Longtime destination marketing executive Paul Decker has announced his retirement from the Valley Forge Convention and Visitors Bureau (VFCVB), ending a nearly 40-year hospitality industry career. He’ll leave the organization at the end of March 2013.
Decker assumed responsibility for marketing meeting, convention and leisure visitor products in September, 1992, for Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County and managed its growth from a staff of 12 and a budget of $1.5 million to its present complement of 21 employees and a nearly $4 million budget. Seven years into his tenure, he guided the then-county government agency through privatization as a not-for-profit, membership-based destination marketing organization.
Decker notified the organization’s board of his intentions a year prior to his departure.
“Paul’s announcement was a bittersweet event in that we’re sad to lose the benefit of his leadership, but we’re happy to wish him well in the next phase of his life,” said Richard W. Kubach III, chairman, VFCVB. “His legacy is the tremendous respect the bureau enjoys among our customer audiences, members and the national, state and regional travel industries. We very much appreciate his early notice that’s permitting us the luxury of time to execute both a forward-looking strategic planning process and national search.”
The VFCVB has begun the initial phases of that planning and engaged SearchWide, a Minnesota-based hospitality industry recruiting firm, to seek its next president.
“I’m extremely grateful for having had the opportunity to lead and grow the bureau, especially through several challenging times that included three tough economies,” said Decker. “I’m most proud, though, of the terrific staff we’ve assembled and with whom I’ve had the honor of working for most of two decades.”
Decker joined the bureau following a stint as president of the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau in Tennessee and eight years as vice president of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. Before that, he was Pennsylvania’s state travel director during the nation’s bicentennial celebration. The New York City native is a graduate of Fordham University and was a U.S. Army officer for seven years, which included a combat tour in Vietnam.
The VFCVB is a nonprofit, membership-based sales and marketing organization that promotes the Valley Forge area and Montgomery County as a convention site and leisure-visitor destination.
