Sequim Chamber of Commerce executive director ousted after six months
By Paige Dickerson, Peninsula Daily News
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Lawrence — a longtime civic activist, former Sequim Citizen of the Year and a professional financial planner who became executive director six months ago — "was not meeting the board expectations," according to 2008 chamber president Joe Borden.
In an e-mail Monday notifying chamber members, Borden said the board of directors of the business/tourism group met to discuss Lawrence's performance last Thursday.
After he refused to resign, Lawrence was fired on Friday, Borden said.
"Lee Lawrence wasn't the proper fit at this time for the chamber, so we needed to move on and find someone else," Borden told the Peninsula Daily News on Monday afternoon.
"Lee's personality was great, and he did some really great things for the chamber, but there were some things that weren't perfect.
"We asked for his resignation — which he would not give — and then we did fire him."
Borden would not specify what troubled the board.
Saying that because it was a personnel matter, he couldn't speak specifically to what had happened, he said.
Attempts by the PDN to reach Lawrence on Monday, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, were unsuccessful.
Lawrence did not return phone calls to his cell phone.
Interim executive director
Until a new executive director is found, Borden said he will fill the position, working as a volunteer.
"We will be posting the qualifications and requirements for the executive director position on our Web site and in newspapers by the end of the week," Borden said in the e-mail to members on Monday.
"Chamber events will continue as scheduled, and we hope each of you continue to find value in networking together."
Lawrence's firing came on the eve of one of the chamber's busiest weeks of the year.
The results of a 2007 Chamber of Commerce survey of Sequim businesses will be discussed by immediate past president Hattie Dixon at a membership luncheon meeting at noon today.
Dixon, a professional marketer under whose presidency Lawrence was hired last summer, will share the results of the 2007 BEST Sequim business survey.
The luncheon meeting will be held at the Sequim Elks Club, 143 Port Williams Road.
Then on Friday night, the chamber will host its annual Member Appreciation Night during which Borden, leader of the Sequim Irrigation Festival, and other 2008 chamber officers and directors will be installed.
The event runs from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at SunLand Golf and Country Club, 109 Hilltop Drive, Sequim.
Other officers are Dixon, Peninsula Ad Works, past president; Steve Perry, Sequim Gazette advertising director, vice president; and Victor Samisoni, American Marine Bank, secretary-treasurer.
Borden is expected at the dinner meeting to address chamber goals for 2008, and a principal one will be to recruit a new executive director.
"Hopefully it won't take as long to find someone else this time," Borden told the PDN.
Picked from 28 candidates
On Aug. 1, Lawrence succeeded Marny Hannan as chamber executive director. She had retired earlier in 2007 after seven years at the chamber helm.
Lawrence was selected from a pool of 28 candidates which was later narrowed to seven semifinalists and then to three finalists for the $50,000 a year post.
Before winning the executive director job, he had commuted five days a week from Sequim to the Merrill Lynch office on Bainbridge Island where he was an investment adviser.
Lawrence, who grew up in a farming community about 100 miles outside Detroit, Mich., had lived in San Diego, Chicago and San Francisco before moving to Sequim in the 1990s.
He led the Clallam County United Way's Sequim campaign in 2003 and 2004, co-founded the Sequim Education Foundation, coordinated restoration of the Sequim Food Bank, coached youth soccer and served as president of the Sequim Sunrise Rotary Club, among other volunteer efforts.
He received the chamber's 2005 Citizen of the Year in March 2006.
Lawrence and his wife, Diane, have three children.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: January 21. 2008 9:00PM