Heading for warmer climes
Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce executive director Dan Marshall announced last week that he would be resigning his position while his family pursued an opportunity of a lifetime.
Marshall’s wife, Crested Butte Community School fourth grade teacher Shari Sullivan-Marshall, was granted a two-year leave by the school board Monday, December 9 to accept an administrative position at an international school in Panama.
The chance was just too good to pass up and Marshall says he’s excited to see what happens. And the family won’t have to move until July, so in the meantime he’ll be finishing out the winter season and making the transition to summer.
Chamber of Commerce board president Andy Eflin says Marshall was instrumental in starting the chamber’s climb out of financial trouble after he took over the position in the spring of 2012.
“If you had to say what Dano has done the most, he has been creative and brought new thinking and some new life into the chamber,” Eflin said. “He’s helped get us to where we needed to be and get things under control financially, for one thing.”
Marshall has also been instrumental in building relationships between the chamber and local organizations like the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory and started a process of contracting out event planning and management.
“That idea came from Dan and seems to be working in our favor,” Eflin said. “We’ll continue for at least the near future anyway.”
Eflin said the chamber’s board of directors is taking steps to fill the executive director position. The board has formed a subcommittee to carry out the search and plans to start looking after the holidays.
“Ideally, we’d like to find somebody locally,” Eflin said.
Marshall’s successor will hopefully be in place around the end of June. “We’re hoping to dovetail with the budgeting process so the two could be during the same period,” Eflin said. “We’d love to have someone a week before Crested Butte Bike Week.”