> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Getting down to business - URL: https://www.smdp.com/getting-down-to-business/ - Published: 2004-03-20T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T04:02:53.000Z - Author: Guest Author - Tags: Business, Downtown, #archive-import *a time-honored tradition* *By MICHAEL TITTINGER Daily Press Staff Writer* DOWNTOWN — At the turn of the 20th Century, the challenges facing Santa Monica were much the same as they are now — transportation and distribution, reliable communications, open space. While the goal of developing a seaport wharf has since given way to highway congestion, and the battle for free mail delivery has since evolved into one of escalating cell phone towers, the impetus for businesses to band together for the common good is much today as it was then. Community business leaders first came together around fledgling plans for a wharf to supply Los Angeles. In December of 1888, the inaugural Board of Trade was formed. Within seven years, the board had been redubbed the Chamber of Commerce and consisted of a dozen committees charged with promoting the economic development of the city. “Grandfather told me that ‘you take a lot out of this city, you gotta put something back,’” recalled Jack Michel, who has deep ties to the chamber. Herman Michel, a Swiss immigrant who started Edgemar Farms on Rose Avenue back in 1880, served as the chamber’s first president when it was formally incorporated in May of 1925\. The chamber consisted of 20 original incorporators, intent on pushing for a steady stream of community improvements and the development of the local school district. From 1926 to 1932, Herman Michel presided as the mayor of Santa Monica, back before there was an elected City Council. Back then, the mayor was responsible for appointing such high-profile positions as fire chief and police chief. Of course, the chamber traditionally worked hand-in-hand with the government of the city through the years, a distinction that can’t be claimed by today’s incarnations. “It was always a good networking situation, a forum for people from businesses to come together, not necessarily in a political arena like today,” says Monty McCormack, who served as the chamber treasurer in the mid-1980s. “It wasn’t so much a social thing, but more about promoting Santa Monica as a whole. “It’s changed in many ways over the years. I hope it’s not in a state of decline.” Among some of the chamber’s early achievements were the calling of the city’s attention to the dire need for a civic auditorium and the conceiving of the first Santa Monica Mall, situated on what is now the bustling, retail-revolving Third Street Promenade. The chamber was instrumental in promoting a successful bond measure which secured funding for the civic center. The mall, meanwhile, was a brainstorm by the chamber’s retail sub-committee. The rift between local government and the chamber of commerce, and their perceived opposing objectives, seems to serve as a rallying point for each of the members in the nearly 80-year-old chamber’s present version. Where once the promotion of a small community was a unifying goal, special interests and urban expansion have driven a decided wedge between the two bodies. Jack Michel considers himself a third-generation Santa Monican, with his grandfather playing such an integral role in the city’s development. His father, Clarence Michel, served as national vice president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, or ‘Jaycees’, before becoming a long-time chamber member here. “In the 1960s, City Council was a good ol’ place,” said Michel, a board member for seven years in the 1960s. “They had people with vision. I don’t think any of them now know what it means to meet a payroll or stick their neck out.” By 1966, the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce had earned a considerable level of distinction among its peer groups throughout the state, as it was one of the first chambers in California to be accredited by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Five years later, it was the first in the state to be reaccredited. “It was a base for meeting other businesses in the community. Back then, they were in a position to offer businesses insight into what was needed,” said Bob Gabriel, who first joined the chamber back in 1955\. “We were able to get along with City Hall, able to lobby City Hall, and you felt like you were talking to people who will listen. “In the old days, Council looked to the chamber to see if we concurred on business-related things. Now, Council has its own feelings on stuff. They’re not listening to us anymore.” By 1983, when banker Dick Lawrence first joined the chamber, that mall had become something of an eyesore in the years since its 1965 opening, replete with deteriorating facades and numerous vacancies. Lawrence is proud of the efforts of the chamber to help promote plans for what evolved into the renowned Promenade. “When I first joined, the city and the chamber were very close,” said Lawrence, the chamber’s chief financial officer. “Many of the business leaders were on the City Council. They knew the businesses’ positions. They knew they had to make a profit. “In recent years, many on the City Council are not business owners. They don’t know the problems businesses have.” McCormack attributes many of the changes to plain old time and expansion, with new needs replacing old, with small communities spelled by the vast metropolis. “Some people today see Santa Monica as a grown city,” said the former Henshey’s department store controller. “Most people back then not only worked in Santa Monica, but also lived in Santa Monica. It was a genuine community. “Also today you don’t see the large businesses dominate anymore, businesses like Bell Telephone and Douglas Aircraft,” McCormack reasoned. “They didn’t always have a lot in common with the smaller businesses. Chamber membership has definitely become more diverse. A consensus was fairly easy in the old days, or came easier anyway.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/032004-03_01.jpg) of the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce. (Photo: Photo courtesy) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 20, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/032004.pdf?ref=smdp.com)