Black prepares to energize chamber
By MIKE DOUGHERTY City editor

ANOTHER PART OF RETIREMENT LEWIS DELAVAN PHOTO Eddie Black planned to slow the pace when he retired in 2006. Instead, he recently took on the job of interim executive director the Benton Chamber of Commerce.

Eddie Black apparently misunderstood the definition of retirement when he looked it up in the dictionary.

He decided in 2006 it was time to slow down the pace after 33 years with Alcoa and its successor in Saline County, Almatis, so he retired.

Just a little more than a year later, he has a new job as interim executive director of the Benton Area Chamber of Commerce and is charged with the task of rejuvenating an organization that must play a key role in maintaining the economic health of the community.

Black, 57, replaces Mark Gillis, who served as executive director for 12 years before his departure last month.

Among Black's duties:

• An evaluation of the organization.

• An assessment of its technology, and where it is in terms of serving its members.

• Helping forge a plan for where the chamber should be headed.

"I have been asked to look at our organization," Black said, "and try to determine how we do business, see what we are doing well and what we could be doing better and help determine how we should go forward.

"In regards to the technology, we are going to try to determine what programs are out there and how we can use what is available to improve what we are doing to help our members. We would like to add a program that will assist in the Web-based management of each member's individual information.

"Basically, we are looking at operating systems that can help us with the accounting and with a membership information system. It needs to be able to handle 550 to 600 members. The system we have now was designed to serve a group with, maybe, 250 to 300 members."

Black said short-term goals include sorting through existing files, cleaning up and reorganizing materials and "not dropping the ball on opportunities as they present themselves while we are doing all that."

The Benton chamber has one other fulltime employee, administrative assistant Connie Curry. Part-time assistant Jerry Beaty, a former teacher and administrator with the Benton School District, is helping Black and Curry go through much of the files and other stored material to determine what needs to be kept and what can be destroyed.

Black is a native of Saline County and attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he earned a degree in mechanical engineering.

"I started with Alcoa here in Saline County right out of college," Black said. "First I was in the engineering division and then the maintenance division. (The operation here was still quite broad then. What Almatis is doing out there now is just a small niche in the company's overall operation.)

"Later, my family and I moved to Jamaica, where Alcoa had an operation of bauxite mining and refining. We came back to Saline County in 1985."

He became plant manager at the Alcoa operation here, which, in recent years, became more involved in special chemical products, he said.

In 2004, when Almatis bought part of Alcoa, included most of its Saline County operation, Black was named director of operations, which included oversight of facilities in Pittsburgh, Georgia and Louisiana.

Black and his wife, Brenda, live in Benton. They have a married daughter, Kathryn Allen, who lives in Little Rock and will graduate in May with a doctorate in pharmacy from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' College of Pharmacy.

He said he and his wife enjoy traveling, spending time at Lake Ouachita and working on a piece of property they own north of Benton.

Black said he also has become involved in several organizations in recent years, including serving on the board of directors for the Saline County Economic Development Corp. He also is in his second year as a member of the board for the Benton chamber.

In fact, he became chairman of the SCEDC in January. He was vice chairman in 2006.

"I wasn't exactly 'sitting around,' before this," Black said, "but they came and asked me to serve until we could find the right person to fill the position."

He said he will assist the search committee in going through applications and determining which candidates might represent the best fit for the job as permanent executive director.

Black said he believes that the objectives of the economic development board and those of the chamber will mesh, in most instances.

"Saline County officials and the mayors in the cities have come to realize," Black said, "that we will be able to accomplish much more in terms of attracting new industry to the area, if we work together as one unit."

He said that was a major reason behind the decision by the economic development board to hire state Sen. Shane Broadway and businessman and former state Rep. Paul Doramus to represent the SCEDC.

"We felt like that was an idea that would help us," Black said, "but they have been much more successful than we could have dreamed.

"Both of them understand that we have to be alert and constantly ready to respond to an inquiry from a company or a site recruiter. Shane (Broadway) and Paul (Doramus) are able to present what we have to offer to anyone who might be interested and also communicate with representatives of the county and our cities."