Sometimes leaders come and go, but when the president and CEO of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce announced her retirement in May, she’d been part of the organization for 22 years.

After announcing her departure, Connie Majure-Rhett and her husband, Haskell Rhett III, moved to Alabama, and the Wilmington chamber began the process of choosing a new person for the job.

Interim CEO Dick Blouse said that officials conducted a national search, and the candidates had been narrowed to two, though he wouldn’t say who they are. That’s after a head-hunting firm, Waverly Partners LLC, brought more than a dozen possibilities to the chamber’s search committee, which then narrowed the group down.

“We interviewed four candidates and are now deciding on two individuals to bring back the first of the year,” Blouse said Dec. 7.

If all goes well, the chamber could be prepared to announce a new CEO and president by mid-January, Blouse said.

But the chamber isn’t the only part of the business community to experience a leadership transition in 2016.

Two major University of North Carolina Wilmington positions were filled this year.

North Carolina native Laura Lunsford was named director of the Swain Center for Business and Economic Services at UNCW and assumed her duties Aug. 15.

Lunsford holds a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in psychology from N.C. State University and a master’s from University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She served as the first alumni relations director for Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and established the Park Scholarships program at N.C. State University.

Previously, she was an associate professor of psychology, focusing on the psychology of leadership and mentoring, at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

In June, Diane Durance, who had previously worked as president of a Michigan-based and state-supported nonprofit that supports early- and second-stage ventures, was named director of UNCW’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Durance became the CIE’s first permanent director since Jim Roberts left in March 2015.

In March of this year, Brunswick County officials combined the county’s economic development and planning departments, choosing Planning Director Mike Hargett to lead the new division. The city of Southport’s community development specialist, John Allen, became Brunswick County’s economic development manager in June, a new position that reports to Hargett.