statewide or national chamber conferences and confabs, where chamber leaders talked about best practices and other tips. “I don't want to do what every other chamber does,” says Cooper. “The more I get clouded by what everyone else does, the less innovative I become.”
Cooper, 36, has brought that attitude to the Sarasota Chamber.
For one, says chamber board member Matt Buchanan, Cooper is a big-picture thinker, in just about every scenario. He will often turn questions or issues into a “how does this make us a better chamber” dynamic, says Buchanan, general manager and operating partner of Sarasota Ford. “I love his outsider's mentality,” Buchanan says. “I love his drive, energy and enthusiasm.”
Cooper grew up in Ohio, and after high school he entered the Army National Guard. His unit, in 2004 and 2005, spent 16 months in Iraq during the Second Gulf War. Cooper was part of a team that did security for convoy fuel and supply trucks, often riding in vehicles that sat in front of or behind the gun trucks. His unit was all over Iraq in that time, including the Sunni Triangle and Fallujah. “It was a really unique experience,” says Cooper.
In 2008, Cooper and his then girlfriend, now wife, moved to Sarasota from Northeast Ohio. Cooper had worked in sales and marketing for a fundraising company in Ohio, but he came here without a job.
He put on a suit and went door-to-door, looking for work. After four months he found one at Clickbooth, working in advertising for the Sarasota internet marketing firm. He was there for a year, before he took a job heading member services at the Siesta Key Chamber.
Along the way, Cooper discovered his passion — talking about, refining and implementing policy. “I'm a policy nerd,” he says. “It's almost like it's not work when you get to work on policy issues.”
Much like Dezelski, Cooper's grasp of the issues and his ability to build consensus on difficult topics impressed the chamber board. “He's not just a talker, he's a doer,” says Buchanan. “He will make the chamber better than it's ever been because he won't stop until it gets done.”
Also similar to Dezelski, though in different circumstances, Cooper replaces a well-respected leader at the Sarasota Chamber, which has 10 employees. Says Cooper: “In any transition, people are looking for some level of continuity but also some level of what's next.”
To Cooper, what's next isn't about solving workforce issues or the homeless problem in downtown Sarasota. Instead, it's to get the chamber's 1,300 members and 54-person board to think about the organization in bigger and better terms — not what it's always been. “I want this to be a chamber town,” says Cooper. “I want this to be a place where businesses come together. It's not devoid of that today, but it can get better.”
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