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The Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce has the distinction of being led by the recipient of the Chattanooga Area Manager of the Year Award for 2006. Tom Edd Wilson, Chamber president and CEO, will be honored with the award during a luncheon on June 7 at the Convention Center. "Tom Edd Wilson has been a citizen of Chattanooga for less than 15 years but he has invested a lifetime of service to this community during that period," says Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey, Manager of the Year in 2003.. "His extraordinary performance in executive roles in areas ranging from business to the arts have reinvigorated -- indeed transformed -- a wide array of organizations that touch the lives of thousands of area residents." |
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Vicky Gregg, president and CEO of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, a Chamber board member and winner of the 2005 Manager of the Year Award, praised Wilson for his accomplishments at the Chamber. "Tom Edd has professionalized the agency, strengthened its financial foundation, given it a clear focus and reshaped it into an effective organization with influence and respect in the community." Wilson joined the Chamber following a 35-year career in the banking industry. He concluded his banking career in Chattanooga as executive vice president and president of the East Tennessee Region of Bank of America, serving in that position from 1992 to 2001. During that period he headed regional banking operations for the nation’s largest bank, with approximately 150 employees reporting to him from Dalton to the Tri-Cities. When he assumed leadership of the Chamber, Wilson began assembling a high-performing senior management team to run the organization with the professionalism and accountability expected of the community’s leading business organization. To the basic economic development, membership, marketing and accounting areas, he added a new public policy department and later brought the Center for Entrepreneurial Growth under the Chamber’s aegis, as well as an Education Initiative to build alliances between business leaders and educators. "Certainly, one of Tom Edd’s major achievements was leading the Chamber’s first-ever capital fund drive, raising $9 million from the public and private sectors," says Patsy Hazlewood, BellSouth Regional Director and Manager of the Year in 1999. "The Tell the World! initiative is dedicated to global promotion of Chattanooga as a great place to live, work, play and grow businesses. The success of this campaign has placed the Chamber on a solid financial footing and equipped it to continue promoting Chattanooga and the surrounding region to the world." Soon after Wilson came aboard, the Chamber was charged with publicizing and marketing Enterprise South Industrial Park (ESIP). He appointed a director of business development to focus primarily on recruiting companies for ESIP, now home to three diverse and thriving businesses. Under Wilson’s leadership the Chamber coordinated the process that resulted in ESIP being named the first TVA-certified megasite in the state. Wilson also directed staff in making hundreds of face-to-face connections with site selection consultants and business decision-makers and in completing recruitment trips around the world to such destinations as Korea, Japan, China and Europe. Virtually from the time he arrived in Chattanooga, Wilson immersed himself in civic activities and quickly gained a reputation as a business leader, a volunteer with the ability to manage non-profits in crisis and a fund-raiser extraordinaire. |
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"As president of the Symphony and Opera, Tom Edd ran the organization like a business," says Candy Kruesi, who served on the board when Wilson was president. "He assembled a board of directors experienced in fiscal and administrative management and kept the organization focused. Among his special initiatives were instituting an endowment policy and tightening the budget process. Again, as board president of Allied Arts, Wilson took charge when the organization was in rough seas, with support waning and the mission murky. And again he steered the organization into safe harbor. During his presidency the endowment of the organization grew by $7.5 million and a new strategic plan changed the way funds were distributed. As a result, the number of funded organizations grew from nine to 23 in one year’s time and the organization focused its efforts on arts in education. "The strategic plan developed under Tom Edd’s leadership reinvented the organization," says Molly Sasse, who was then executive director of Allied Arts. Wilson’s other fund-raising achievements include leading the 2000 United Way campaign that generated over $11.6 million, the most money ever raised in a single campaign for United Way in Chattanooga. In 1998 Wilson received the National Philanthropy Day Leadership Fundraiser of the Year Award, presented by the Southeastern Tennessee Chapter of the National Society of Fundraising Executives. Two years later then Chattanooga Mayor Jon Kinsey proclaimed May 5, 2000 as Tom Edd Wilson Day, noting that Wilson "has contributed his time, his talent and his tireless energy to the civic community of Chattanooga, and has used his business and management skills and experience to encourage and take initiatives and to support and benefit the healthy growth and development of the arts and cultural organizations of this city." Wilson is a member of the Mayor’s Taskforce on Renewal Communities, the Chancellor’s Roundtable at UTC and the Rotary Club. He serves on the boards of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise and United Way. The Manager of the Year Award is made annually by member organizations of CAMOY (Chattanooga Area Manager of the Year). Now in its 19th year, the award recognizes an executive manager who has made a significant contribution to the Hamilton County area. |
