WEXFORD — Officials with the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber have been working overtime in the wake of the sudden resignation of Rebecca Martin, former president and CEO, and two of her closest aides.

Jim Boltz of Minuteman Press, who is the chamber's board chairman, said there are three major goals following the April 1 resignation of the three key staffers: find a replacement for Martin; figure out the state of the organization's finances; and maintain important member services and events.

“I think we have things under control. The board has really stepped up,” Boltz said. “The staff — the three people there — have stepped up. Right now, everything is running at the same pace it was due to everyone's hard work.”

Martin, who only had been on the job as president and CEO for 14 months, resigned without notice on April 1. Since her departure, she was hired as the president and CEO of the Federal Way Chamber of Commerce in Federal Way, Wash. She starts that job May 1.

But Martin's resignation wasn't the only one that the chamber received on April 1. Office manager Dana Bodek and director of programs and events Jim Stewart also abruptly quit without notice at the same time as Martin.“Two others resigned when Becca resigned,” Boltz said. “We lost three in one fell swoop. (Martin) brought Jim in from Maryland. You would figure if Becca left, he'd leave. Dana was kind of a surprise.”Bodek and Stewart had both come on board with Martin, with Stewart filling the newly created position of director of programs and events, Boltz said. Martin created the new position, which had previously been one of the tasks assigned to marketing director Megan Julius.“Becca created the events coordinator position,” Boltz said. “It was split off from another position and became a new position.”There are now three employees left at the chamber, down from the seven during Martin's tenure. In addition to the resignations of Stewart and Bodek, several other staffers came and went in the 14 months Martin was in charge.Within a month of Martin starting on the job, former director of accounting Matt DiLallo abruptly quit. DiLallo was eventually replaced in June of 2013 by Ralph Gaetano. But, Gaetano left the chamber after only five months on the job in November 2013.Also leaving the chamber — in November 2013 — was Debbie Crum, who was the director of business development. Al Davidson took her place when hired in February 2014 and is still with the chamber.

The departure of Martin and her two assistants has left a hole in the leadership, but Boltz stressed that the chamber still is holding all its signature events and hopes to have a new president and CEO on the job no later than the end of May.“We have a search going on — a nationwide search — right now. We're collecting resumes,” Boltz said of the hunt for a new CEO and president.“We have committees put together who will do screening and the first set of interviews. We already have some good candidates who have sent their resumes.”The chamber will accept resumes until the end of April. In May, screening and interviews will be done by 12 members of the chamber board.The new president and CEO will earn $75,000 to $80,000 a year, Boltz said, which is on par with the salary Martin was paid.Martin was at an “at-will” employee, and when she resigned, she lost all benefits and the chamber did not owe her any money, Boltz added.“Becca is not being paid,” he said. “She has no benefits.”Boltz said the organization also hopes to hire a new office manager as soon as possible, but he noted that the position of director of programs and events will not be filled until a new CEO and president is hired to allow that person to help choose someone for the role.One person who has been vital to the transition after Martin quit, Boltz said, is Julius, who is working in conjunction with two other staffers in the organization's Wexford office.“Megan is pretty much running the show,” Boltz said.

Before Martin's resignation, the chamber had a difficult several months following the retirement of former CEO and president Susan Balla and Martin taking the job, he said.“We had a rough transition. It wasn't as smooth going from the old group to the new group,” Boltz explained. “It had to do with the transition in staff. The new staff was unfamiliar with some of the things we did.”The chamber and its sister entity, the nonprofit Chamber Educational Foundation, saw a loss of about $5,000 in revenue in 2012, Boltz said. However, in 2013, as was reported at the organization's annual banquet, Boltz said the two entities lost a combined total of almost $90,000.And, the chamber saw a slight decrease in membership, from 1,030 members to 1,000 members.“Basically, it was three elements,” Boltz said of the lost revenue. “Membership and dues was the biggest part, about $40,000. We lost about $30,000 on events revenue and we lost about $20,000 in advertising revenue.”

The loss in revenue prompted the chamber board to begin a probe into what happened and why, But Boltz was adamant that Martin was not to blame and did nothing inappropriate while CEO and president.“When you lose $90,000, you want to understand why,” Boltz said. “It wasn't an investigation. It wasn't even an audit. It was getting in and seeing what happened.“Everybody is in the clear. There was no investigation of Becca.”One of the issues with the finances was the departure of former director of finance and operations Matt DiLallo, who resigned within weeks after Martin began work in early 2013.In a February 2014 interview, Martin described DiLallo's departure: He just didn't like the new regime. He was just uncomfortable with how things were going.”The position of director of finance and operations remained vacant until a new person, Ralph Gaetano, was hired in June 2013. However, Gaetano resigned for unknown reasons in early November 2013 after five months on the job.When Gaetano left, the task of handling accounting for the chamber was done by “external accountants.”“He left pretty quickly,” Boltz said of Gaetano. “He did all the financial reports.”Now, Boltz said, an outside firm, Book Smarts, is doing the bookkeeping. The firm was brought in January to help organize the financial record keeping.As for the membership decline, Boltz attributed the loss in members to poor management of the chamber's membership list, but noted that the 30 lost members was a “wash.”“It was just one of those things,” Boltz said. “Some members were carried on the books a little longer than they were supposed to.”Boltz hopes the new CEO and president will continue with the vision of the chamber board to expand the organization's footprint in the three counties it serves, continue to add members, and regain its financial stability.Although Martin was only on the job for 14 months, less time than the chamber board expected, Boltz said he would not do anything different in hindsight. He said that Martin was the “right person” for the job at the time.“She had the experience,” Boltz said of Martin. “We wanted to grow the footprint of the chamber. We felt she had the experience to do it.”