Professionals from across Alachua County dusted off their high heels and leather loafers Thursday as the Greater Gainesville Chamber of Commerce marked a century of generating and supporting business in the area.

The Stephen C. O’Connell Center transitioned from slam dunks to sizzling steaks as approximately 500 local businessmen and businesswomen mingled and dined at the venue. The event served as both the chamber’s annual meeting and as a celebration recognizing its 1924 founding.

Chamber president and event emcee Eric Godet helped attendees imagine the Gainesville of the 1920s.

“Our main industries were turpentine, phosphate mining and tung oil,” Godet said, chuckling. “And at one point, hog, horse and mule production was ranked first in the state. Right here, baby. We were talking about No. 1 back then.”

A “changing of the guard” ceremony transitioned chamber leadership from former board chair Domenic Scorpio to new chair Craig Wilburn. Scorpio is president and CEO of construction firm Scorpio Corporation, and Wilburn is a realtor and the founder of Team Dynamo, a Keller Williams real estate team.

“Craig brings a heart for the community like I’ve never seen,” said Anne Polo, the chamber’s director of communications and marketing, during an interview conducted before the event. “He is very focused on unity and community and the parts that we all play in taking care of each other… plus, as a businessman, running his own company, he’s got the numbers thing as well, but he’s also got a lot of heart for Gainesville.”

Like all board chairs, Wilburn will serve for a year before passing the gavel to his own successor. His new duties include leading chamber meetings, filing agendas and driving conversations in general. Some gregarious chairs also act as a point of outreach between the chamber and the community, as Scorpio did.

But few audience members likely foresaw the outgoing chair prefacing his speech with a series of breakdancing moves, which Scorpio did — in a jacket and a tie — once Godet revealed his colleague’s past as a sixth grade breakdancing champion.

Scorpio, once he recovered his breath, highlighted several local “community-shaping” projects underway or completed in the past year, including the University of Florida’s new Malachowsky Hall for computer science and electrical engineering students, construction on IQ Fiber’s 100 percent fiber optic network in Northwest Gainesville and Alachua and the opening of the Alachua County Sports and Events Center, selected as the 2025 host for the World Masters Athletics Indoor Championship.

“He really is a bottom-line-numbers kind of person,” Polo said of Scorpio, “and having somebody not only focusing on the health of our community but the health of our fiscal responsibility is really an important thing for a board chair to provide, and Domenic did that amazingly.”

Thursday’s program included official recognition of chamber founding member M.M. Parrish, a Gainesville real estate agency affiliated with Coldwell Banker since 1982. Board members also honored Susan Crowley, who recently retired as UF’s assistant vice president for community relations following a 17-year tenure at the university.

“She is receiving our legacy award,” Polo said. “We don’t give out a legacy award every year. It’s really got to be somebody who’s made an impact in our community, and that’s definitely Susan.”

Wilburn, the final speaker of the evening, left the audience with a message of hope by describing the symbolic nature of oak trees.

“The oak’s robust trunk and branches have made it a metaphor for facing and overcoming challenges with resilience,” Wilburn said. “I think that defines Gainesville, and it defines what we can be in the next 100 years.”