Sandy Parker, former Rochester enterprise coalition leader, dies
3 min readSandy Parker, the former Rochester Business Alliance president and behind-the-scenes drive in local business and economic enhancement circles, died Saturday at age 75.
Parker in 2002 was president of the Industrial Management Council, a single of two significant business roundtable businesses in the space together with the Rochester Metro Chamber of Commerce. Sensing a need for a unified voice in the small business community, she spearheaded a merger and served as president of the new business until eventually 2014.
“Sandy was remarkably strategic and collaborative, and it was a very helpful combination for our neighborhood,” Rochester Region Neighborhood Basis President Jennifer Leonard said. “She juggled the quite a few diverse pieces of the organization community hugely correctly without needing to be out front.”
The bring about of death was cancer that progressed pretty swiftly. Parker’s death was initial noted by WXXI News.
She grew up in Webster, the daughter of a Bausch + Lomb vice president, right before learning and afterwards working at Rochester Institute of Engineering. In 1980 she joined the Industrial Management Council, just one of two lengthy-standing enterprise companies in the location.
The discussions about the merger unfolded gradually. “That was the to start with time in 70 or 80 years the two businesses experienced really worked with each other with out looking for an edge,” Tom Mooney, her counterpart at the Chamber of Commerce, mentioned in 2003.
The Rochester Enterprise Alliance later was renamed the Higher Rochester Chamber of Commerce. It is headed now by Bob Duffy, the previous mayor and lieutenant governor.
Parker was criticized two times toward the close of her tenure for apparent favor-buying and selling with Duffy. In 2013, when he was lieutenant governor, she marketed him her property on Keuka Lake in an unlisted sector-benefit transaction. She then delayed her retirement right until he could end his four-year elected phrase and switch her.
Duffy unveiled a assertion Sunday contacting Parker “an unsung hero in the Larger Rochester neighborhood for many years. … Her decline is immeasurable as have been her contributions to the local community she beloved.”
Parker was included in several area academic and philanthropic corporations. She sat on the boards of the George Eastman Museum, Lollypop Farm, RIT, United Way of Increased Rochester, and the Rochester Area Neighborhood Foundation, amongst other folks.
Mayor Charming Warren reported in a statement Sunday: “Sandy Parker was a warrior and winner for employers in Better Rochester, helping lead the region by way of hard instances. She was ever vigilant in making certain that Rochester’s enterprise community was read by neighborhood leaders and that they responded to the needs of our area overall economy.”
Training reform in particular captured her fascination. She and her spouse, developer Dutch Summers, were being both equally concerned in the Rump Team, a caucus of enterprise leaders in search of enterprise-oriented answers for the Rochester Town Faculty District in the 1990s.
“She was, together with Dutch, a single of this community’s best philanthropists – and not just current-day,” claimed Mark Siwiec, a lengthy-time pal. “Her demise is tragic and will have ramifications of which this local community will by no means be knowledgeable.”
“She just experienced a authentic dedication to the guarantee of Rochester’s young people,” reported Adrian Hale, strategic initiatives director at the Chamber. “She desired to see us prosper.”
No funeral plans have been declared. Ms. Parker experienced a son from an previously marriage.
Contact employees author Justin Murphy at [email protected].
