Dan Ehrler served as chamber CEO for three years; leaves for new
Morgan Hill school district job
MORGAN HILL
Dan Ehrler, the president and chief executive officer of the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce for the past three years, has resigned to accept a newly created position with the Morgan Hill Unified School District.
Ehrler’s last day at the chamber will be Dec. 28. He was offered the job of grant writer and public and community relations specialist Dec. 7 by district Superintendent Alan Nishino and said he immediately accepted. Ehrler hadn’t received a written offer as of Wednesday and although employment details, including salary, haven’t been worked out, the school board was expected to approve the superintendent’s choice.
The board, which stewards a school district of more than 9,000 students, created the position in July and began searching for qualified candidates in November through advertisements on an online education job board, Edjoin.com.
Jay Totter, the assistant superintendent for human resources, said Ehrler’s salary will be about $60,000. As a classified employee, he will have an annual contract that is renewed on May 15 of each year.
Among the job’s duties are grant writing, public and media relations and community outreach. Whereas the district would go after grants on an “ad hoc, time-available basis” before, it will now have a full-time staffer dedicated to the job, said board member Peter Mandel.
“We took a tangible step of getting someone to go after grant money to help the financial improvement of the district,” Mandel said. “The other half of the job,” he added, “is furthering one of the board’s goals to improve communication with the community.”
After Ehrler’s appointment was made public earlier this week, he e-mailed a letter to chamber members and other members of the community. In it, Ehrler, 62, said he had “mixed emotions” about leaving the chamber for the new job. However, he said he wasn’t recruited by the district and after being made aware of the job through a friend, decided to apply.
“I was notified of the position and thought it would be beneficial to explore it,” Ehrler said.
The process took about four weeks and Ehrler was offered the job via a phone call from Nishino “about five minutes to 5 p.m. last Friday,” he said. “The reason that sticks in my mind is that we finished a very successful board of director planning conference” about half-hour earlier, he said.
Ehrler took over the chamber’s top job in October 2004, succeeding interim Executive Director Alex Kennett. The chamber’s board changed the position’s official title from “executive director” to “president and CEO” in 2006, Ehrler said, without any changes to job duties or pay. Prior to entering the chamber administration industry in 1984 in Sonoma Valley, Ehrler taught at junior high schools in Las Vegas and Long Beach and at Mount St. Mary’s College and at Santa Monica College in Los Angeles. He also worked at nonprofits in Eugene, Ore. before coming to Morgan Hill.
“I am familiar with a lot of elements with working to ensure our students are not only well educated but also the environment is which they are learning is clean and presentable,” Ehrler said.
Lorraine Welk, a Morgan Hill chamber board member, who served as president/CEO of the chamber for 13 years, said the business organization “had five executives” since she left in 1998 to work for Gavilan College’s Morgan Hill campus as site manager. She praised Ehrler’s leadership style and credited him for helping to reestablish the chamber’s reputation in the business community that may have been jarred by constant change in leadership.
“In the time that he’s been here he has helped turn it around,” Welk said. “He’s put the organization on strong financial footing.”
Susan Valenta, president and CEO of the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce, said Ehrler collaborated with her and other organizations to create a stronger regional voice on issues such as land use and transportation.
Although it’s not unusual for people to change jobs in her industry when recruited, Valenta said she “was not aware that he was thinking about going on to something else.
“The fact that Dan is staying in this community is a great plus,” she added.
On Monday, the Morgan Hill chamber’s executive committee named chamber board member Chris Bryant to replace Ehrler on an interim basis while a search for a permanent replacement is conducted. Ehrler said he was putting together a job description and the chamber was “advertising locally and regionally,” as well as publishing as in the Western Association of Chamber Executives career bulletin in January.
Tim Hendrick, the acting chair and chairman of the search committee, said the search process as soon as the description is put together. The search committee is hoping to have someone in place by March 1, Hendrick said.
