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Carter Keithley trades HPBA for toy industry

Staff -- Kids Today, 3/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Carter Keithley, president of the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, announced he will leave that post, effective May 1, to become president of the Toy Industry Association in New York City.

Incoming HPBA Chairman Jerry Scott, vice president of sales and marketing for Robert H. Peterson, will appoint a search committee and an executive search consultant will be retained to identify a new association president.

Keithley has served as the chief staff executive of the Arlington, Va.-based association since 1980, when it became a client of the association management firm Smith, Bucklin & Associates. In 1994, HPBA left that management firm and Keithley became full-time president of the association.

"My employment at HPBA has been much more than just a job for these past 25 years," Keithley said. "I truly love the industry; it's been a career and I have some wonderful friendships in it."

Keithley said he had not been looking to make a career change, but was approached earlier in the year and now believes he can bring a new measure of leadership to TIA as a result of his experience in association management.

"Fortunately, during the past 10 years we have built one of the finest staff rosters of any industry association, as well as a solid financial foundation," said Paul Birnstihl, chairman of the HPBA board. "A prosperous future for HPBA is fully assured, and we look forward to a new chapter in the continuing evolution of our association."

Reflecting over industry changes during his tenure, Keithley said, "It has evolved along with the product categories." He recalled the association began with a focus on wood stoves during an energy crisis that brought about the heyday of that product.

"Then the bloom went off of that rose and we also woke up to the fact that we were fouling the air with the wood smoke so the industry worked hard to develop the clean-burning product and then increasingly evolved into the gas-burning product. By the early '90s, 60-70 percent of what we sold burned gas so we changed the name to the Hearth Products Association and then five or six years later we discovered the dealers were heavily involved in casual furniture and barbecues so we merged with the barbecue association and changed again. The association is really just a creature of what people are doing in the industry."

The Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Expo serves as the association's engine of growth, Keithley added. The next HPB Expo is set for March 9-11 at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City.

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