L. A. CHAMBER ENTERS ERA OF ADVOCACY : Ray Remy Steers L.A. Chamber Out of Rough Waters

When Ray Remy left his job at City Hall as deputy mayor of Los Angeles in mid-1984, he headed into troubled waters at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. He was to be the group’s third president in the 14 months.

Remy’s appointment fueled speculation that the chamber’s revolving executive door meant it was backing away from a major reorganization designed to restore some of its historical clout in government and business matters.

Three and half years later, Remy, 50, appears to have firmly steered the chamber onto its new course. Its focus is regional: Southern California. Its mission is now more advocative--to represent business interests on local, state and national issues that affect the Southland.

The chamber, some observers have said, is now positioned to better reflect Los Angeles’ changing demographics and its emerging international status as the U.S. gateway city to the Pacific Basin. Since Remy came on board, the organization has turned around a two-year decline in membership and has significantly expanded the number of women and minorities on its board of directors.

Force of Change

“Moving Ray Remy into the position was one of the smartest things the chamber has done,” said Waldo H. Burnside, president and chief operating officer of Carter Hawley Hale Stores and a chamber director. Burnside credits Remy’s background as deputy mayor, former executive director of Southern California Assn. of Governments and former manager of the southern office of the League of California Cities with enabling him to “operate extremely well” with a broad cross-section of people ranging from politicians to volunteers.

Charles D. Miller, chamber chairman and chief executive of Avery International in Pasadena, agrees. “Ray Remy has brought a major new change to the chamber. He knows Los Angeles and he has excellent contacts in business and government.”

“He has an excellent idea of knowing what buttons to push and making connections,” one staffer said. “He does a lot by telephone calls and stays behind the scenes.”

His style is low key, some say deliberately. Remy claims that he is a low profile operator by choice because he can achieve more by staying out of the limelight.

But now having set the chamber in its new direction, Remy admits that he is now becoming more visible in Washington, Sacramento and locally. He can even be heard occasionally on radio expressing the chamber’s rebuttal to a station editorial.

Remy says going a little high profile is not easy for him. “It’s difficult to change a manager’s character and style.”

Distracting Changes

The appointment of Remy’s two predecessors were accompanied with publicity about the chamber’s new quest to restore its old glory.

The executive changes, however, became distracting instead of providing firm leadership. William S. Banowsky, the chamber’s first president, resigned abruptly in October, 1982, after serving only six weeks and returned to his former post as president of the University of Oklahoma. Banowsky is currently president of Dallas-Ft. Worth Superconducting Super Collider Authority, a private group of business and government leaders pushing to locate the new federal science research project in Ellis County, Tex.

The chamber’s second president, Ted Bruinsma, former Loyola Marymount University Law School dean, resigned in January, 1984, after a one-year term because of a conflict with some chamber directors over the president’s role and changes he tried to make. Bruinsma now heads University Technology Transfer, a Torrance venture capital firm, and is a trustee of the California State University system.