The County Voice

CSAC Revamps Corporate Associates Program – Hires Director of Corporate Relations

By Paul McIntosh on January 17th, 2012

Last fall, CSAC began the process of revamping all of our corporate and sponsorship programs in an effort to increase:

• private sector participation in CSAC
• the number of national firms that join and sponsor events
• the number and quality of interactions we offer corporate and county people to interact with each other
• revenue generated by this program

We have already taken a number of steps in support of these efforts.  We added new sponsorship opportunities at the Annual Conference in November, engaged key corporate members in discussions regarding proposed changes and reconfigured program staffing. 

As part of a branding study that is near completion, we have worked to better define the value of CSAC membership for the private sector companies who do business with county governments.  The result is that we will be reducing the number of corporate membership levels offered, tying conference participation to all levels of membership and greatly increasing our interactions with our key corporate members. 

In support of these goals, we raised the level of responsibility for the program to that of Director of Corporate Relations and I am very pleased to announce that CSAC has hired John Samartzis to fill that role effective February 1^st.  John brings tremendous experience in developing public private relationships.  He has spent the last five years at the National Association of Counties (NACo) overseeing their corporate and sponsorship programs.  During his tenure there he grew their corporate membership, participation and revenue dramatically.  We are extremely fortunate to have John join the CSAC family and look forward to working with him.

We have great expectations for 2012 and raising the elevation of our corporate partners within our organization.