Coldwater Creek CEO to leave post

Dennis Pence will retire from day-to-day operations at Coldwater Creek Inc. but will continue to lead the women’s apparel retailer as chairman of the board of directors.

Pence, 57, has not returned to work since suffering a mild heart attack in mid-September. His doctors expect Pence to make a full recovery, but after reflecting and talking to his family, Pence decided to retire from his role as chief executive officer, said Mel Dick, Coldwater Creek’s director of investor relations.

Daniel Griesemer will succeed Pence as CEO in a transition that will occur Oct. 30, according to a news release issued late Wednesday.

Griesemer worked for Gap Inc. and Federated Department Stores before joining Sandpoint-based Coldwater Creek six years ago. He’s currently the company’s president and chief operating officer – responsible for sales, marketing and national retail store expansion.

In a statement, Pence said: “I have had the extraordinary privilege to co-found and lead Coldwater Creek for 23 years, and I leave with complete confidence in our company’s future.”

Pence and his former wife, Ann Pence, founded Coldwater Creek in 1984, after making a quality-of-life move to Sandpoint from New Jersey. He was a former marketing manager for Sony Corp. She was a freelance advertising copywriter.

Dennis Pence recounted the move in a 1993 Forbes article: The couple arrived in Sandpoint on Christmas Eve in 1983 with $40,000 in savings. They launched a small mail-order business from their apartment, exhausting their savings and a line of credit before Coldwater Creek finally turned a profit in 1985.

The company now does more than $1 billion in sales annually, through catalogs, the Internet and retail stores scattered across the country.