In the month since James Clark relocated from Los Angeles to a San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce office, he has been fully immersed in his role as director general of the newly established Mexico Business Center. He brings to the position cross cultural expertise honed in his work during the past 10 years.

Clark describes the mission of his office as enhancing cross-border business relations in four defined areas. First is to assist San Diego County businesses, such as SBC, the Padres, Sempra Energy and Chevron/Texaco in selling products and services to Mexico. “That is our major goal,” he says.

In addition, he works with Mexican companies to help them market in this country and to establish their U.S. headquarters in San Diego rather than elsewhere in the country. A third component of Clark’s office is to work with cross-border businesses in Baja, primarily maquiladoras, or twin U.S.-Mexico operations.

A final goal is to be an advocacy center for the federal governments of both countries in handling specific border concerns, Clark says. Working with him in the San Diego office is Viviana Ibañez.

A marketing and advertising graduate of the University of Illinois, Clark’s early work was in publications. He was publisher of San Francisco and Executive (Orange County) magazines and also editorial director for 10 U.S. in-flight magazines.

More recently, he was publisher of both Latin Trade and World Trade magazines. For the past five years, he has been executive director in the Los Angeles office of the U.S./Mexico Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at the San Diego chamber office, (619) 544-1376, or at jclark@sdchamber.org.