The Gilroy Economic Development Corporation hired an interim
President and CEO to help find a permanent replacement for Larry
Cope, who left left month as the head of the commerce-catalyzing
body.
The Gilroy Economic Development Corporation hired an interim President and CEO to help find a permanent replacement for Larry Cope, who left left month as the head of the commerce-catalyzing body.
The EDC board of directors, led by South Valley National Bank Vice President Kurt Michielssen, approved the appointment of Richard Zahner as interim head last week. While he’s still learning names, Zahner said he plans to have a permanent successor for the board to consider this winter. Before he can do that, though, the 64-year-old from Almaden has to interview pretty much everyone in a town that has grown twice in size since he was last here in 1986.
Back then, Zahner worked as a mechanical engineer for Calpine Corporation, which has two natural gas-fired plants in Gilroy, one of which also relies on thermal energy. The thermal plant was run by Zahner’s former employer, Bechtel Corporation, and supplies energy not only to PG&E for re-sale, but also Zahner’s employer before that – Gilroy Foods. Breakneck residential development and the proliferation of retail stores have reshaped the agricultural city Zahner left more than 20 years ago, which proves Gilroy’s fortune so far, Zahner said.
“It looks to me like a success story,” he said inside Sue’s Coffee shop at the corner of Fifth and Monterey streets downtown – which he agreed was “depressing” at times due to abandoned buildings and boarded-up store fronts. Cultivating the downtown has been Mayor Al Pinheiro’s long-time passion, and Cope described it as a long-term process. Still, the downtown is just one of many topics Zahner said he plans to discuss with residents. Board members will surely also want to speak about industrial development.
“We have the retail development, and there’s a lot of residential development in pipeline, which is good, but we also want to look and see what other types of economic development are out there,” Michielssen said. “We certainly need to work on the downtown along with commercial and industrial and manufacturing.”
One of the highlights of Cope’s four-year career were the inroads he built with Solena Group – an East Coast bio-energy company blazing the way in aviation technology that last year announced plans to build the world’s first commercial-scale, renewable jet fuel production plant using biomass and trash in Gilroy. Zahner, who served in the Navy, also has experience in business start-ups, including a new branch of the Zanker Group – a business that is trying to find “the right solution” for turning garbage and everyday waste, or “biomass,” into energy. This is yet another relevant qualification, Michielssen said.
“Richard is perfect for this (interim position) given his background,” he said. “He doesn’t have an economic development background, but what we’re looking for in this transitional period is to pull information together and look at what development is appropriate for Gilroy and what the next step is.”
Cope came on board in July 2005 after exhaustive interviews by the EDC board and relevant businesses groups that will occur again for his successor. Cope replaced Bill Lindsteadt, who died in 2005 after nine years as the city’s first economic development director. That was a tough act to follow given Gilroy’s retail-based boom years that have since given way to uncertain financial times at City Hall.
The city council cut the nonprofit corporation’s budget by $24,000 last winter, but Michielssen said the EDC still has an annual budget of about $200,000 thanks to remaining contributions from the city, the Chamber of Commerce and about 30 local businesses. The company has about $116,000 in cash, he said.
Cope’s annual salary before he left was about $85,000.
