Milton chamber director to step down
After three years at the helm, Milton Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Lisa Sumstine has decided it's time to move on.
“It has been very much a labor of love for me,” Sumstine said. “But it's time for a change. The person that I replaced had a thing going, and then I came in and kicked it up a level or two. So now I feel like it's time for someone else to come in and kick it up another level or two.”
The lifelong Milton resident and mother of two said she had been working odd-end jobs, mostly bookkeeping, when she sat in her driveway one day, perusing help wanted ads in the Cape Gazette and came across the chamber position.
She decided to go for it. Now, said chamber board President Michael Clark, it's going to be hard to fill her shoes.
“We're looking for a duplicate of Lisa, which we realize is going to be very difficult to find,” Clark said. “The town has a new vibrancy, and she's been very instrumental in that.”
When Sumstine took over, many storefronts were empty, and the theater had been sitting silent for years.
“I think I probably started at the right time,” Sumstine said. “The economy was just beginning on the upswing. When I started there were seven or eight vacancies downtown.”
Now there are only two – and soon to be one – and and the Milton Theatre has become a hub for entertainment. The chamber's membership is booming, too, with more than 120 business members.
“We've had great success with the Pop-Up Program through the state, and people really recognizing Milton as a place to put down roots, to plant their business,” she said. “In the last three years, our neighbors have really stepped up greatly to support these businesses and keep the doors open.”
Sumstine, partnering with the library and Milton Community Foundation, also helped established a few new summertime events: Truckin' Tuesday, Movies in the Park and the Broadkill Banjos and Seafood Festival.
But she couldn't have done any of it without the help of her family, she said.
“We took it on as a job for me, but it really has been a family effort,” she said. “I could not have done this job without my husband, Jim. There would be no Truckin Tuesday if he wasn't out here schlepping tables and chairs.”
Family is the main reason Sumstine decided to step down, she said. She hopes to officially resign before the end of the year, but has agreed to help train her replacement.
“I'm excited to take some time and have a few extra hours in the day to be somebody's wife and somebody's mother,” she said. “In the end, I'd like to think I'm leaving things better than I found them.”
