Pat Patrick to step down as Chamber president and CEO
After more than 20 years of leading and championing the local business community, Lodi District Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Pat Patrick has announced he will be retiring at the end of the year.
“I’m old enough now to retire,” he said. “I’ve lived in eight decades... I’m 72 now, and I want to retire while I still have a vitality to go out and do something, like kayaking, golf, take a little time for me and my wife, travel, hopefully do all the things you want to do when you don’t have to show up for a job.”
Patrick was named president and CEO in 2001, and its board of directors said that since that time, he has guided and grown its membership by about 80%, with 850 member businesses today.
His 21-year leadership role brought numerous changes to the chamber, the board said, which included establishing a wine marketing desk in Shanghai, creating the Lodi Wine Stroll in 2002, developing the Lodi Downtown Farmers Market, and continued leadership of the Lodi Street Faire.
One of the accomplishments Patrick is most proud of is “Vision 2020,” the multi-pronged effort implemented in 2015 to engage the chamber and other community organizations in a broad effort to improve the community’s health, tourism, business development and other aspects of Lodi life.
“Lodi is a town that if you look back, has just sort of grown through osmosis,” he said. “It’s never had an economic development-type plan to try to bring high paying jobs to town.”
Patrick said businesses such as Cepheid and Merritt Woodworking were just two examples of bringing high-paying jobs to town through Vision 2020.
In 2013, Terry Quashnick sold his company, Quashnick Tools, to genetic test developer Cepheid as projects for the company accounted for 85% of Quashnick’s plastic injection molding business.
Patrick said Quashnick told the developer that if it wanted his company to continue making the quality cartridges for its test kits, then it would have to move to Lodi in order to retain the employees.
And Merritt Woodworking has 70 talented employees that work on multi-million dollar homes for millionaires and billionaires across the country.
“It was nice to be a part of things like that,” Patrick said. “We do a lot of ribbon cuttings, we celebrate small business, and so many times these are generational families. It’s like the third or fourth generation is opening a business, and it’s an offshoot of what grandma and grandpa did. That’s one of the things that makes Lodi unique, makes Lodi comfortable and a homey place, and a respectful place.”
The efforts of Vision 2020, the chamber board of directors said, have led to programs such as Bike Lodi and the Asset Based Community Development, the latter of which is focused on helping members of the Heritage District identify assets and manifest ideas to improve neighborhoods.
The board said Vision 2020 and the programs it created have made Lodi a better place.
Patrick said he was also proud of partnering with Lodi Unified School District to create three programs that promote education, literacy and self-reliance.
Those programs include The Mamas and the Papas, in which third graders are encouraged to read; Choices, in which eighth grade students
were presented with scenarios of what happens if they remain in school or drop-out; and the In Your Seat Tour, in which high school students were able to meet with employees of local businesses and hear their stories of how and why they decided to continue their education and pursue the careers in their field.
Over the 21 years he has led the chamber, Patrick said the community hasn’t changed that much — while more housing developments are built around the city and more employers come to town, Lodi has been able to keep its smalltown feel, he said.
“Lodi has developed slower than other communities,” he said. “By choice we are a slow-growth community. From 2007 to 2017, our population didn’t change at all. Most communities that experience that are going to spiral down. But it’s the quality of the Lodian that has kept Lodi a special place.”
However, he said the city needs to attract higher paying jobs to really make the community work, adding that city leadership understands that as they take steps to expand the industrial area.
Born in Sepulpa, Okla., Patrick graduated from high school in Oklahoma City and earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and business from the University of Texas, with a minor in psychology.
He was able to get an advertising job with Safeway while in Texas before moving on to a account executive position with an advertising firm in Little Rock, Ark.
One of the company’s clients was Tyson Foods, and Patrick eventually landed a job as assistant marketing manager there. When the marketing manager left, he would take the position before moving on to Foster Farms.
After six years there, Patrick struck out on his own, doing some work with the National Pork Producers Council.
He and his wife Susan would move to Lodi by the early 90s, and he said they fell in love with the town.
Patrick was on United Way’s board of directors at the time and working with Goehring Meats, before the company was sold. That led to a full-time marketing job at United Way of Stockton for five years.
Then the chamber president and CEO job came along.
“We already lived in Lodi, and because of the exposure I had through United Way, I knew a lot of the players in town,” he said. “There were about 100 people they got resumes from, and I was very fortunate to be picked.”
The second in line for the job was Nancy Beckman, and the chamber at the time was so impressed with her, they kept her on and made her president and CEO of the Lodi Visitors Center, now known as Visit Lodi!.
While his last day is around the end of the year, Patrick has told the board that if his replacement isn’t found by that time, he will stay on board until one is selected.
The job has been posted to some 5,000 chambers of commerce across the country, he said.
“There’s been a lot of job changes and fewer chambers these days,” he said. “We are doing well at the Lodi chamber. We’re blessed because of that. We have good people. Any success I’ve had is in part, due to standing on the shoulders of people like Marina Narvarte and Karen Alvarez, and other who have come before them. We were able to do good things because of those kinds of people.”
Chamber board chairman Bob Colarossi said that Patrick significantly increased the organization’s profile and impact, and has been a tireless champion of Lodi’s business community.
“Pat is a thoughtful and insightful leader, and the Lodi community is better for his leadership,” he said. “Pat’s years of leadership paved the way for the future and we look forward to the search for an accomplished new leader for the organization to help take
Lodi into the future.”
Patrick’s has served on a variety of board in Lodi and throughout the county, including LOEL Foundation, Salvation Army, Adventist Health Lodi Memorial, Boys Club Hall of Fame, Lodi Rotary and the Economic Development Commission of San Joaquin County.
He’s also a member and Elder at First Baptist Church and the Master-Orator of the Lodi Chapter of the Brotherhood of the Knights to the Vine.
Patrick said he will miss a lot of aspects of the job once he’s gone, such as the people he’s met and worked with, interacting with the business community, as well as the challenge of keeping businesses as members.
“It’s been the best job I’ve ever held, because I represent a great business community, and just a great community period,” he said. “I was blessed to get this job.”