EVANSTON — The Evanston Chamber of Commerce is again without an executive director following the resignation of Marian McLean just over two weeks ago. McLean, who took over as executive director last June, is the second director to leave the position since long-time director Dawn Darby resigned and left the community in 2016. Bret McCoy also served a brief tenure at the position. 

The circumstances surrounding McLean’s resignation are murky at best. She was commended for her work by Evanston City Councilwoman Wendy Schuler at the recent annual awards luncheon, and the program from that event listed 44 new chamber members since the previous year. 

Though Herald staff have reached out to members of the chamber board for comment via email, no responses to those emails had been received by press time. 

The Herald was finally able to reach chamber board chair Nicole Espy Monday morning, but she declined to shine any light on McLean’s abrupt departure. When asked if part of her job as board chair is to be transparent with the public, Espy said, “No. I don’t think that it is. Our job is to promote local businesses.”

She said the board does plan to address McLean’s resignation at its next meeting (7:30 a.m. Wednesday, May 23, at the chamber), but added that the board will go into executive session to do so.

McLean herself in an email to the Herald said simply, “There is no story at this time. Just moving on and taking the summer off.” 

While other board members have not responded to requests for comments about the situation and the future direction of the chamber, as of Friday, May 18, there had been an ad for the executive director position posted on the Wyoming at Work website.