September 5, 2008) Ruth Evans believes that part of the responsibility of a chamber of commerce is to educate local and state legislators with regard to how their decisions have an impact on business.

Evans, a recipient of the California Chamber of Commerce 2008 Small Business Advocate of the Year Award, practices what she preaches as she helped lead the Greater Fresno Area Chamber in recent years back to relevancy in the community where she has spent much of her life.

Large corporations have governmental affairs people, who are able to spend time getting their message out, but small businesses don’t really have the time or resources to do the same, Evans said. So in 2005, with the help of some prominent chamber of commerce officials and local leaders, she took a little time after her day job — she has owned her own full service human resources company, The Evans HR Group, for more than 12 years — to help revamp the Fresno Chamber.
Revamp

Following a 2004 planning retreat for 2005, Evans, who has been with the chamber for more than 16 years and was serving as the chairman-elect of the board at the time, decided the chamber needed to refocus its goals.

“Quite honestly I was hearing comments from the mayor of the city of Fresno and other people that the chamber wasn’t on the map and had other people in the community asking me what the chamber did,” she said. “That’s never a good question to be asked.”

So when getting ready for the new year at the annual planning retreat, the board laid the foundation for an effort to make sure the chamber was indeed relevant to what local business and the community were looking for at the time.

The brainstorming resulted in a clear consensus on the Fresno Chamber Board: focus on a specific plan and get your message out.

Advocacy

At the time, the chamber had a governmental affairs program focused mainly on the local level. Evans said the chamber decided to “take our program to the next level” when it came to advocacy.

“More than ever before, the chamber is representing business before government, and getting involved in issues that impact business locally and at the state level,” she said.

In 2005, the chamber significantly increased its governmental affairs efforts, developed a new Governmental Affairs Council of voting members who research, discuss and take positions on issues, hired a new chief executive officer, Al Smith, began a public safety integration process by bringing in a consultant to evaluate integration opportunities and named a committee led by former Secretary of State Bill Jones and Smith to get a local transportation measure passed in 2006.

The board of directors also agreed upon the idea of developing a new grassroots website, solely focused on advocacy efforts, www.fresnochamberadvocacy.com.

Evans said the new website has been a “big success.” The website lists the chamber’s positions on legislation and local issues, provides report cards (vote records) for city council members and state legislators, and displays upcoming events.

Higher Profile

Since the new focus was adopted, the chamber has been very involved in everything from the public safety integration effort to a homeless task force, downtown revitalization, the four day workweek and efforts to support above-ground water storage.

As chair of the Government Affairs Council, Evans led the charge in creating a task force to review the county budget. The task force met with department heads, labor negotiators and top county administration to analyze how local tax dollars were being spent.

In addition, Evans named a task force to review the city budget, a process that had been done several times in preceding years.

“With regard to the county in particular, we had some serious issues with the way things were done and we gave them our feedback on that,” Evans said. “I think there is more demand for the authority of the chamber of commerce to facilitate efforts.”

On the state level, Evans spearheaded the Fresno Chamber’s first legislative testimony in Sacramento when she spoke in front of the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee in 2007 in support of the four-day workweek bill, AB 510 (Benoit; R-Bermuda Dunes).