The Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce finished up 2008 with a December 3 gala at Jasna Polana that honored Jack Morrison (the restaurateur), Kurt Landgraf (of Educational Testing Service) and Janet Vergis, of Janssen, McNeil Pediatrics & Ortho-McNeil Neurologics.

It was the first chamber gala I’ve attended, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised about what a delightful evening it was. It was twice as long as the usual chamber function, and in luxurious surroundings, and everyone was in quite a festive mood — in spite of the fact that eight of the people attending had had a grueling day (the previous day) interviewing potential candidates for the CEO job.

I am on the board of this chamber and thankfully not on that search committee, which was inundated with lots of highly qualified applicants. But I am quite happy with the search committee’s choice, voted on today, the name to be released next week.