Chamber CEO, an ex-airline exec, shot dead in Memphis

A civic leader and former airline executive was alone when he was fatally shot in down- town Memphis, Tennessee, and authorities are investigating whether he was killed in a robbery or as part of a “personal vendetta,” police said Friday.

Philip Trenary, the president and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce, was shot at about 8 p.m. Thursday on South Front Street, Memphis police spokeswoman Karen Rudolph said. Trenary was shot near where the chamber was holding its annual “Move it Memphis” race, near a large apartment complex and not far from historic Beale Street.

Trenary died at Regional One Health hospital, police said. They appealed for help locating a suspect described as a black male with dreadlocks, wearing a blue shirt and driving a white fourdoor Ford F150.

Rudolph said the suspect stepped out of his vehicle, approached Trenary, and shot him. Trenary was alone when he was shot, Rudolph said.

“It is still unknown whether this was a robbery or a personal vendetta,” Rudolph said in a text message.

Trenary, 64, and an Oklahoma native, was a former airline executive lauded for his community work in his adopted city. He founded Exec Express Airlines in Stillwater, Oklahoma, in 1984.

Trenary came to Memphis in 1997 to run a regional airline that morphed into Pinnacle, a $1 billion, 7,700-employee regional airline operator. He left the company in 2011.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland called it a senseless loss.