Wherever something good is going on, you’re likely to see the name Rosa Mar.
The retired Levi Strauss & Co. professional is the former CEO of East Tennessee’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. She sits on the boards of WDVX and Knox Heritage. She volunteers with Remote Area Medical, Rotary of Bearden, Knoxville Area Urban League, Executive Women’s Association, Women’s Fund of East Tennessee and the city of Knoxville Police Advisory and Review Committee.
“I’m the perfect board member,” she half-jokes. “I have the time, I’m the right color, I have the resources, and I’m not afraid to speak out.”
By “right color,” she means that she is one of relatively few prominent Latina business people in East Tennessee’s more homogenous business environment. She mentors other Latino-centered organizations to help build networks and create collaborations.
“This community is actually very welcoming and empathetic,” says Mar, but because of the issues the local Latino community faces, including not having a large or stable middle class, she urges “more empathy, more understanding, more resources, more critical thinking. Make sure you really know what’s going on with an issue.”
Having started her career in merchandising and transitioned to operations, Mar came to Knoxville from California in 1996 to run the Levi Strauss & Co. plant, which at that time employed 3,000 people.
“It was a ready-made family,” she says, for her and her daughter, who was entering sixth grade. Her daughter, who graduated from law school at UT, is now in San Francisco.
Mar’s parents were sharecroppers from Mexico and met in Texas. After she was born, they bought a one-way ticket to Healdsburg, Cal. There they had her two sisters and a brother.
“My father became a women’s libber when he raised three daughters,” she says. “He taught us how to be anything we wanted to be.”
Her parents lacked formal education, and it was very important that their children receive it. Mar went to Catholic grammar schools and went to Catholic high school on a combination of work and academic scholarships.
Her faith is still a very important part of her life. It, and her late parents’ influence, remind her of “the need to do more, to give when you have.”
That is what is so appealing to her about Rotary’s Heart 2 Heart program, which she says spurred her to get involved with the organization. In the program, Rotarians in the “Heart of America” and in the “Heart of Mexico” work together on public health and welfare projects. They’ve provided clean drinking water for kids, hospital equipment in Mexico, facilitation of kidney transplants for teens and young adults in Mexico, midwife training and much more.
Connecting the two cultures – in a way that highlights what is special about each – is valuable to Mar.
“I am the proud child of Mexican immigrants,” she says. “Part of my parents’ legacy is to build bridges, not walls, between these two places they loved.”