By Adam Pagnucco.
Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce CEO Jane Redicker has announced her retirement effective January 31. I have known Jane for most of her tenure and have found her to be a knowledgeable, outspoken and tenacious advocate for Silver Spring and its business community. Whoever succeeds her will have a high standard to meet.
The chamber’s press release is reprinted below.
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Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce Announces Retirement of CEO Jane Redicker
SILVER SPRING, Md. – October 19, 2022 — The Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce (GSSCC) announced today that long-serving President and CEO Jane Redicker will retire effective January 31, 2023.
“For more than 17 years, Jane Redicker has been the ever-present face of and relentless advocate for the Silver Spring small business community that is the vast majority of our membership,” said Michael McCartin, current GSSCC chair and owner of Joseph W. McCartin Insurance. “Her extraordinarily personal commitment to the success of our member companies, together with her skillful leadership and management of our Chamber, will be missed – and most certainly a challenge to replace.”
McCartin added that the GSSCC leadership has formed a search committee to find Redicker’s replacement and is accepting letters of interest and resumes at info@gsscc.org.
Appointed in May, 2005 as GSSCC president and CEO, Redicker has been guided by the organization’s mission “to enhance the economic prosperity of greater Silver Spring through robust promotion of its member businesses and unrelenting advocacy on their behalf.”
During Redicker’s tenure, the Chamber grew, transformed, helped lead, and influenced numerous positive changes in greater Silver Spring, including the expansion of its Arts & Entertainment District to bring in The Fillmore music hall; the development of the Silver Spring Civic Building and Veterans Plaza and the iconic Brigadier General Charles E. McGee Library (Silver Spring Library); the groundbreaking of and progress of the Purple Line; and collaboration with other Montgomery County-based chambers and business groups.
Along the way, her day-to-day influence and support of individual member businesses, while less visible publicly, made a real difference, according to former GSSCC leaders.
“Jane’s unwavering advocacy for GSSCC members, publicly and privately, is legendary,” said William Kominers, an attorney with Lerch Early & Brewer and former GSSCC chair. “Whether it has been representing our interests in Rockville or Annapolis, ensuring that parking district revenues collected in Silver Spring were retained for Silver Spring, initiating a public safety task force with members and the Montgomery County Police Department, or helping individual members navigate Montgomery County permitting, fire, health, traffic, or other pitfalls, Jane has always been there for members, all the time.”
Month to month and day to day, Redicker and GSSCC have also served member companies by building relationships with key Montgomery County leaders as well as among GSSCC members, according to former GSSCC Chairman Stewart Zemil, COO of Apex Home Loans.
“While Jane’s help at the County and State level is and always has been important, it has been her leadership locally, with the Chamber’s many networking events and seminars, that has had the most impact,” said Zemil. “I’m convinced that her creation and management of programs to help Silver Spring small businesses help themselves – such as “Discover the Taste of Silver Spring” and the “SchmoozaPalooza” – has produced immeasurable business contacts, business, and revenue.”
Led by a strong belief that a prosperous business community contributes to the vibrancy and health of the community overall, the former GSSCC leaders said Redicker worked tirelessly to make a difference for every business in the greater Silver Spring community. As businesses suffered through the Covid19 pandemic, she and her staff were instrumental in providing the support both members and businesses in the community at-large needed to survive. They made it their mission to provide the most up-to-date information on safety requirements and especially helped many to navigate the path to getting financial support through the myriad, and often confusing, Federal, State, and County programs.
During her GSSCC tenure, Redicker has been an active member of the Maryland Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (MACCE), serving a term as the organization’s president, and being selected by her colleagues as MACCE’s Chamber Executive of the Year in 2013.
Prior to her leadership role at GSSCC, Redicker served from 1995 to 1998 as the first executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, China. There, she tripled membership and revenues, expanded member services, and positioned the organization as the preeminent voice of international business in China during a period of extraordinary growth in foreign investment in that country.
Earlier, Redicker had a successful career in public relations and communications. She holds a B.A. in Journalism and Political Science from Franklin College in Indiana.
About the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce – Established in 1993, the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce (GSSCC) is the leading advocate for business on state and local legislative and economic development issues that affect greater Silver Spring. The Chamber’s mission is to enhance the economic prosperity of greater Silver Spring through robust promotion of its member businesses and unrelenting advocacy on their behalf. The Chamber also provides numerous networking opportunities, educational programs, and business leads and referrals for its members.