Joe Hurd Retires After 27 Years as Blair Chamber CEO

Blair County Chamber of Commerce saw the end of an era when their long-time President and CEO Joe Hurd retired on August 30.

He said he enjoyed the job tremendously.

“I’m so grateful for the people who I’ve had the opportunity to work with from the business community and the terrific staff that we’ve had,” Hurd said.

He said the longer it goes, the more he thinks some events and programs are starting to look stale and it is time for some new people with new ideas.

“It is time for a seventy-year-old guy to step out of the way and let some new and better things happen,” he said.

A new organization was formed between the Chamber and the Altoona Blair County Development Corporation, the Blair County Alliance for Business and Economic Growth will split the responsibilities.

Jennifer Fleck will be the Chamber manager doing the day-to-day things for the organization.

Another newer employee, Megan Rossman will be handling a lot of the responsibilities associated with committees and several of the events.

As far as the merger is concerned, Steve McKnight, the President/CEO of ABCD Corp, will be the person at the top of the actual alliance that has been formed.

Hurd said that it has been a well-thought-out process of what the organizations, together, can accomplish.

“I’m very confident that the people who are working on both sides of the alliance will work well together,” he said “A lot of positive things that people in the community will have the opportunity to see.”

McKnight said he and Hurd worked together in a previous stint at the ABCD Corp in the early 2000s.

“We had a very close working relationship and I got the benefit from his guidance in the Chamber operations,” McKnight said.

He says that Hurd did almost everything.

He had a part in every aspect of Chamber operations and you can’t replace that.

Bedford County Chamber President and CEO Kellie Goodman Shaffer said she first knew Hurd when he was a coach for the Hollidaysburg girl’s basketball team and she was working at WTAJ.

When she moved into the chamber world, he was one of the first people who reached out and offered to mentor her or help her with anything that she needed.

“He has been a wonderful resource and a wealth of experience and information for me since I came into the industry,” Goodman Shaffer said. “He has always been very generous in sharing his insights and in trying to coordinate regional efforts.

She has worked with him in many different ways over the years in their respective roles, she said.

Goodman Shaffer said that when someone leaves a post like that after a long time, it’s hard to not think of the impact they made.

“I think that he has been a very visionary leader and I think that he has made an impact in areas like education and workforce development,” she said. “He wants the very best for students in our region and to have them have great opportunities to work and to live and grow in our area and also to help businesses be filled with the workforce of the future and have the workers that they need.”

Goodman Shaffer said many people probably do not realize how much Hurd is respected and how far-reaching his impact has been.

Communications and Marketing Manager for the Chamber Linda Stotler says that she thinks that one of the things that will stay with the organization is that the years of leadership that Hurd has given to the Chamber were the building blocks for where it will go in the future.

He has established a lot of new programs, increased membership, and has done a phenomenal job leading the team.

Stotler said that Hurd was the one who hired her about 25 years ago.

“I’ve had a lot of years to work alongside him — he is a mentor,” she said. “He has so many experiences in his career that he ended up being a great mentor because of those experiences. “

Stotler said she learned a lot from Hurd.

“He is a good visionary and he had solid ideas of what he envisioned the Chamber to be as an organization,” she said “Under his leadership, we’ve exceeded that. He coached the team here and enabled us to be active partners in his vision.”

Hurd said that he is looking for some new opportunities.

“It is my intention not to sit on the couch and wait to die,” he said. “I am hoping to find a good comfortable business opportunity that will invigorate me for either the long range or for the time being.”

Hurd said he plans on doing some writing, and will first focus on a fiction novel he started about three years ago.

“I haven’t been able to spend much time on it because I still have had a lot of writing responsibilities associated with my role at the Chamber,” he said. “I enjoy writing. My college degree is in journalism. I am looking for wherever that takes me in the next chapter.”

Hurd will be receiving The Chamber’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Business Excellence in October. He says that it is a great honor.

“I had the great opportunity with the late Bill Rossman from Keystone Financial, to put the award together,” Hurd said. “So, to be able to receive the award is a tremendous honor and it means a little more to me because the award has turned out exactly as Bill and I had envisioned it when we created it. I know what it has meant to the previous recipients. Certainly, it has meant every bit of that and more.”

McKnight says that Hurd is one of a kind and they’ve had a lot of fun celebrating his long career and the positive impact that he had.

Goodman Shaffer said she knows that she is better at her job because of knowing Hurd.

“I know that I am better at serving my community because of the good job that he has done serving him,” she said. “I’m grateful to him. I will miss him in the chamber world. He’s funny. He’s smart. He’s passionate about his community as we all should be. He has been a very good person. You try to walk in those footsteps. I wish him nothing but the best. I’m sorry to see him go. He is a good person and I wish him every happiness.”

“I know that I am going to miss coming in here every day,” Hurd said. “There have been many things that have happened in the past 27 years that I have been so happy to be a part of. I can’t recall a day when I got up in the morning and felt like I didn’t want to go to work today. I loved it from the beginning and still love it now. I’m going to miss it a lot. I’m convinced that it is in good hands.”