GLENDALE : Chamber’s Schlatter to Quit in March

After 27 years of service, the general manager of the Glendale Chamber of Commerce has announced he will resign from his post in March, officials said.

“I never expected to stay this long,” Aulden Schlatter said Monday. “The years fly by.”

The 67-year-old Glendale resident, who played a role in planning the Glendale Galleria and worked to bring economic development to what had been a sleepy suburb, submitted his resignation last week during a meeting of the chamber’s eight-member executive council.

Although most of his years with the chamber have been positive ones, Schlatter said, he decided to leave after facing decision-making clashes with chamber board members last year. Schlatter said he realized that the 1,700-member group could use fresh leadership.

“There were some things that I didn’t feel that they were listening to me about,” Schlatter said. “And I just felt that rather than continuing the stress . . . I should make my departure at this time.”

A native of Iowa, Schlatter said he plans to move to Palm Desert and do volunteer work in the community.

“I’m not really mad at anybody,” he said. “I just wanted to get out of the situation and enjoy my life.”

One key disappointment last year involved GlenFest, a May street festival that brought the chamber a loss of nearly $230,000, Schlatter said. He had supported the idea of a small, local event with amateur entertainers, but the chamber board opted for a large-scale production, he said.

Chamber board members conceded last July that the event was “a failure of major dimensions,” according to a chamber task force report. Board members are expected to vote today on whether to hold the festival this year.

Last week, chamber President Pat Liddell acknowledged that disagreements had existed between the board and Schlatter in the past but said he thought Schlatter would eventually retire--and not resign--from his position.

“I can’t say enough about Aulden Schlatter,” Liddell said. “He is the Glendale Chamber of Commerce. . . . If he were to say tomorrow, ‘I would like to reconsider and come back,’ great.”

Schlatter, who left his family’s farm in Iowa to pursue a career in business, was hired in March, 1967, to oversee operations at the Glendale chamber. He had earlier managed chambers of commerce in Harlan, Iowa; Richland, Wash., and Watsonville, Calif.