Richard Parsons, President
Richard Parsons is the former President of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce and former Executive Director of the Maryland Democratic Party. He has worked as an effective advocate on key public policy issues in the Greater Washington area since 1985, including serving as Director of Maryland Government Relations for the Greater Washington Board of Trade, a former federal and state lobbyist, Capital Hill staffer, and presidential campaign organizer. His government affairs and media relations work spans the full range from local, to state and national issues. He was part of the federal lobbying team that won passage of the Brady Bill in the U.S. Congress, and he played a leadership role in winning approval of several major transit and road improvements in the Washington region, including the InterCounty Connector.
On the private sector side, he served as Chief Operating Officer of Rodgers Consulting, Inc., a leading urban planning and design firm. In 1997 he launched his own successful consulting business, Parsons & Associates, which has served numerous private-sector, political, non-profit and institutional clients.
An active member of the local community, Parsons serves as Chairman of the Montgomery County Business PAC, and was a former civic association president and Democratic Party Precinct Chair. He has also served on numerous non-profit boards, including: Committee for Montgomery, Citizens League of Montgomery County, Purple Line Now!, the Corridor Cities Transitway Coalition, and Rebuilding Together of Montgomery County. Parsons is a graduate of Leadership Montgomery and served on the Montgomery County Planning Board's Transportation Policy Report Task Force, as well as County Executive Ike Leggett's Smart Growth Implementation Advisory Group.
In 2002, he was honored by the Victims Rights Foundation with their Unsung Hero Award for leading business community efforts to aid the families of the Washington-area sniper victims. In 2003, he was named by the Washington Business Journal as one of the DC region's twelve "People to Watch" for his leadership on local and regional transportation issues.
