Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) CEO Charles Gauthier has put in his notice that he plans to retire on June 30, 2021, after 28 years heading the organization.
The DVBIA's board plans to establish a search committee, retain a global search firm, and recruit the next president and CEO in the months to come.
Gauthier told BIV on July 15 that he has been thinking about retiring for the past couple years, and he chose next summer because that is the season when he will turn 60 years old. His longtime wife, Donna, has already been retired for five years. They both intend to do more travelling, and are optimistic that the pandemic will be under control a year from now.
"I love this city and I want to be involved," he said. "I'll be an engaged citizen. I want to give back to not-for-profits and organizations in some way – maybe serve on a board and just help out and do something totally different, but I'll be retired."
Gauthier joined the DVBIA in 1992, when there were three people. Now, his team has 35 individuals, including office staff, a clean team, and downtown safety ambassadors.
"The timing for this next step is ideal,” he said. “After the DVBIA’s very successful mandate renewal process that concluded earlier this year, the association is well-positioned to continue fulfilling the commitments laid out in our new ten-year mandate."
He added that he is confident that his team will be able to "do an incredible job" without him.
One of Gauthier's significant decisions at the DVBIA was to steer the organization away from hosting its own events, such as an international buskers festival in the 1990s, and toward providing grants to festivals, such as the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival or the Doxa Documentary Film Festival.
He led the DVBIA through a large-scale public consultation project called Reimagine Downtown Vancouver, and projects such as the downtown’s ‘Alley-Oop’ laneway transformation.
Originally from Winnipeg, Gauthier completed a political science degree and a masters degree in urban planning from the University of Manitoba. He then moved to a sequence of small Manitoba towns to do economic development work. He was also scrambling to try to win government grants for initiatives and to convince municipal governments to fund what he considered valuable initiatives.
The Summerland Economic Development Commission hired Gauthier in 1990 to stimulate development in that Okanagan community and, on the side, also run its BIA.
Few business improvement associations (BIAs) existed at the time and one of the first ones in B.C. was in Summerland. He realized that while the economic development work was interesting, the BIA work was a lot more fun, he told BIV.
Gauthier's contract in Summerland ended in 1992, and he applied for the top job at the DVBIA.
"As difficult as it is to leave an organization that I truly love, leaving the association in the hands of a competent and dedicated team will make it much easier," he said.
