Mayor Javier Lopez recognized Renee Ledbetter at last week’s Ceres City Council meeting as she steps down as executive director of the Ceres Chamber of Commerce.

Lopez presented a Certificate of Recognition to Ledbetter, who is an active Ceres real estate agent.

“It’s been an honor to represent the Ceres Chamber of Commerce for the past 11 or 12 years, not only as a board member but as a president and as the executive director,” Ledbetter told the council. “I really appreciate the relationship that we’ve established with the city, with the school district and with various economic organizations throughout our region and I want to encourage other people to get involved with the Ceres Chamber. It’s a great way for us to shape our community, to drive economic development, to drive our economy and to make our community better and grow in a positive way.”

Ledbetter said she was leaving the Chamber in the “good hands” of President Brandy Meyer who oversees Chamber operations with the help of a 14-member board, including Ledbetter, and administrative assistant Amy Medina.

“I’m not going too far – I’m still a board director,” Ledbetter clarified. “I just stepped down from the executive director role. It’s time for someone else to take the helm; that I think they can help grow the Chamber in many more ways than I probably can at this point in my career.”

Ledbetter joined the Ceres Chamber as a member of the board of directors in 2012.

She became president in 2014 and held the office for four years until she stepped down to take the volunteer position of a non-voting executive director.

Under her leadership, the Chamber office moved in 2014 from the Ceres Unified School District main campus on Lawrence Avenue to downtown Fourth Street to a 120-square-foot office space. She hired Dovie Wilson as the Chamber’s office manager and she served eight years until she retired in February 2022. As the Chamber grew, Ledbetter recommended to the Board to move the office to its current 1,800-square-foot location at the corner of Fourth and North streets. She established a co-op space, renting out small offices to local businesses to subsidize the chamber’s overhead.

During her first two years as president, she worked with Wilson to rebuild systems, recreate documents and reinstate the Chamber’s scholarship foundation. She also restructured the board of directors shifting city and school members to non-voting liaison positions and recruited board members that represented the business community and citizens of Ceres.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chamber was in danger of folding toward the end of 2021 but was encouraged to continue as an organization despite faltering participation and revenues. A number of community and business leaders attended a special gathering that November to say they would step up to volunteer for the bare bones staff.

Ledbetter helped the Chamber recently update its website and has been a driving force in many of the Chamber’s special activities, including the “One Table, One Community” dinner event on Fourth Street each September, the Installation and Community Service Awards Dinner, annual Legislative Breakfast and the Agribusiness Luncheon in May.

In 2014, Ledbetter introduced the “Smoke on the River” barbecue festival. That event moved to different locations as it grew and continued until 2017. The event took a hiatus when Ledbetter suffered a leg injury and couldn’t walk for six months. She anticipated bringing it back in 2020 and then the pandemic hit. She said the board has approved the return of the event this year and is now working out the location and logistics.

Other events she helped to organize were the Holiday Wine Stroll of downtown and Dinner & Movie Night in Whitmore Park. The Chamber also co-hosts the annual Ceres Street Faire with the Ceres Lions Club. 

Another accomplishment under her watch was the 2015 Chamber-sponsored black-tie charity event to raise $2,500 for the Ceres police and fire explorer programs and the police chaplain program. Ledbetter had secured George Piro, a former Ceres Police Officer turned FBI agent who gained the trust of captured Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein. Piro was the first to learn that Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, a ruse that he kept going to prevent Iran from attacking his nation.

With the help of Lisa Mantarro-Moore, in 2015 Ledbetter helped lead efforts to create a political action committee of the Chamber to educate and encourage residents to pass a measure to double the percentage of the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT), or hotel tax, from five percent to 10 percent.

She also formed the Chamber’s “Economic Partners in Ceres” (EPIC) program. The group of city and school officials, industry leaders and representatives from economic agencies like Opportunity Stanislaus, come together to discuss economic and workforce development, business retention and business expansion. She’s hoping this group will become more active now that the city has hired a full-time economic development manager.

The Chamber, with Ledbetter’s guidance, was instrumental in bringing Blaker Brewing, the Doghouse Taproom, and All Valley Pool & Spa to Ceres, as well as retaining businesses like Swan Pools, Sole Saver and West Coast Call Center in Ceres.

Throughout her tenure, Ledbetter also implemented a partnership with Cal-Trans for highway clean-ups.

The chief role of the Chamber is to promote interest in local businesses and provide educational opportunities and assist business with the latest marketing and promotional techniques. The Chamber also assists in attracting new businesses to open in Ceres and assistance to struggling businesses.

Ledbetter said there are a number of ways the community can volunteer to help the Chamber, including attending Chamber events, following the Chamber on social media and sharing its posts, and participating in Chamber trash pick-ups. She said businesses can help by joining the Chamber, becoming a Chamber ambassador or director, hosting mixers or coffee klatches, or hosting training in an area of expertise.

Ledbetter is the CEO of Ledbetter & Associates, Inc., a real estate group affiliated with EXIT Realty Consultants in Ceres. She is a licensed California residential and commercial Realtor, serves as the manager for the Ceres EXIT Realty office and is a trainer for the company. She also works as a general consultant for the Valley Sierra Small Business Development Center, assisting start-ups with business and marketing planning.