Enumclaw Chamber Leader Deserved Better

We have mixed emotions about Tracey McCallum leaving as executive director of the Enumclaw Chamber of Commerce today. A thank you event is taking place at the chamber office today from 5 to 7 p.m., and we encourage everyone to go. She deserves a great send-off.

We also are glad that she gets to spend more time at home with her family. Officially that is the reason she is resigning. She was working 60-hour weeks at the chamber so she wasn’t getting to see her husband and daughters as much as she would have liked. We get that.

What we don’t get is why the city didn’t do a better job of creating a position that she would want to stay at. She was only there 17 months. No one should have to work 60-hour weeks, especially if they don’t even get benefits or a large salary. The reason she had to work so much was to come up with money-making plans so she and her assistant, Teresa Luedeke, could get paid. She had to do that because the city cut funding to the chamber from $30,000 a year to $12,000 a year to $0 this year. Sure, the economy is tough, and many government agencies have to take cuts, but how many of you want your budget cut to $0 so that you had to come up with all of the ideas to keep yourself afloat.

McCallum thrived despite these limitations only because of her enthusiasm. She did some amazing things. Looking at the list it is hard to believe she was only there 17 months. She got 70 new and existing businesses to join the chamber. That is quite a feat in itself because some of those businesses had resisted joining for years. She also was instrumental in helping to bring many new businesses to town.

McCallum carried a lot of clout in the region. She was part of the movement to get Chinook Pass open early this summer. Her hard work helped many existing chamber activities grow: such as the golf tournament last month, the Fourth of July Parade, the Chocolate and Wine Festival, Santa’s Village and the Holiday Parade. She also came up with some popular new events: such as the Summer Wine Walk and Thunder on the Plateau.  She also was instrumental in helping the chamber web site get a user-friendly facelift.

Letting McCallum leave like this is pretty shortsighted of the city. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. And spending a little more money on the chamber so McCallum would not have to work so hard would have paid off in the long run – considering how well she did in the short run.

When McCallum made her announcement, chamber president Tom Pierck said city funding was not crucial to the chamber’s success. We disagree. It cost us Tracey McCallum as our chamber director.