After Year at the Helm, Chamber CEO Moving On

San Bruno Chamber of Commerce CEO Jessica Evans recently announced that she will be leaving her position. She is moving on to become the executive director of the Downtown San Mateo Association.

Evans has been with the chamber since 2010 and took over the chamber as the chief executive a year ago after former CEO Laura Baughman left. Until a replacement is found, chamber board President Kirsten Pinochi and Executive Assistant Florie Vasquez will be in charge of the chamber's day-to-day operations. We caught up with Evans for a Q&A before she moves on to her new job.

San Bruno Patch: You've been leading the chamber as CEO for a short while, but what do you think has been your greatest accomplishment so far?

Jessica Evans: Definitely establishing our nonprofit, the San Bruno Chamber Charitable Foundation. As a 501(c)(3) operating under the chamber's direction, there are two goals: revitalization of San Mateo Avenue and creating a small-business empowerment hub. We've made a lot of progress so far and are working on establishing a location for these activities on San Mateo Avenue. The foundation will also be doing some fundraising over the next year or so to get everything up and running.   

Patch: Anything exciting on the horizon for the chamber?

Evans: What I mentioned before. Plus the Tastes of San Bruno is coming up on Oct. 2. It's always a good time, and I think it's going to get bigger this year.

Patch: Downtown San Bruno, in particular San Mateo Avenue, has always been an issue for a lot of residents. What has the chamber been doing to help improve the businesses there? And what do you think the chamber can do to make things better in the coming years? 

Evans: Laura Baughman, my predecessor, worked hard to get two-hour parking down here. This has created a more retail-friendly downtown. Since we have so many restaurants and salons here, one-hour parking was hard for our merchants to work with.

Currently, the chamber is working with the Beautification Task Force and a handful of merchants to create native-plant, drought-resistant planters where the tree pots now stand looking a little lonely. Ultimately, what would make it better would probably be a business improvement district or at least a merchants association. They could run a festival, create marketing campaigns, provide additional security and safety. I think once the nonprofit is up and running, a lot of those issues will be addressed. 

Patch: Can you talk more about the decision to move the farmers market to the mall? Won't that have a negative impact on the San Mateo Avenue merchants, who are already struggling?

Evans: We were at a crossroads in January regarding the market. To get Pacific Coasts Farmers' Market Association to agree to come back and run it again for us, we had to come up with a better venue. Otherwise, San Bruno wasn't going to have a farmers market at all. 

As part of the downtown, the chamber is definitely aware of how desperately we need more activity here. What we'd like to do—and this is how we presented it to City Council—would be to bring something back to the Avenue in 2013. Instead of a struggling Sunday market, the Chamber may try to run a weekday evening market during the summer months with prepared foods, live music, art, etc. We've been inspired by how "Hot Harvest Nights" has been an asset to the Laurel Street merchants in San Carlos, so perhaps we could try a model like that. Then, the large agricultural market could continue to thrive at Tanforan on Sunday mornings, while the chamber runs some kind of weekly festival downtown. 

The impact of moving the market was definitely part of our consideration. It seemed that the downtown merchants weren't really seeing much of a bump in revenue due to such a small market. I think its importance was more in bringing a positive vibe downtown. I'd love it if whatever comes back downtown in the future could be both a money-maker and a well-attended event. Our downtown deserves that.

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