Modesto Chamber of Commerce picks education advocate as its newest CEO

The Modesto Chamber of Commerce has a new CEO-president, and the change in leadership comes as some chambers struggle to remain relevant in the age of social media in which businesses can do their own networking and promotions.

The Modesto chamber has seen its membership drop since the Great Recession, according to board Chairman Steve Rank, though the chamber recently has reversed that trend as part of a campaign to grow its membership.

The new CEO-president is Cindy Marks, the longtime Modesto City Schools board member and past president of the California School Board Association. She and her husband own Rogers Jewelry, a family-owned chain with eight stores from Reno to Bakersfield.

“It’s awesome to be able to be part of this organization, to be able to be part of the change in Modesto,” Marks said about her new job. She started June 10. Marks said she will not take part in any decisions in which there is a conflict of interest between her role as school board member and chamber CEO.

She was among about a dozen applicants and among the three who were interviewed for the position. “Cindy came out on top in the interview,” said Rank, who owns Rank Investigation & Protection. “She has all the skill sets to move the chamber ahead.”

Rank said that includes rebuilding the membership and working on the issues that promote economic development, such as having a trained work force, opportunities for local college graduates and an adequate transportation network.

The chamber has an annual budget of nearly $700,000 and six employees, including Marks. Her salary is $70,000.

The chamber had 794 members as of June 30, according to Marks. That’s down from 926 members in December 2015. Information on membership before that was not immediately available. When asked, Rank said he’d like the chamber to have 1,100 to 1,200 members within 18 to 24 months.

“I’d say there is room for improvement,” said California Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Dave Kilby when asked about the Modesto’s chamber’s size. “... They should probably be over a thousand members.”

Marks replaces Cecil Russell, the retired Save Mart executive who stepped in as chamber CEO-president on a temporary basis in 2011 but ended up staying for eight years. Rank said the chamber will be forever grateful to Russell and said he remains involved with the chamber.

Russell has been a strong advocate for business and the community and was a fixture at City Council meetings. It was not uncommon for him to ask city officials probing questions and to let them know when he believed they were heading in the wrong direction.

Marks, 57, said she will continue the chamber’s work of advocating for business at City Hall, promoting businesses and holding networking and social events. But she will place more emphasis on strengthening the ties between business and education to ensure schools and colleges graduate students with the skills that businesses need.

She will work on convincing more nonprofits about the benefits of belonging to the chamber. She also will reach out to them and other organizations — such as the Downtown Modesto Partnership, Modesto Neighborhoods Inc. and Opportunity Stanislaus — that are working to make the city a better place.

She said many groups are doing stellar work but often are not communicating with one another. She said the chamber is in a unique position to bring everyone together to find solutions to community problems.

“I believe the chamber has an opportunity because we are in touch with the businesses, we are are in touch with the nonprofits, we are in touch with community leaders, government leaders,” Marks said.

Rank said: “We need to see how we can become one voice, one voice for economic development and have a defined direction and goals.”

Kilby — who was the Modesto chamber’s CEO for much of the 1980s and is president of the Western Association of Chamber Executives, which has more than 800 members in 17 states — said successful chambers today take on more than the traditional roles of being a community booster and holding mixers and ribbon cuttings.

He said the chambers that have been most successful bring together a community’s different constituencies to solve problems that are on everyone’s mind, such as affordable housing, homelessness or finding skilled workers.

He said young businesspeople want a chamber that is a problem solver. “We are hearing that from everyone,” Kilby said.

This story was originally published July 28, 2019 at 10:31 AM.