A year at the helm: SunTrust's regional president, Ramiro Ortiz, had his hands full as the Chairman of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce during the fateful year of Sept. 11 - Economic Development

South Florida CEO, June, 2002 by J.P. Faber

FOR THOSE WHO KNOW HIM, ONE OF banker-Ramiro-Oritz's personal claims-to-fame is an extraordinary knowledge of prize fighting. When it comes to pugilism, Ortiz is a walking encyclopedia. He can describe all the famous fights, blow by blow.

In retrospect, that knowledge proved apt this past year, when Ortiz served as the Chairman of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. Few years have presented similar challenges, when a sense of tough fighting skills could come in handy. And the results have been a knock-out.

Bill Cullom, the president of the chamber, considers the year of Ortiz -- which ends this month (June) -- to be among the most successful in the history of the GMCC. Not only were most of its goals met, but membership was maintained at 3,000 companies and 7,000 individuals, not an easy task in the face of economic recession and business cutbacks.

With an annual budget of $5 million, the Greater Miami Chamber remains, in fact, one of the largest and most powerful in the country. Relative to the community it serves, it is probably the top US chamber. Compare it to Houston's chamber, for example, which has 2,000 corporate members from a community of 4.5 million; GMCC's 3,000 corporate members are drawn from a community of 2 million.

The sheer magnitude of the chamber, and its complex agenda of activities, was what surprised Ortiz most. "I've been involved with the chamber since 1987, so I thought that I understood it. What I learned is that the chamber directly or indirectly touches virtually anything of any significance that takes place in Miami-Dade County," says Ortiz, who in his other life serves as regional president for SunTrust Bank Miami. "I just didn't have an appreciation as to how wide the tentacles were."

The power of the chamber's reach became apparent after Sept. 11, when the GMCC took the lead role in Miami-Dade with its Economic Recovery Task Force, co-chaired by incoming chairman Jack Lowell and County Manager Steve Shiver. The task force served as the umbrella for various economic agencies and municipalities, including the City of Miami, the City of Miami Beach, the Greater Miami Convention & Visitor's Bureau and The United Way. "This is one of the best examples I have ever seen of a public/private partnership working together," says Ortiz.

What the task force accomplished, through persuasive efforts large and small, was a massive acceleration of some $500 million worth of capital improvement projects by both the county and the cities -- something the chamber has long sought anyway, especially the speeding up of the timeline for issuing building permits. "It was a very successful program that cut loose a lot of funds, and it's a forerunning of the kinds of programs we want for streamlining the permitting process," says Cullom. "Ramiro was very helpful with that."

Another area where Ramiro intervened was in his realm of expertise: banking. He lobbied Gov. Jeb Bush to restrain overzealous bank regulators in the wake of Sept. 11. The idea was to not repeat the overkill of the late 1980s, when regulators were so anxious to prevent a spread of the savings & loan crisis that they unnecessarily shut down local financial institutions. "I don't know if it was the influence of the governor, but I can tell you that the banking regulators were very helpful and supportive, and they didn't come down with the hammer, saying 'Classify all these [as] bad loans,"' says Ortiz.

To name the other chamber achievements this year would require a laundry list that includes progress towards a regional approach to transportation and higher education; advancing the chamber's Americas Initiative to send service-industry trade missions abroad; and working with small businesses, especially through the newly created Marketing Resource Institute.

But the initiative that remains closest to Ortiz's heart is one he will continue to develop after he steps down as Chairman. "There's a program that I announced -- it's kind of my own personal dream -- called Operation Green. [It's aim is] to cause multiethnic small businesses to work together in joint ventures, and have those ventures partner with the SBA to provide some very favorable funding." The project is called Operation Green, says Ortiz, "because the common color is not black or white, it's green." An example would be a Hispanic eyeglass manufacturer partnering with an African-American distributor.

The new program is expected to announce its first deal as early as this month. "I'm disappointed that it's only one, of course, but you got to make the first step," says Ortiz. Like leading with a jab, before the main blow.