Sandy Parker, former Rochester business enterprise coalition leader, dies
Sandy Parker, the previous Rochester Business enterprise Alliance president and behind-the-scenes force in community enterprise and financial improvement circles, died Saturday at age 75.
Parker in 2002 was president of the Industrial Administration Council, a single of two big small business roundtable companies in the region along with the Rochester Metro Chamber of Commerce. Sensing a have to have for a unified voice in the business local community, she spearheaded a merger and served as president of the new firm until 2014.
“Sandy was remarkably strategic and collaborative, and it was a very effective mixture for our neighborhood,” Rochester Area Neighborhood Basis President Jennifer Leonard said. “She juggled the a lot of diverse parts of the company community remarkably correctly with out needing to be out entrance.”
The lead to of demise was most cancers that progressed very promptly. Parker’s death was initially described by WXXI News.
She grew up in Webster, the daughter of a Bausch + Lomb vice president, ahead of finding out and later operating at Rochester Institute of Technology. In 1980 she joined the Industrial Administration Council, 1 of two prolonged-standing business enterprise corporations in the region.
The discussions about the merger unfolded gradually. “That was the 1st time in 70 or 80 several years the two corporations experienced definitely worked jointly with out seeking for an advantage,” Tom Mooney, her counterpart at the Chamber of Commerce, explained in 2003.
The Rochester Organization Alliance later was renamed the Increased Rochester Chamber of Commerce. It is headed nowadays by Bob Duffy, the previous mayor and lieutenant governor.
Parker was criticized 2 times towards the conclude of her tenure for obvious favor-trading with Duffy. In 2013, when he was lieutenant governor, she sold him her household on Keuka Lake in an unlisted sector-value transaction. She then delayed her retirement right up until he could end his four-yr elected term and exchange her.
Duffy introduced a assertion Sunday contacting Parker “an unsung hero in the Higher Rochester neighborhood for a long time. … Her loss is immeasurable as were being her contributions to the neighborhood she beloved.”
Parker was concerned in lots of nearby instructional and philanthropic companies. She sat on the boards of the George Eastman Museum, Lollypop Farm, RIT, United Way of Bigger Rochester, and the Rochester Area Neighborhood Foundation, amongst other folks.
Mayor Wonderful Warren claimed in a statement Sunday: “Sandy Parker was a warrior and winner for employers in Better Rochester, assisting guide the area through difficult times. She was ever vigilant in making certain that Rochester’s small business group was heard by regional leaders and that they responded to the demands of our neighborhood economic climate.”
Instruction reform in certain captured her interest. She and her spouse, developer Dutch Summers, ended up equally included in the Rump Group, a caucus of organization leaders trying to get company-oriented remedies for the Rochester Town Faculty District in the 1990s.
“She was, along with Dutch, one of this community’s greatest philanthropists – and not just current-working day,” claimed Mark Siwiec, a lengthy-time close friend. “Her demise is tragic and will have ramifications of which this community will in no way be conscious.”
“She just had a real commitment to the promise of Rochester’s young people,” said Adrian Hale, strategic initiatives director at the Chamber. “She desired to see us prosper.”
No funeral ideas have been introduced. Ms. Parker experienced a son from an before relationship.
Call staff author Justin Murphy at [email protected].