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Catherine C. Blalock
Director, Grassroots Outreach, TradeRoots
Catherine Blalock is the Director for Grassroots Outreach for TradeRoots, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's national trade education program. As the country's leading national grassroots trade education program, TradeRoots works to raise public awareness of the importance of international trade to small businesses and their local communities. In this position, Ms. Blalock conducts grassroots outreach through educational programs, coalition building and working with the media. She works with small and medium-sized businesses, governors and the Chamber's network of 3,000 state and local chambers across the country.
Prior to joining the TradeRoots program, Ms. Blalock was the Operations Director for the U.S. Chamber's International Affairs division. As part of the International division, she was responsible for financial management, strategic planning, coordination and coalition building throughout its network of business councils, policy committees and task forces.
Prior to her work at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Ms. Blalock served as the Director of Finance at the Henry L Stimson Center, an international public policy institute in Washington, DC. At the Stimson Center, she managed finance and investment policy for the $3 million institution and participated in the strategic planning for and monitoring of public and private foundation grants.
Ms. Blalock received an M.B.A. from Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia and a B.S. from the University of Maryland. She has served as an adjunct professor in the Business and Mathematics Department at Montgomery College, in Germantown, Maryland. She now lives in Jacksonville, Florida with her husband and two children.
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Kelly Kirk
Manager, TradeRoots
Kelly Kirk is a manager for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce TradeRoots program. TradeRoots is a sustained, national trade education program dedicated to building grassroots support for international trade and to stopping anti-trade protectionism.
In her current position, Kirk coordinates issue-specific trade education programs and trade advocacy throughout the United States. She also organizes and leads the U.S.-China Business Forum and U.S.-India Forum series. These nationwide series of trade education programs target small- and medium-size businesses and feature ambassadors, American Chamber of Commerce representatives, and industry and sector specialists. In addition, Kirk works closely with the senior trade advisor to manage TradeRoots's sponsor outreach efforts.
Kirk started her career at the Chamber as program coordinator in the East Asia division. In this capacity she hosted events for several heads of state, as well as hosted a global IP forum in Beijing, China. Other projects included publishing the Asia Insider newsletter and the East Asia marketing brochure and assisting in fundraising efforts.
Prior to joining the Chamber, Kirk served as a program specialist for the U.S. Department of Education, where she provided support for the office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.
Kirk graduated from Mississippi State University in 2004 with a degree in International Business. She spent a semester studying at the University of Costa Rica in San Jose.
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Kathleen McInerney
Manager, TradeRoots
Kathleen McInerney is a manager for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce TradeRoots Program. TradeRoots is the only sustained, national trade education program dedicated to building grassroots support for international trade and to stopping anti-trade protectionism.
In this position, McInerney supervises TradeRoots communications and publications, including a quarterly newsletter and the library of Faces of Trade profiles. She is also responsible for building grassroots support for international trade and the Congressional trade agenda through media outreach and events. These events, featuring local experts, dignitaries, and high-level U.S. administration officials, are organized nationwide and aim to educate small- and medium-size businesses. McInerney manages the Latin America Trade Coalition, made up of more than 1200 businesses, chambers, and associations that support trade agreement with Latin America, making it the largest trade coalition built in recent Washington, D.C. history.
McInerney started her career at the Chamber in the Western Hemisphere Department of the International Division. Partnering with the Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America and the Brazil-U.S. Business Council, she hosted events for heads of state from Latin America, the United States, and Canada. In addition, she also worked to build Congressional support for the pending trade agreements, as well as the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, through coordinated communications and Hill visits.
Before joining the Chamber, McInerney worked on international development projects in Southeast Asia, with a primary focus on Northern Laos and Thailand. McInerney graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., with an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution with an emphasis on Human Rights. She received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of Colorado in Boulder. She is fluent in Spanish and has lived and worked in Argentina, Chile, and Ireland.
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Liz Reilly
Director, TradeRoots
Liz Reilly is the Director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's TradeRoots program. Her responsibilities include communicating the TradeRoots message to the Chamber's grassroots network and outsiders, building a coalition of trade advocates, and educating members of Congress and their constituents on the importance of trade. In addition to the general TradeRoots coalition, she works to expand coalitions for bilateral trade agreements such as Colombia and Korea. Reilly works closely with the business community, trade associations, local chambers of commerce, American Chambers of Commerce (AmChams), and government agencies to advance trade.
Other projects that she is responsible for include directing international strategic planning sessions for selected states throughout the United States. These sessions bridge members of Congress, governors, universities, the business community and other crucial entities to coordinate efforts in order to support the trade agenda and open international markets for American producers. This effort includes overseeing a series of forums showcasing the successes of trade agreements that include the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Additionally, she is a professor for the Institute for Organization Management (IOM), and educates chamber of commerce and association executives on the importance of international trade to their members and communities.
Prior to joining the Chamber, Reilly worked for The National Paint and Coatings Association (NPCA) in Washington DC, for six years as the manager of international and federal programs. While there, she lobbied state and federal governments, developed testimony, built a grassroots network to support federal legislation, directed the chemical security committee, and ran an environmental, health, and safety program. She also managed the political action committee (PAC), and helped to transform one committee into a United Nations Non-Government Organization (NGO).
Reilly graduated from The University of Dayton with a B.A. in Communications. She spent a semester studying at The University of Newcastle in Australia. In 2004, she received her M.A. from George Mason University in International Commerce and Policy. Her capstone project was on the environmental effects of NAFTA, which included a NAFTA study in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
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Leslie M. Schweitzer
Senior Trade Advisor, TradeRoots
As Senior Trade Advisor for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Leslie M. Schweitzer created the TradeRoots Initiative, the only sustained national grassroots international trade education program in the country. The program is designed to raise public awareness of international trade, particularly to small- and medium-sized companies. TradeRoots has been instrumental in gaining grassroots support for China PNTR, the Trade Promotion Authority, and free trade agreements with Chile, Singapore, Australia, and Morocco. The program also led the charge for grassroots support of the free trade agreement with Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Nicaragua and the most recently passed agreement with Peru.
Schweitzer was responsible for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Business Partnership Program with TOBB, funded by USAID in Turkey in 2006. This program, the first of its kind, brought business outreach programs to the Turkish business community through a series of high-level forums throughout the country.
Schweitzer has owned her own businesses involved in international trade for more than 30 years. She was one of the first American women to do business in China and pioneered U.S.-China trade beginning in 1977 as a co-founder of Noble Trading Company, which assisted U.S.-based companies with product sales to China, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, India, South America and the Caribbean. Clients included Pepsi World Trade and the Motors Trading Company of General Motors. In 1987, Schweitzer founded a full-service offshore manufacturing and marketing company, Schweitzer&Associates, specializing in developing consumer product industries in Third World and developing countries. She owned and operated factories in the Caribbean that produced labor-intensive apparel for U.S. and foreign retail stores, manufacturers, and catalog companies. At one point the company employed over 700 people. Schweitzer has also been involved in international business ventures in the former Soviet Union and Finland.
Through her consulting company, Schweitzer continues to work closely with chambers and governments around the world to raise their profiles and develop comprehensive campaigns to develop business in the United States. She also continues to advise small- and medium-sized companies on how to prosper in the global business arena. Schweitzer has developed a comprehensive program with the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce to facilitate an aggressive program to educate businesses in both countries about the opportunities in specific industry sectors. Schweitzer is also involved with projects throughout the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe.
Schweitzer is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship in international trade, has appeared on Lou Dobbs, and often on local and national radio and television shows. Schweitzer has been a member of various boards, including the American Management Association, CARESBAC, Operation Enterprise and the Department of Commerce's Trade Advisory Board. Currently Schweitzer serves on the Advisory Board for International Programs at the University of Kansas, the Advisory Board of OWIT, Organization of Women in International Trade, serves on the D.C.-Virginia District Export Council and is a member of the board of trustees of the American University of Afghanistan.
Schweitzer attended the University of Kansas and the University of Copenhagen and received her B. S. in International Relations from the George Washington University. She is married and the mother of two sons.
