March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Chamber of Commerce names new director

A University of Maine fund-raiser has been named executive director of the Greater Bangor Chamber of Commerce. Michael R. Crowley, a vice president at the Orono campus, will succeed Elizabeth Scott Bell, who resigned last year.

“Mike brings a set of qualities very appropriate to our organization,” said John McCatherin, immediate past president of the chamber and head of the search committee named to hire the new director.

McCatherin said Crowley’s work at the university had provided good training for his new job. Specifically, he said Crowley’s effort heading the alumni fund had given him valuable experience managing an association, raising money, and dealing with a diverse membership base.

According to McCatherin, Bell took the chamber from a weak position to one of strength, in terms of finances and membership.

“Now we want to move to the next level,” McCatherin said. “We want to assist the Greater Bangor region by dealing with existing problems in a substantial way. We have tinkered on the edges of some of these things.

“This is a vibrant community on the edge of something great,” McCatherin said. “Mike can be a part of this.”

“I know from my work at the university that this community is very solid,” Crowley said. “People are willing to use private funds to invest in the community.”

Crowley’s immediate plans are to learn more about how the chamber operates and then to work with the board of directors to plan new directions for the organization.

“I’ve been impressed with the quality of the members of the board and with the strength of the membership,” Crowley said.

Crowley will begin his new job April 1. He and McCatherin lauded Sharon Albert, who has served as interim director since Sept. 15, when Bell left.

A Millinocket native and 1981 graduate of the University of Maine, Crowley has spent most of his career at Orono. He has worked as assistant to the director of the Development Office, and as assistant director, associate director and executive director of the Annual Alumni Fund.

Crowley takes over a chamber with 650 business members. This is down from 735 a couple of years ago. But McCatherin said the local organization had suffered less than most chambers during the recent recession.


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