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Pete Chambliss sets sail for new adventures

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The Tourism Office, needing a photographer, offered him a job and a career was launched. Chambliss' initial responsibilities were photography, consumer shows and special events. Eventually, he was working with group sales in the motorcoach sector.

Tourism research at that time, he recalls, was going to hotel parking lots and other strategic locations, and then jotting down what states were represented by the license plates on the parked cars.

He moved into international sales when Gov. William Donald Schaefer proposed that the Department of Business and Economic Development move into global markets. The Tourism Office had asked Chambliss to write a marketing plan for selling Maryland abroad. "It had a price tag of $260,000," he says, and soon received approval from the state legislature.

CRUSA founder
Chambliss is one of the founders of The Capital Region USA, Inc. (CRUSA) – a marketing alliance established in 1991 that promotes Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., as tourism destinations to international-travel decision makers.

At the 1989 World Travel Market in London, he recalls meeting with his counterparts from Virginia and Washington. Each of the delegations had a separate booth at the show. It made sense to consider how the three could pool their efforts, he says.

"Pete understood that we should be selling our various destinations the way the international visitor preferred to travel – and that was regionally," says Matt Gaffney, CRUSA's president and CEO. "As chairman of CRUSA for many years, Pete shaped the organization into what it is today: one of the travel industry's foremost regional marketing partnerships."

CRUSA started with a $200,000 investment from the three members: the Maryland Office of Tourism Development; Virginia Tourism Corporation and Destination DC. "It became a team effort to get the organization running," he says. "And, it's always taken a team effort to keep things rolling." Today, CRUSA operates with a $1.5 million budget.

Chesapeake Bay
When not traveling by plane, Chambliss prefers to hop aboard one of his boats docked outside of his home. He'll often go with his wife Janie and their friends, and navigate the Chesapeake Bay.

Last year, Chambliss – who has had a captain's license for more than 20 years – sailed his 43-foot catamaran from the British Virgin Islands to Annapolis. It was a 1,500-mile journey that took 19 days. "I had to plan everything for the trip," he says, "just like a group tour."

He says he's always had an affinity for "the maritime world." His grandfather (who had the same name) was an outdoors writer for the Baltimore Sun. And when he came to Annapolis 36 years ago, he lived on a boat for five years.

Chambliss is considering his options for how to spend more time on the water. "Maybe, I'll deliver boats," he says. "Or, maybe I'll be a water-taxi captain."

Whatever he does, he'll always have an interest in "selling people on coming to Maryland." It's what he believes in – especially life around the Chesapeake Bay – and it's what he's done throughout his career.