Chamber's No. 2 to Retire

Chamber's No. 2 to Retire

Say goodbye to Bill Couch, the Sarasota Chamberis senior vice president. Heis leaving after two decades.

By Sean Roth

Real Estate Editor

The Sarasota Chamber of Commerce has not been known for stability. Over the past 20 years, the chamberis presidency has changed sporadically, following closely the ebb and flow of chamber finances. One constant on the executive level has been the man typically left picking up the pieces o Bill Couch.

Couch has held the title of senior vice president for the past decade. Three times over two decades, he has stepped into the presidentes seat and reversed a growing deficit.

GCBR recently spoke to Couch about his planned retirement at yearis end.

What did you do before joining the chamber in 1983?

I led a pretty interesting life. My first job out of college was doing corporate sales for Thomasville Furniture Co. Iim from North Carolina and in the i60s you either went into banking, textiles or furniture. Then I moved to Kansas City, Mo.

Around that time I bankrolled some friends, who wanted to start a small business in Kansas City. It turned out they didnet know what they were doing so I had to take it over. It was a cocktail lounge, called The Jug. It became so profitable I left my job selling furniture.

I sold that business and moved to Laguna Beach, Calif. There I was looking over a fence and without ever setting foot on the property, I bought a foreign-car service shop. It was just a regular garage with six service bays and 10 employees. With a lot of dumb luck and hard work I built that up and sold it.

I moved back to Kansas City where I had another business. Then I moved to Florida in 1975. For about 10 years I bought and sold small businesses. I would buy them, fine-tune them and then sell them off. I owned a resort in Fort Myers Beach for a whole. I had a lot of success with this. I found that if you follow sound business principles it really doesnit make a whole lot of difference what type of business you are in.

It just boils down to attention to detail, hard work and fiscal responsibility. You have to keep finances in mind at all times. Cash flow and finances are why 90% of the small business failures occur. People just do not understand finances. They just need to make two columns with income on one side and debts and costs on the other.

I sold my last business in Fort Myers Beach ... and came to Sarasota in 1981. Fort Myers Beach just had a different character. Sarasota had the allure of a much, much bigger city with a more sophisticated population.

Also I was really tired of the long hours and hard work of running a business.

A year later, I was offered the opportunity to sell memberships. I thought this has got to be the easiest job out there. In all of my businesses, I had always belonged to the chambers. They had always really helped. With the Fort Myers Beach resort I had a stream of prospects from the chamber that really made the business work. Sure enough I was successful at it. I did that for about a year and then I had the opportunity to move into a regular staff position.

Was that during the chamberis heyday?

No. The chamber had suffered some pretty serious financial setbacks. This was right on the ducktails of the formation of the Argus Foundation. It was in i79 or i80 when Argus was formed because of the turmoil in the chamber. We went through a period of short success, but sure enough some of the executives fell into the same problems as before with not enough cash flow. The president was forced into retirement.

Why work for the chamber?

The reason I think anybody ends up in this type of work is because you get to work with the best and brightest the community has to offer o Stuart Barger, Katie (Klauber) Moulton. Tim Clarke, Joel Freedman. As part of the enlisted personnel we can take and help with the formation of their ideas and the implementation. Itis a lot of fun.

What are you most proud of?

I canit really think of any one thing I have accomplished by myself alone. I take great pride in a number of different activities. At the top of the list, though, is the chamberis involvement in the passage of the one-cent local option sales tax in 1997. We were an instrument in shaping strategy, but it was a communitywide effort. We collected $80,000 from the private sector to support its passage. It was a major accomplishment.

That extra penny just paid for a whole menu of infrastructure projects including the Van Wezel ... (and) almost all of the road improvements today.

What do you think of the latest Sarasota entrepreneurs?

They are just so damn smart. The entrepreneurs that are coming along now are just a whole different breed.

They are just different like Ray Villares (co-owner of GravityFree Internet Business Solutions and the 2004 winner of the chamberis Chairmanis Cup). They just blow you out of the water; they are so bright.

They are also fiscally conservative. They are just the total package.

Having been handed the reins of the presidency three times in the past decade on an interim basis, what did it teach you?

Well the good news is that (the chamber) was always at the very bottom. There was only one way to go: up. Iim proud to say in all three instances we were able to stabilize it and turn it around. There was always a team of bright business leaders around to make it happen.

In each case the problem was money. This chamber is a tough business. We have such a large agenda; itis difficult to move forward with limited resources.

They must have asked you to stay on as president, why didnit you?

I am just much more comfortable in the secondary role; that is just my nature. You could ask each chamber CEO and they would say I was fiercely loyal. I try to anticipate their needs. I just never aspired to be CEO. And that has been lucky, not many CEOs have lasted very long. David May had the longest tenure with eight years.

You canit slay all the dragons; you have to pick and choose your battles.

What do you see in the chamberis future?

Iive never been one for prognostication, but as far ahead as I can see the future looks bright. We certainly have an excellent current president. The local economy is incredibly robust. The chamber has never been stronger than it is now. The leadership succession and our membership is at an all-time high.

What will you do next?

I have six grandchildren and two families ... two of those sons live in Atlanta. Iim planning to visit them and to travel more. And I would like to take more time to read. I really havenit slowed down much since I started so I look forward to reading more.

Is it possible the chamber might lure you back?

I donit think so. I just donit see that need.

Steve Queior (current president) is just an excellent executive. He has that deadly combination of intelligence and hard work. That group is just very well qualified to run it. I am just content to be put out to pasture.