For more than three decades, Steve Queior served at the helm of a chamber of commerce. But after so many years at the top of an organization, he started noticing a number of executives redefining themselves to shape communities in a more focused way. He saw Laurey Stryker, the former chancellor of University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, become a coordinator for this area’s newly formed college consortium. He learned of Allen Carlson, who after spending 20 years in management at Sun Hydraulics retired and then immediately took a job as director of a University of Florida extension campus. “What I saw was people using their background and experience, but in new and interesting ways,” he said. 

And so on Tuesday, Queior announced that this year would be his last as president and CEO for the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, a post he has held for 13 years. Queior said he now looks forward to a life of flexibility—and of focus. Raised by a professor and a school teacher, Queior in recent years has developed a passion for educational attainment and workforce development, and this time next year he may be a consultant regarding such matters or may serve in a key capacity for a nonprofit with those goals in its mission statement. That work would dovetail with some of the greatest accomplishments of the Sarasota Chamber during Queior’s time at the helm, notably efforts in Sarasota Tomorrow and the Talent4Tomorrow initiatives.

The Chamber right now has a transition team exploring how a national search for Queior’s successor will be conducted. Queior has offered his services to the chamber through 2016 to ensure a smooth transition.

Queior early in his career worked as a professor, a college coach and other business roles, but ultimately reached the main stage of his career in chambers. He would eventually lead a chamber in Indiana’s South Bend region for 13 years before coming to Florida in 1996 to lead the Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce. Then in 2003, he was lured to the Sarasota Chamber by the vibrant but mid-sized community and the opportunity to diversify and grow an economy in a region very different from dense Broward County.

As for the future of the Sarasota Chamber, Queior hopes the organization seeks out an individual who can process large amounts of information, and also somebody known for collaboration. “There is a definite value in being able to connect with a whole variety of people from the business sector and not-for-profit spheres,” he said. “Chambers are a crossroads for different sectors of the community. It takes flexibility with a CEO to be comfortable with people in academia, media and everybody else in the world.”