Relationships a Focus of Chamber Leaders Career

When Paul Harvel steps down Dec. 31 as CEO of the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce, he’ll be looking for new opportunities to promote economic development in Arkansas.

Harvel, whose career working for various Arkansas chambers of commerce spans nearly 47 years, said last month he’ll leave the Fort Smith chamber at the end of the year. He came there under a five-year agreement, he said, and that time’s drawing to an end.

But he makes it clear he’s not retiring.

“I hate the word ‘retirement,’” he said. “I don’t know what I’ll be doing come Jan. 1, but I’ll do something. We’ll just have to start thinking about it.”

He and his wife, Barbara, who directs Leadership Fort Smith, have already started moving their belongings from their home in Fort Smith to a house they own in Mountain Harbor on Lake Ouachita.

“We hate to see him go,” said Harvel’s longtime friend Ivy Owen, executive director of the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority. “He’s a wealth of knowledge, and his center of influence is far-reaching in this state.”

Harvel, who led the Little Rock chamber for 21 years and the state chamber for three, has the ear of the governor almost literally. He has Gov. Mike Beebe’s cell phone number programmed into his phone.

“I’ve been an admirer of his for a long time,” Beebe said of Harvel. “He’s a good leader and he fosters other good leaders, so we’re all grateful for his talent and service.”

Owen called Harvel a master at building and maintaining relationships — a skill vital to economic development, he said.

In fact, Harvel said the Fort Smith chamber’s biggest need when he took on the job was building member relations. In just the last year and a half, he said, he’s visited the offices of 700 of the chamber’s 1,100 members.

And when he went door to door two years ago to raise money for the chamber’s economic development efforts, he garnered a little more than $2 million. Not one person turned him down, he said.

“I was pleased with that because when they give you money like that, it means that they’re satisfied with what you’re doing. They’re your bosses,” he said. “I’ve got about 1,100 bosses. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I try to look at every member as a boss. Definitely every member is an investor. My stockholders are all over town.”

Sam T. Sicard, president and CEO of First National Bank of Fort Smith, has served on the chamber board during most of Harvel’s time there.

Besides helping the chamber organizationally, Harvel “has been a tremendous fundraiser and helped us build a war chest fund” to offer incentives for companies considering a move to or expansion in Fort Smith, Sicard said.

“And he’s helped us establish relationships around the state, and really got us to the table and in a leadership position in building the relationships necessary to move Fort Smith, our region and our state forward on various projects.

“Personally I consider him a good friend,” he added. “He’s just a wonderful people person. He loves people and brings out the best in people.”

Sicard also is chairman of the Fort Smith Regional Council, one of many alliances Harvel has organized over the years.

The FSRC mirrors the Northwest Arkansas Council, Harvel said. About 20 CEOs of area companies like Baldor Electric Co. and Arkansas Best Corp. work on long-range programs, he said.

“And I think that’s going to be the best thing I did during my Fort Smith tenure,” Harvel said.

He also piloted the Leadership Little Rock program, as well as Leadership Arkansas and Leadership Fort Smith.

Harvel plans to spend the rest of the year working to get federal funding to increase the depth of the Arkansas River channel from 9 feet to 12 feet.

Barges on the river could hold 40 percent more cargo if the channel was at 12 feet, he said, and lots of jobs could be created.

“If that could happen, I could go out of my career with a huge smile on my face.”