Gerardo Rodriguez recently took over as executive director of the Chicago Area Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce after a three-month search for new leadership of the nearly 20-year-old organization.
Rodriguez had only been on the job for a week when he spoke with Windy City Times about his new post. He already looked right at home at his desk in the Chamber offices In Lake View. Rodriguez spoke about the confluence of events that brought him to the position and a new challenge in a life and career spent ensuring that diversity and the dreams of small business owners had a prominent and successful place in Illinois.
Describing himself as a straight ally, Rodriguez is no stranger to the challenges presented to minorities in this country.
"I live in Pilsen and I grew up around that area," Rodriguez said. "It was the normal struggle for any Latino family on the South Side of Chicago. My father is a role model to me. We always watched Bruce Lee movies together. He was a warehouse manager for ComEd and he was laid off when I was in high school. It severely impacted my family. It was tough but that's the story of everyday life. So I'm not going to look at that as a hindrance. It was adversity in my face and I just had to overcome it."
Rodriguez took a step forward in that desire by becoming the first person in his family to attend college, completing his undergraduate degree at Southern Illinois University focusing on creative writing and philosophy. "Honestly I was a young, confused Latino in southern Illinois," Rodriguez acknowledged. "It was culture shock for me and a struggle to succeed there. I was trying to find my place within myself and within a community I was not used to. So my out became my writing and I was always intrigued by East Asian Philosophy."
In 2005, shortly after graduation, Rodriguez was offered a position at the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce ( IHCC ) as a project coordinator and grant writer.
"I remember seeing business counselors working with small businesses and I said, 'Hey, that doesn't look too hard' and, of course, they challenged me to take a go at it. It was scary and nerve-wracking but I loved the strategy and idealism behind assisting a small business owner, individual or a family actually get a license to formally do business. The excitement that they showed on their faces that they were legitimate was an amazing feeling and it just took fire within me."
One of the first small business owners Rodriguez assisted was an HVAC ( heating, ventilating and air-conditioning ) employee.
"He wanted to work for himself," Rodriguez recalled. "He was a big, burly man and he was loud. But he was so nervous while we were filling out his application online that he made me nervous. As soon as we submitted it, he got up and he said 'you don't know what this means to me. You don't know what this means to my family. I feel so free. I feel so empowered.' His voice got even louder and he was like 'I can't wait to take over the world!' A business is not just a business for Hispanics, it's a family lifestyle. We have a majority of undocumented individuals who are coming here looking for the American dream and there were a good amount of my clients who came from absolutely nothing."
In 2008, the bottom dropped out of the economy and took a devastating toll not only on a number of the business owners Rodriguez had helped get their start but on his own job. With grant funding drying up, he left in 2010 to start his own small-business consulting practice focusing on federal contracting.
"I took it upon myself to ensure that small businesses had their voices heard in D.C.," he said. "Right now we can't bid against these large-bundled multibillion-dollar companies on a hundred-million-dollar contract."
Two years later, the celebrated African-American advocacy organization the Chicago Urban League was offered a grant through the U.S. Small Business Administration ( SBA ) to help provide small-businesses with the size, capacity and financial clout needed to enter the federal arena. Rodriguez was a natural fit for the Midwest Regional Teaming Program.
"We wanted to ensure that small African-American-owned businesses got a chance to participate in this amazing opportunity," he said. "Some of the contracts that they landed were $50 million multi-year contracts. It was amazing."
When a job opening came up at the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, Rodriguez saw it as the natural progression of a career spent elevating diverse populations.
"This is no different from the other organizations I have worked for," he said. "I knew I could provide an immediate impact with the small-business LGBT certification work we are doing, to take a lead in that and to engage the community as a whole."
Rodriguez's vision involves adding activism to the Chamber's advocacy. "This organization should take a larger role in not only LGBT small-business issues but all LGBT issues," he said. "We can't pigeon-hole ourselves. There's something greater. It's not only fighting for small-businesses, it's fighting for LGBT immigration issues, for the transgender community, for inclusion. If we cannot advocate on their behalf then we're not going to be as successful as we need to be."
One significant advancement for which Rodriguez intends to fight is workforce development. "We want to provide training for our small businesses to grow and to be leaders within the LGBT community and we want LGBT employees of major corporations to be advocates," he said.
When it comes to homeless LGBTQ youth feeling unwelcome in the Chamber's Lake View neighborhood and not being given a chance at employment by many of the business owners there, Rodriguez was fervent.
"We need to address this immediately," he said. "One of my visions through workforce development would be teaching these kids qualified skills to be an employee in the 21st Century. Honestly I would also love to get into dialogues with the Chicago Housing Authority to offer additional living spaces. I want the Chamber of Commerce to take a lead role in this and engage our LGBT members and elected officials like [Ald. Tom] Tunney. There needs to be a pipeline for transgender employees. There is no reason the LGBT community cannot grow even further and it is my goal to see that we are equally represented. That's what I'm here to do."
