Connecting Ann Arbor’s emerging technology companies with its traditional business community must be a principle objective of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce’s next president, local executives agree.

The chamber expects to name an interim president by the end of the week, said Karl Couyoumjian, vice chairman of the chamber and president of Ann Arbor-based Thalner Electronic Laboratories. 

He said the chamber hopes to hire a permanent replacement for departed president Jesse Bernstein by the end of the year.

Couyoumjian said the chamber board is cognizant of an unintentional divide that has permeated the Ann Arbor business community. The shifting complexion of the region’s business community has created a wide range of new tech companies, for example - some of which are not connected with the traditional business world.

“We need to keep evolving,” Couyoumjian said. “The business climate is very different than it was 10 or 20 years ago. It’s not businessmen in fedoras carrying a briefcase. We’re a very diverse business community - diverse in age, in business type, in style. Not everybody goes to a brick-and-mortar building, goes to an office and sits at a desk.”

That sentiment was reflected in the recent comments of emerging tech community activist Dug Song, whose efforts to mobilize the entrepreneurial community have drawn a wave of interest from young entrepreneurs and self-described techies.

“There is a very well-established business community here - but it's an older business community,” Song told AnnArbor.com in an interview. “Like, for instance, the members of the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce typically are brick-and-mortar businesses, banking and insurance guys. You don’t see a lot of high-tech startups there. 

“This is sort of an issue, a challenge, because there are a lot of other people just like me here who don’t know where to find people and don’t know other venues or opportunities to talk about this stuff.”

Connecting the chamber with a younger crowd may start with social networking efforts, for example, which the chamber is already embracing.

“I think our new president is going to need to be somebody that can embrace that,” Couyoumjian said. “They’re going to have to be able to connect with a diverse group of business types and styles.”

The chamber’s interim president, he said, would be “someone with strong community ties.” The interim, who is not eligible for the permanent position, will participate in the Chamber’s regular events, including its marquee fall event called Impact.

A chamber search committee will handle the hiring process for the permanent president. The chamber has opted not to hire an outside search firm.

“To be honest, there’s not a necessity,” Couyoumjian said. “As you can imagine, there are very, very qualified out there - people looking for work.”

Bruce McCully, founder of Ann Arbor-based IT firm Dynamic Edge, which has a 25-person staff of mostly young adults, agreed that the chamber should seek “somebody that’s a little bit younger, representing someone with a little more technical background.” He said he hopes the new president can do an effective job of helping to weave together other business groups in the Ann Arbor region.

But McCully, who is active in the chamber, acknowledged that the new president faces a difficult task.

“It’s difficult, because the chamber has to service so many different types of businesses,” McCully said.

You can e-mail AnnArbor.com’s Nathan Bomey or follow him on Twitter.