Steve Clark to retire from Fayetteville chamber

Steve Clark, president and CEO of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, will retire after 16 years with the organization. His last day in his role will be Tuesday (Nov. 19). Clark expects the board to select his successor by the end of this year.

The chamber’s board of directors has narrowed the search for his successor to two people, both with Arkansas ties.

Before his chamber career, Clark was the longest-serving attorney general in Arkansas, chief of staff for Gov. David Pryor, and assistant dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law. He was also a municipal judge in Brinkley and founded InnerCare, a national behavior health company.

Clark cited multiple factors in his decision to retire, including his health and age, his desire to return to school, help early childhood education organizations, and create a leadership model to connect the Delta and Northwest Arkansas from Marianna to Fayetteville.

“The average age in the city of Fayetteville is 28,” said Clark, adding that when people expect to meet with the chamber of commerce president, “they don’t expect to meet a 78-year-old man. … I don’t want agism to exist anywhere, at any level, but a part of what’s changed is it’s a new era. It’s a new day. And I want to be a part of that new era and new day, but not in the same way that I am now.”

He said he had some health issues that “were serious enough they put me in the hospital a time or two.”

‘A GREAT COMMUNITY’
Some of the key accomplishments in his chamber career include expanding the chamber’s leadership program to include schools in Washington County, not only in Fayetteville. Nearly 1,000 people have completed Leadership Fayetteville, he said. Another top accomplishment is the establishment of the fabrication and robotics lab Northwest Arkansas Fab Lab, teaching high school students to be certified robotics technicians.

He also cited the creation of the Heartland Advanced Medical Manufacturing Regional Cluster to attract, develop, and retain health care manufacturers in Northwest Arkansas and northeast Oklahoma. The work to bring Whole Foods Market to Fayetteville was also significant in his chamber career.

“I have not had an experience, and I’ve had a lot of good experiences in my life, that has come anywhere close to equaling being the president of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce,” Clark said. “It’s a great community. It’s a great business community. It’s an ever-changing community that tries to keep abreast of what’s the very best and possible things of not only in Arkansas but in the world … It’s just been fun to go to work every morning.”

Clark initially thought he would work in the position until he was 80, but he started to think more about this after having some health issues.

“I love this community with all my heart. I love this business community with all my heart,” he said. “The 4,000 businesses that make up Fayetteville are some of the best you’ll find anywhere in the world, not just in Arkansas or the United States.”

TIME FOR NEW LEADERSHIP
He also highlighted the strength and character of the businesses that didn’t close during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the hospital, public school, university and others.

Clark said the population growth of the city has accelerated to about six people per day, up from four. And residents have welcomed the growth. He also cited area advancements in research, technology and health care that are in the works and that they weren’t being done when he started at the chamber. They were only being talked about in the past.

“It’s time for new leadership, it’s time for new ideas, and it’s time for me….to get some more schooling,” he said. “I have grandchildren that are in high school, and they do things with technology and with information at a much faster speed than I do and with much more clarity than I have. That’s because I didn’t take the time to learn it. They didn’t have a choice. They had to learn it as they were experiencing it going through life.”

He said he loves to learn, and that’s part of what he plans to do after he retires. He wants to learn to be a part of today and tomorrow, he said. He recently learned about plant DNA.

“I learned by happenchance that corn has more DNA and genetic code larger than human beings,” he said. “And, I’m going, ‘Corn? That yellow stuff that I like to eat? Sometimes on a cob? It’s got DNA?’ That’s the world that we’re changing to. And I’ve done some of that, and that got me on this path.”

SPACE CAMP, CLOWN WORK
He said over the past four years, he went to auctioneering school. While he didn’t want to be an auctioneer, he wanted to learn to think on his feet faster. He also attended space camp.

“I just had the time of my life, and I was the oldest guy there, too,” he said. “And you kind of look around, and they’re going, ‘What are you doing here?’ And I said, ‘You never know; they might offer me a seat on the shuttle. I just might go.’”

When he was younger, he said he was a clown for children at birthday parties and for his unit while he was in the Army Reserves.

“I actually performed with the Ringling Bros. while I was attorney general one day – one of the highlights of my public career, to be honest with you,” Clark said. “So, I’ve always been a person who liked to learn, and starting a couple of years ago, I got a little itch.”

He also made a small investment in a drone company, which will allow him to fly a drone. He said it’s a one-man drone, and he’ll be able to take it 20 feet off the ground.

“That’s what’s going to be transportation in five or 10 years, something like that,” he said. “You can’t be engaged in life if you’re not engaged in what life is doing at the time of the engagement. … I want to be a part of today, so this is the easiest way for me to do it, the fairest way to the people who’ve been the best employer I’ve ever had.”