Spokane's Ambassadors Group’s President and CEO Jeff Thomas, and his wife, Margaret Thomas, the company’s executive vice president, announced they are leaving the company.

Jeff Thomas has been head of the publicly traded company since 1996. Ambassadors runs the student-focused travel program People to People. Last year the company arranged education tours for 21,200 travelers, compared with nearly 24,000 in 2011.

The resignations are effective immediately, the company said in a release.

Anthony Dombrowik, senior vice president and chief financial officer, is interim chief executive offficer. The board of directors has said it will start a search for a new CEO.

The company has offices near the Spokane Airport.

According to the company’s 2012 proxy statement, the most recent available, Jeff Thomas’s total compensation in 2011 was $775,031. Margaret Thomas’s total compensation during that period was $455,031.

It's not a bad idea to brush up on your knowledge of proxy statements, especially if you have any stock in Spokane-based Ambassadors Group (symbol: EPAX).

Two shareholders, Bandera Partners and Lane Five Capital Management, have each filed preliminary proxy statements, indicating they may or may not be sending out invitations to other shareholders to vote with them on the election of new board directors.

That effort is tied to concerns by those investors, who between them own about 20 percent of the company's shares. They generally regard efforts by Ambassadors board and management as ineffective in reversing a five-year stock decline.

A story on the contest was posted Monday afternoon on Spokesman.com.

Ambassadors is the publicly traded cultural-immersion travel-arranger with offices near the Spokane Airport.

Its CEO Jeff Thomas earlier today released a letter to the company's employees. In it, he said:

“Our board and management team are committed to acting in the best interests of shareowners and are focused on delivering value.”

Financial graph from Thomson Reuters.

Ambassadors Group, Inc., which has its Spokane headquarters near the Spokane Airport, said it will pay a quarterly dividend of six cents per share on Dec. 7.

The company arranges tours and professional travel service for student groups and for professionals.

The dividend will go to all common shareholders of record as of Nov. 23. 

Spokane's Ambassadors Group will introduce a safety feature that gives its teachers, while on tour, emergency-enabled international global positioning system cell phones.