New Food, New Faces at Annual Board of Trade Dinner

Susan Niemann, chief executive of local caterer Ridgewells, helped bring a touch of hipness to the normally stodgy Greater Washington Board of Trade Mid-Winter Dinner. (By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)

At the Greater Washington Board of Trade, things tend to be a bit conservative. The regional chamber of commerce was founded in 1889 and tends to do things the same way they were done last year, last decade and last century. In fact, when Robert A. Peck left his job as president of the organization at the end of last year, many associated with the Board of Trade said it resulted in part from a culture clash between Peck, who wanted to make the organization less stodgy, and more tradition-minded board members.

Even with Peck no longer in charge, the group's annual Mid-Winter Dinner, held Thursday night, broke with some of the Board of Trade's normal tendencies. The venue was the same as it has been for decades (the Washington Hilton ballroom). There was a military color guard presenting the U.S. flag as usual. But the first course was a spicy seaweed salad, rather than the usual mixed greens drizzled with vinaigrette. The main course was miso-glazed sea bass, without the customary slab of beef to accompany it.

The after-party wasn't in an upstairs suite at the Hilton, as often in years past, but in the hipper Hotel Helix a cab ride away, where hip-hop stars are known to stay when they're in town and plastic cubes in the lounge that substitute for chairs light up in neon colors when people sit on them.

The changes were orchestrated largely by the co-chairmen of the event, Chris Berry, president of radio station WMAL, and Susan Niemann, chief executive of caterer Ridgewells.

What differentiates the annual event from most big-business dinners is that there are no long speeches, only a brief hello. Then the 1,200 businesspeople attending spend the rest of the evening eating, drinking and gabbing. This being an election year, there was a particularly heavy concentration of elected officials prowling the room, hunting for potential supporters.

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele (R), who is running for the U.S. Senate, was there, as was Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley (D), who is running for governor. (Douglas M. Duncan, who has been a close ally of the Board of Trade as Montgomery County executive and is running against O'Malley for the Democratic nomination, didn't attend.)

Five major candidates for mayor of Washington were there, too, unwittingly showing how power is already shifting in Washington. As people crowded around candidates such as Linda W. Cropp, Adrian M. Fenty and Marie C. Johns, outgoing Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) sat at his table, eating his fish and talking to his wife, uninterrupted.

-- Neil Irwin