Hispanic Chamber meets in Salt Lake

Carlos Linares traded a lucrative banking career to serve Utah's Hispanic community.

As a banker, only two of Linares' 160 high-income clients, each with a net worth of more than $2 million, were Hispanic.

Now, as executive director of the Utah Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Linares is able to devote his time and attention to what he calls an "underserved and underrepresented" segment of Utah's population.

Today, Linares will preside over the chamber's first convention at the Little America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City.

The conference is expected to draw 300 people representing 180 different businesses.

Utah's roughly 300,000 Hispanics have a combined purchasing power of $5 billion, according to Linares.

"It's certainly something that business owners, I would hope, would take advantage of in achieving their business goals," Linares said. "Obviously right now our country is going through a reconstruction of what we're doing as a country of immigrants. So that's obviously at the forefront of all of our minds. That's why this conference is so timely."

In addition to Linares, the conference will include talks by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson; Jerry Natividad, chairman of region 2 for the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; and Michael Saray, president of New York-based Saray Hispanic Marketing.

According to Saray Hispanic Marketing, U.S. Latino purchasing power is greater than $600 billion and will reach $1 trillion by 2007. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the median Hispanic household income was $33,676.

Linares, who holds an MBA from Westminster College, said education is key to economic development.

"I have a very strong passion, and I'm a very strong advocate of education, especially with the Hispanic-Latino population," Linares said. "It's funny because we are the largest group as far as school-age population in the country, yet we have one of the highest drop-out rates."

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