For 32 years, Martha "Marti" Bueso has rubbed shoulders with Dade’s power brokers and networked with its captains of industry, while keeping one of the County’s oldest business associations operating on an even keel.

Martha "Marti" Bueso

At 49, she’s lived her entire life in Dade County and worked for just one organization, the prestigious Executives' Association of Greater Miami, which has allowed her to meet and work closely with some of South Florida’s most powerful and influential people.

"When I came to work here I was just 16 years old," Bueso recalls with a smile. "I had a friend who worked for Eastern Airlines and she was also working for the Executives’ Association. She said, ‘Come on over and help me for a few weeks.’ I did, and I’ve been here for 32 years."

That’s an astonishing achievement in this ’90s era of job-hopping and big-bucks inducements. It is even more impressive when you consider that the Executives' Association will celebrate its 60th anniversary in July and that Bueso has been with the organization since 1967. One of only three people ever to have held the position, she has been the association’s executive director since 1981.

"Charles Gwinn was the executive director before me and he began with the Executives' Association in ’39," she recalled.

"He left during the war and another gentleman by the name of Henry Blinn came in and was here for about 10 years. Then Charlie Gwinn came back and I trained under him. He also worked for the Miami News many years ago and just passed away last year, The Executives' Association of Greater Miami limits its membership to no more than 110 of Miami-Dade’s elite businesses. The main thrust of the organization is promoting the business interests of its members through leads, networking, weekly meetings, open houses, getting to know the member firms and being able to refer business."

"We do try to keep it exclusive," Bueso said. "We used to limit the membership to 100, but the board of directors raised it to 110. With turnover, it stays at about 105 members. If we were to allow it to become bigger, it would be too unruly."

The organization was founded in San Francisco in 1916 and the Miami chapter came into existence in 1939. There are about 105 associations, most of them in the United States and Canada, with a few more in England and South Africa. Hawaii is the site of the new International Executives' Association headquarters.

Bueso has been something of a celebrity from the day she was born. News photographers swarmed Jackson Memorial Hospital at 12:08 on the morning of Jan. 1, 1950 to record her birth as the first baby born into Dade County in the decade of the ’50s.

"The doctor who delivered me was still wearing his tuxedo," she laughed. "They had to call him away from a New Year’s Eve party to bring me into the world. And, my picture did make the front page of The Miami Herald."

The pattern of "firsts" has continued throughout Bueso’s life. She is a first-generation American, a member of the first graduating class of Miami Springs Senior High School, the first female recipient of the "Most Outstanding Law Student" award, and the first woman to head Executives’ Association, which was then an all-male organization.

"It was quite an interesting time," she said. "The members suddenly found a woman in their midst and they were accustomed to using off-color jokes in their speeches. They passed a rule banning that because of my presence. Then, they would all come to me in private and tell me their jokes to see if they were all right to repeat in their speech. I heard some truly funny stories."

Bueso says the president of the Executives' Association is elected annually and that some of Miami-Dade’s legendary names have filled the post. They are names like W. L. Philbrick of Philbrick Funeral Homes, Frank Borman of Eastern Airlines, Raymond Butler of the Raymond Butler Insurance Co., M. R. Harrison Jr. of the construction company that bore his name, Maurice Armani with Carnival Cruise Lines, Bud McDougall of Culligan Water, Pete Newsome of Publix Supermarkets and Phillip Everingham of Merrill Stevens Drydock Co., to mention only a few.

"Phil and Pete are the two men who probably are responsible for carrying the organization to where it is today," she said. "They were the only men to serve as president three times."

She notes that the Executives' Association still has six charter members, Skags Office Products; The Keyes Company; Rechtien International Trucks; Florida Coca Cola; PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Pfleger Financial Group, which holds the No. 1 membership as a result of buying Mutual Benefit, the company that brought the Executives' Association concept to Florida.

"It’s incredible that we still have those six charter members," she said. "That’s 60 years times six. That’s a lot of representation there."

Bueso said the Executives' Association membership has remained fairly constant over the years and that 40 to 50 member firms are family-owned businesses, with tremendous family history in Miami-Dade.

"For many of them, this is the third generation of the same family that I’ve worked with here in the association," she said proudly. "And with their children in the learning stages and working with their parents in summer jobs, it’ll soon be four generations that I’ll be working with."

In spite of her busy schedule with the association, Bueso finds time to work with the Miami Children’s Home Society, the Glades Middle School’s CHARLEE program for girls that have been abused, and she is very active in the Junior Orange Bowl Committee, the Parade Committee and the Queen’s Pageant.

She also found time to marry her economist husband, Robert, in 1983 and they have three children, Lisa Michelle, 23, Lara Marisa, 14, and Leah Meriah, 12. The family resides in the Kendall area and attends Plymouth Congregational Church,

"It has been hectic," Bueso said with a grin. "I have many memories of running into a board meeting with pancake syrup on my shoulder, or driving the babies to grandma’s house at 5:30 a.m., so I could be on time for the weekly six o’clock breakfast meetings. But, it’s all been worth it and my family has been the key to a loving bond that we all share."

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