This story is part of our April 2025 issue. To subscribe, click here.

When Robert W. Heidt, Jr., tells a visitor, “I love chambers of commerce,” he says it with his trademark enthusiasm — but, given his background, it’s also an example of profound understatement.

Heidt, who became president and CEO of the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce more than a year ago, has spent the better part of his adult life working for chambers. Sac Metro’s search committee lassoed him while he was the president and CEO of the Glendale Chamber of Commerce in Arizona. Before that, the U.S. Air Force veteran led the Cape Ann Chamber in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Previously, he served as the chief operating officer and senior vice president of the Austin chamber. He also spent time working on member services and community relations for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce.

If there’s a pattern here, it’s this: At an energetic 52 years old, Heidt clearly understands the value and challenges of local, regional and even national business groups. In fact, two days before this interview, he was named by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to be one of 16 new executives on its high-achiever Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100. “The national recognition is important to us,” he says, “because we’re much too polarized today in almost every facet of our lives. This group brings together business groups from all over the country to share issues and work on solutions.”  

Since being hired in January of 2024, Heidt (pronounced “height”) not only took the helm of an organization with an annual budget of $5.5 million, a 20-member board of directors and a fulltime staff of 10 plus “five contractors who have very specialized skills” — but also began what he calls “an apology tour.”

“I visited member businesses large and small whose owner felt the chamber had lost its pulse — its very reason for being. There was a feeling that no one was listening to them and, even more importantly, that no one much cared about the issues they were facing.” 

It’s worth noting, and without his naming names, that of the staff Heidt inherited, only two remain. “The rest are people we brought in who I felt best reflected my values as well as those of the membership. They had a transformative spirit, not a transactional one, meaning they were less concerned about promoting themselves than in helping the chamber fulfill its mission.”

While the “metro” in its name may indicate otherwise, the chamber, founded in 1895, represents businesses and workers in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties. Its membership, as of last month, ran to 1,500 — a 30 percent increase in the 16 months he’s been here. He has an executive board of 17 individuals and more than 60 general board members. All of this means that Heidt’s a boss who himself answers to a lot of bosses.

Yet neither the preponderance of bosses nor the number of programs he oversees — including a political action committee and active foundation — seems to bother Heidt, whose schedule is nonstop with the exception of one regular variation: Every few weeks he flies back to Maryland to visit his 97-year-old grandmother, who, with his late mother, raised him.

“The best part of our visits,” he says, his clear, hazel eyes seeming to reconjure the image, “is when I go there, I take her out. She’s at an age where she just doesn’t get out much.” On his most recent fly-in, at his grandmother’s request, Heidt says he took her “on a trip down Memory Lane, to the places she’d lived in Maryland and Pennsylvania.” He smiles at the memory.

Sitting at a conference table on the third floor of the chamber’s offices at One Capitol Mall, at the far end of Old Sacramento and in the shadow of the Tower Bridge, Heidt relaxes into a chat about his favorite subject.  

COMSTOCK’S: Had you always aspired to work in this field or was this thrust upon you, as they say happens with greatness?

HEIDT: (Laughs) Well, honestly, I didn’t even know what a chamber of commerce was, much less what it did. But my grandmother’s brother was president of a chamber in Maryland and I got a job there. Then I landed a job in Las Vegas and sometime after that was running membership and marketing. That chamber had, like, 7,000 members. I’d thought chamber work would be a nice Monday-through-Friday, nine-to-five job. But as you know, Vegas is a town that operates 24/7.
Anyway, about a year in, I found myself enjoying the work — and mainly, the people. I thought, this job really resonates with me. I’ve been in this business ever since.

COMSTOCK’S: What’s been your impression of Sacramento? Pretend for a second it’s not your job to sell it.

HEIDT: It’s an easy sale because I really love being here. The people have been so warm and helpful. There’s a seriousness about business but not so much about how people see themselves. That’s a unique quality for a metropolitan area to have.     

COMSTOCK’S: How are you hoping to rebuild businesses after so many losses due to the lockdown of the pandemic — and piggybacking on that, what do you think it’s going to take to get the Capital Region back on track for growth after the pandemic?

HEIDT: Well, our relationship with GSEC (Greater Sacramento Economic Council) is a plus here because when things are going the way they should, we work hand-in-glove with the group. They bring the people here and we work at making them feel welcome and wanted. We have boots on the ground and we’re talking to every business we can to see what their challenges and hopes are.
But beyond that, we need to be concentrating on what people see when they arrive. Our downtown needs to be a clean, safe destination.

COMSTOCK’S: How do you feel about Governor Newsom’s mandate for most state departments to come back to the workplace? And should everyone else also go back to the office?

HEIDT: It’s a different world now, with a more flexible work environment. I think it has to be predicated based on each business’s needs. But if people don’t come back to fill those state office buildings, we need to have the private sector work with the state to revitalize them. The region needs to be vibrant.

COMSTOCK’S: Other than the joy of spending time with your grandmother, what makes you happy?

HEIDT: Well, I have to tell you, I’m always happy when I start the day. I love my work and never dread the day ahead when I’m heading to the office from my house (in Roseville, on the border of Sacramento and Placer counties). But here’s what really thrills me: when I see a small business open a second location. That means that we’ve been able to make a difference. The business owner did all the work, but we were there to help.

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