Just days away from his last day on the job, Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Pat Patrick is content to leave the organization better than he found it.
But it hasn’t been easy. During his 21 years in office, Patrick has weathered a major recession, pandemic, political skirmishes and various business challenges. Despite all that, Patrick says it’s the best job of his life. He has no regrets.
Patrick was hired in 2001 from a pool of 100 applicants, a remarkable feat considering he had never worked for a chamber before and had never been CEO. House board chairwoman at the time, Sherry Cotta, told a reporter that the board wanted someone “who knows the people and understands the community.” They also wanted someone who could rebuild the organization. “His background and experience in marketing will take us to another level,” Cotta told a Stockton Record reporter.
His tenure of more than 20 years makes him the longest serving president and CEO in the chamber’s history.
The chamber was between the CEOs at the time, with the late Bill Dauer as interim until someone was found. When he was hired, Patrick was told that the chamber had 750 members. Once on the job, he found that the chamber had only 500 paying members. The organization’s finances were also under pressure. He said having five different accountants in two years didn’t help matters.
But in a short time, Patrick managed to reduce the list of members to reality and stabilize the budget. He then set out to create a vision to grow the chamber and grow the local business community. But “growth” is a fighting word for many in Lodi, as growth inevitably leads to expanding city limits, annexations, more housing and a Super Walmart.
The mega-market already had a footprint in Lodi, but was looking to build a much bigger store in a mall down the street that hadn’t even been built yet. In 2004, citizens and businesses mounted a grassroots effort to prevent the construction of a Walmart supermarket in Lodi, which resulted in the R measure being put on the ballot. The initiative aimed to limit the size of retail projects to 125,000 square feet.
Patrick said the chamber had taken a stand against the measure, telling a public meeting about the project: ‘Ideally we would like to see this battle fought not in the council chambers but outside in the marketplace. free”. The measure would have scuttled the Walmart project if passed. This was not the case.
Patrick says that in 2003, the chamber council had no desire to take a position on policy. But that changed in 2006 when the organization decided to start issuing endorsements for political races such as Lodi City Council. “We were defending the business,” says Patrick. “We want pro-business elected officials,” he says.
Homelessness has been a concern for the Chamber and its members for years. Patrick has been an advocate for action, encouraging the city to find a solution to the growing problem. But he also dealt with it firsthand. He says he encountered people sleeping in and around the bedroom office and must have hosed down some of the mess that was left behind.
A man of faith, Patrick approached some of the homeless people he met, introduced himself, handed them a Bible tract, told them he was fine with them sleeping against the building, but don’t leave a mess. Of those he approached, he says he never sees them again. He says of the homeless situation: “It makes me sad.
One of the toughest times for Patrick was in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The room stared at an existential challenge.
Most businesses in town have had to close. The room itself had to close. There were no ribbon cuttings. No mixers. No committee meetings. The world had changed overnight.
It was a blow to the chamber’s two main fundraisers, the biannual Street Faire and the Farmers Market. Street Faires were canceled in 2020 and the Farmers Market was significantly scaled down and held in a church parking lot that year. As a result, the chamber’s budget has been reduced by at least 50%. “We were in survival mode,” says Patrick. The organization has gone from eight employees to three. Patrick would be the chamber’s only full-time employee for almost a year. “It was very hard,” he says.
But the room would survive. Most members continued to pay their dues, he says, and Wells Fargo Bank allowed them to skip mortgage payments for six months. In the spring of the following year, the pandemic clouds began to dissipate. The beloved Street Faire and Farmers Market returned, but the damage was done. Some vendors were afraid to return, and downtown restaurants still had outdoor seating that took up parking spaces.
One of Patrick’s biggest accomplishments, he says, was the development of Vision 2020, an “economic vision project for the city of Lodi”, completed in 2014. It was a collaboration between the chamber , the city and the community with 70 volunteers. The final report established a set of economic and community goals for the city.
It was so well done that Vision 2020 received the 2015 Program of the Year award from the Association of Chambers of Commerce Executives. What’s remarkable is that Lodi beat big cities like Irvine, Denver and Phoenix for the award.
Patrick retires as the chamber prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary on January 26 in Hutchins Street Square. In order to focus on what the chamber has accomplished in its 100 years of existence, the board of directors has decided to dispense with, among other things, the annual Citizen of the Year award. The annual meeting on the 26th will be a historic review of everything the chamber has done and who has done it.
Patrick was born in Sapulpa, Okla. and graduated from high school in Oklahoma City. He earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and business from the University of Texas. After school, he worked for various companies, including Safeway in Texas, an advertising agency in Little Rock, Ark., Tyson Foods as an assistant marketing manager, and Foster Farms.
After moving here in 1988, Patrick and his wife Susan fell in love with Lodi. He worked for Goehring Meats until the factory was sold. He also happened to sit on the United Way board with Bill Dauer, who was acting CEO of the Lodi Chamber. He encouraged Patrick to apply for the position at Lodi.
He says he is grateful to have been chosen for the job.
Patrick also served on the board of the Western Association of Chamber Executives for two terms, serving as chair in 2017.
He received the organization’s Leadership of Excellence trophy in 2020, an honor his mentor Bill Dauer received in 1963 when he was CEO of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.
“Winning the same award that my mentor received overwhelmed me,” says a grateful Patrick.
He says he and his wife Susan plan to stay in Lodi. As his chamber music career draws to a close, Patrick simply says it’s time. He says he looks forward to finding “something as rewarding” in retirement.
Steve is a former newspaper editor and longtime Lodien whose column appears most Tuesdays in the News-Sentinel. Email Steve at aboutlodi@gmail.com.
.