McAllen taps chamber president Liz Suarez to lead EDC

Elizabeth Suarez was named the new chief executive officer of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce on Friday, Sept. 1, 2023. (Courtesy of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce)

McALLEN — More than six months after the retirement of Keith Patridge, the longtime CEO and president of the McAllen Economic Development Corporation, the organization has announced its new leader.

The MEDC has tapped Elizabeth “Liz” Suarez to take the reins.

“I was made an offer and I’ve accepted the offer; however, it still requires final board authorization,” Suarez said, referring to the board of directors for the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, where she currently serves as president and CEO.

Suarez will continue to serve as the Chamber’s CEO even as she assumes the mantle of leadership at the MEDC.

It’s a first-of-its-kind arrangement for McAllen — one that McAllen City Manager Isaac “Ike” Tawil likened to the dual role played by Adriana Cruz, who leads economic development and tourism for the Texas Economic Development Corporation.

“I don’t think the model exists in the Valley yet, but the economic development office at the governor’s office… is a model that was partly the inspiration for the concepts here,” Tawil said in an exclusive interview with The Monitor on Friday.

Both the MEDC and the McAllen Chamber are independent nonprofits focused on promoting economic prosperity within the City of Palms.

The chamber does so by supporting existing small businesses and tourism, but also by exerting influence in public policy through its membership and its board of directors, which is made up of local business leaders.

The MEDC board of directors is also composed of local business leaders, the mayor and at least one McAllen city commissioner sit on the board.

Further, the MEDC focuses its economic development efforts on recruiting new business and industry to McAllen and receives funding directly from the city’s coffers.

“The EDC is funded … $1.2 million through an appropriation from the McAllen Development Corporation,” Tawil said.

When asked how Suarez will bridge the divide between the organizations’ competing business interests, Tawil said they will instead complement each other.

“We hope that by consolidating operations that we can amplify the effect that one has on the other,” Tawil said.

Suarez herself called the idea “transformative.”

“I think this is a transformative approach. We’re not merging entities, we’re merely sharing a CEO,” Suarez said.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to align the missions of both entities, which, a lot of the time have a lot in common,” she said.

But getting to this point was no easy effort.

Instead, it came during a moment of flux for McAllen, which has recently seen the departures of several longtime leaders.

Patridge, who led the MEDC for nearly 36 years, retired in June 2024.

Roel “Roy” Rodriguez, who served as McAllen city manager for a decade, but had worked for the city for a total of two decades, retired in September.

Other high-level executives have also departed within recent years, including former McAllen City Attorney Kevin Pagan in 2021, and Steve Ahlenius, who in October 2021, resigned from the chamber after 24 years.

Josh Mejia briefly led the chamber before abruptly announcing his resignation in August 2023. Just weeks later, the chamber announced that Suarez would lead the organization, leaving behind her position with the city as the aviation director for the McAllen International Airport.

Tawil called the nearly simultaneous spate of changes “unique,” but added that it won’t affect the continuity of leadership in McAllen due to the city’s practice of “developing the next generation of leaders.”

Suarez shared an enthusiasm for this next evolution in McAllen, saying it will allow “city leaders to bring a different approach to the table — one that is really a public private partnership.”

Of all the changes in McAllen, finding Patridge’s successor took the longest.

The commission and EDC board began to hold a series of joint meetings to discuss “employment contracts” months after Patridge retired.

The two groups met for closed-door joint meetings throughout November and December; however, meeting records show that the commission had begun discussing “employment contracts” as far back as mid-October.

On Nov. 21, the city commission and EDC board staged interviews with four people, including the man many had thought to be Patridge’s heir apparent, Mark Garcia.

Garcia currently serves as the MEDC’s executive vice president, and as CEO of the McAllen Foreign Trade Zone.

Documents obtained by The Monitor show that the other applicants interviewed that November day included:

>> Martin Anzaldua, a C-suite executive with Grupo Rio San Juan, an industrial and commercial property development company headquartered in Reynosa.

>> Carlos Guzman, an economic development leader with prior stints in the Houston area at Fort Bend County and the Greater Houston Partnership, as well as executive positions with the Pasadena (Texas) EDC and Pearland EDC, among others.

>> Roland Mower, an economic development executive from Clinton, Oklahoma who previously led the EDCs of the Port of San Antonio, Corpus Christi and several other organizations in Texas and Colorado.

“Unfortunately, the top candidate that came out of that interview process… withdrew from consideration,” Tawil said. “And so then, the EDC moved on to a continued search that eventually led them to Liz.”

The decision seemed to be headed in Suarez’s direction after the two boards met for a joint meeting Dec. 30, but officials remained mum on the news.

On Friday, Tawil confirmed that the EDC had chosen Suarez.

Suarez said she’s eager to begin her new role.

“I get to be the person that helps them (the Chamber and EDC) execute that vision.”

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