Executive Summary: Pressure and perspective guide Van Buren tourism chief

Editor’s note: The Fort Smith Metro Daily News Executive Summary series is focused on looking under the title, so to speak, of a business, government, and non-profit executive in the Fort Smith metro.

Maryl Koeth Purvis joined the Van Buren Advertising and Promotion Commission in October 1990 as vice president of Travel and Tourism. In 2002, she was promoted to her position as the director of the commission.

She is a founding member and past president of the Arkansas Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus, past president of the Western Arkansas Mountain Frontier regional tourism association, past board member and former President of the Arkansas Hospitality Association’s Arkansas Travel Council and member of the Arkansas Tourism Development Foundation.

At the 2007 Governor’s Conference on Tourism, she was recognized by her tourism industry peers as the Arkansas Tourism Person of the Year. In 2014 she was the recipient of the Arkansas Hospitality Association’s Silver Cup Award and was inducted into the AHA Hall of Fame in 2015.

At home in Van Buren, Purvis serves on the Van Buren Chamber of Commerce board of directors, the Van Buren Economic Development Partnership, the Chamber’s Governmental Affairs Committee and previously served on the board for the downtown revitalization organization, Van Buren Original.

Following are Purvis’ responses to the Executive Summary questions.

• What was your first job and what did it teach you? 
My very first job was during high school when I worked as an aide for a junior high teacher grading papers and tests. He was blind from birth and had a service dog, a beautiful golden retriever, that always laid at my feet in his office as I worked. The teacher never let being blind stop him from doing anything he wanted. He built a getaway cabin in the mountains, saved one of his children from drowning in the family pool and could drive a car around the empty Santa Anita Racetrack parking lot with assistance from his teaching buddies. He taught me that nothing is impossible and your life is what you make of it.

• What is a principle or value on which you never compromise?  
Honesty. My dad taught me that the truth will always win, even when the outcome isn’t in my favor.

• What’s one belief you held strongly 10+ years ago that you’ve changed your mind about?
I always believed that as a people all of us in the USA could find some common ground to relate to each other on some level. I find that, sadly, there appears to be less and less common ground. I never thought I would see that happen.

• If you could change one thing about the Fort Smith metro, what would it be?
I would like to see people in the metro area work together to improve the quality of life for all. The “territorial” thinking within the individual communities holds all of us back.

• How do you remain responsive and adaptable amid rapidly evolving expectations or business/workplace conditions?
By taking me out of the equation and looking for what would work best for the people and businesses that are impacted. Many times that requires me to look beyond my own experiences and beliefs. We all have egos and this one has always been a work in progress for me.

• What’s something people often get wrong about you?
That I’m not approachable because I don’t have a warm and fuzzy demeanor. I actually love interacting with people.

• What human relationship has had the most impact on you and why? 
My dad, James Nickelson, an Oklahoma farm boy. Interestingly enough, my dad and I were never close and more often than not our relationship was strained and even angry which helped build the strong foundation I stand on today. As a little girl he always told me I could do anything in life, I just had to work for it. He taught me to have a strong work ethic, that family should always be the number one priority and at the end of each day I should feel I made the world a little bit better place.

• If you had a walk-up song – like in baseball – what would it be and why?
Billy Joel’s “Pressure,” because I work much better under pressure. Give me a deadline and I’m at my best.

SUMMARY SUBJECTS
Following are the links to previous posts in the Executive Summary series.
ArcBest Chair and CEO Judy McReynolds
Fort Smith Mayor George McGill
BHC President and CEO Marty Clark