By RICARDO CAVAZOS

Fred Gonzalez’s first contact with the Mercedes Chamber of Commerce occurred when as a regional manager for Dollar General he attended a ribbon cutting in his hometown.

It was then – over 20 years ago – that Gonzalez was encouraged to be a chamber board member. He would eventually accept the invite and began a two decades-plus tenure of service to not only the chamber but to the Mercedes Economic Development Corporation as well. Over that 20-plus year span, Gonzalez’s service would include being president of the two boards that oversee the chamber and EDC, respectively.

In recent years, he has been part of a team that has led the way in seeing a robust era of growth and development in Mercedes. Gonzalez says he has been guided by a favorite Bible verse that has inspired his community work.

“Seek the peace of the city where I have sent you,” says Jeremiah 29:7. “Pray to the Lord for that city, because when it has peace and prosperity, you have peace and prosperity.”

“It has been my guiding light in everything I do,” Gonzalez said.

Working United

Gonzalez works in his real job as a quality control facilitator for 23 Samsonite stores in multiple states.

He also manages the Samsonite luggage store at the Rio Grande Valley Premium Outlets. Gonzalez’s beginnings in retail came from growing up at the neighborhood grocery store of his grandfather, Jose E. Gonzalez, on south Vermont Avenue in Mercedes. His grandmother, Angelita B. Gonzalez, was an entrepreneur with her own brand of tortillas and also catered events. 

Gonzalez’s years of retailing have included 10 years as a district manager for Dollar General and a tenure afterwards with Perfumania stores. That background has served him well in his years of service to the Mercedes Chamber and the city’s EDC. He has spent many a weekday morning working with EDC Executive Director Melissa Ramirez in speaking with business prospects and investors and going over site plans. 

The recent trend-line of business growth and economic development is a far cry from what Gonzalez saw in the earliest years of his volunteer work with the Chamber. The Mercedes of the early 2000s was struggling. The chamber itself was teetering with a good possibility of it disbanding. The chamber receives no funding from city government. Its revenues come entirely from events and fundraisers and there wasn’t much of either going on back then.

“The choices we were given where to tighten our belts or close it down,” Gonzalez recalled of the Chamber’s possibilities of over 20 years ago.

From that point, it was years of working to develop events like the Texas Street Festival and other fundraising events that could fund Chamber operations. The Chamber has also established yearly scholarship funds for graduating seniors from the six Mercedes-area high schools. In the true spirit of volunteerism, the Chamber has only one paid employee, Donna Jackson, who does a number of job duties for the organization while also assisting the EDC as the two entities share the same building. 

“We’re on the same mission,” Gonzalez said of how the two organizations along with the city’s elected leadership and city government managers are working together. “We have to be united. Things wouldn’t be happening if we were pulling in different directions.”

A New Generation

Gonzalez is still serving on both the Chamber and EDC boards but has given up the helm of leading those boards.

Those duties are now being held by Hector Rocha as the chamber board president and Mark Garcia as the EDC’s board president. Gonzalez sees it as passing the leadership torch to the next generation of Mercedes leaders. 

“It’s about bringing in new blood and a younger generation,” he said. “They will be the ones that will eventually take over.”

They will do so on the shoulders of Gonzalez and other community leaders who have brought Mercedes to this point of seeing a bright future ahead.

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