By Jonathan Turner
In the year he’s led the Greater Quad Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GQCHCC), Jesse Noriega has put some big plans into motion.
The biggest move is 6.2 miles east, as the chamber is renovating a much larger office location in downtown Silvis, in preparation to move from Moline in March.
Noriega, 53, of East Moline, has a connection to the Hero Street Eight – Frank and Joe Sandoval were brothers of his grandmother (Jennie Garcia, for whom the restaurant Jennie’s Boxcar is named). Though the new GQCHCC building (908 1st Ave., Silvis) is blocks from Hero Street, that didn’t play a part in the site selection, he said recently.
The new site was formerly occupied by QC Custom Tees, and the chamber is leasing the 4,200-square-foot building, compared to less than 1,000 in its current space at 709 4th Ave., in Moline’s Hispanic Floreciente neighborhood.
“Moline had always been really good to us and the Project NOW building,” Noriega said recently. “We had a great relationship. We still do and we still continue to do. We’ll do the block party that we have done every year. We’ll continue to do that down there, even though we’re not in Moline.”
GQCHCC has been in its current location about nine years, outgrown it, and there’s no dedicated parking. Sergio Mendoza (past board chair) was the only other chamber employee, averaging 10 hours a week on administrative and event duties, Noriega said. Janessa Calderon was the last executive director, from 2020 through 2024.
“He had been around for eight plus years or so, he knew all the systems, how to do everything and whatnot. And then he unexpectedly passed away,” Noriega said, noting it was the day of his director interview. Mendoza, 42, died Jan. 4, 2025.
Noriega joined the Hispanic chamber board in December 2021 and served as chair from May 2024 until becoming new executive director.
He found their new building after signing up QC Custom Tees as a new member last March, and found they moved to a different location on Davenport’s Harrison Street, and the Silvis spot was empty.
“This needs a lot of work. And obviously being a nonprofit, we’re not sitting on tons of money to rehab and remodel,” Noriega said, noting the building owner got a $60,000 city loan for the chamber to do work, and repay over five years. The new chamber offices will include an event space, and feature a coffee shop.
He and his wife also own and operate ACE Cleaning of the Quad Cities.
Since he became chamber director, the group has grown by 60-70 members (to 210 total), which Noriega now calls “community partners.”
“We launched our new website. Anyone who’s seen our old website, it was just very outdated,” he said of https://gqchcc.com.
“We also started doing new member videos. So when new members come in, if they like, we shoot a video and highlight that video, which they never had before,” Noriega said. And he’s doing more with social media to promote members.
He’s also launched a GQCHCC YouTube channel (about seven months ago), which includes in-depth interviews with local leaders.
One of his goals is for the chamber to expand into Iowa, since there is not another Hispanic chamber in Iowa. “The closest one is Nebraska. So that gives us the opportunity to go out there,” Noriega said.
With that expansion, he’s not sure that will require a name change.
“I don’t want to over-promise and under-commit,” Noriega said. “I am going out there because I’m constantly trying to find the right people that are willing to volunteer and help because I am looking for — whether it’s ambassadors out those in those areas or even to set up like in the bigger areas like Des Moines, to set up a board of advisors for us.”
Once they get settled in new offices, Noriega hopes to add staff (at least an office administrator) to focus on events and legislative issues. He’s pursuing funding to hire a consultant to help draft a new strategic plan.
Noriega is in leadership training with the Harris Center for Nonprofit Excellence at the Quad Cities Community Foundation.
“Obviously, since I don’t come from a nonprofit background and maybe it’s good and it’s bad, I think it’s good in the sense that I come in with a different fiscal responsibility,” Noriega said. “I’m looking for not today, but I want to make sure that we’re going to be operational 5, 10, 15 years down the line and not have to worry about payroll and other things.”
“Not that other nonprofits don’t really look at that, but they look at it from a different lens because the nonprofit world is different,” he said. “Some things that maybe they haven’t thought of and seen or realized, I’m looking at. But then there’s a lot of things in these type of cohorts that I’m learning from them.”
“The great thing about the community out here is that that is the one group that’s growing in the Quad Cities,” he said of the Hispanic population. “The only community grown in the Quad Cities is the immigrant community. So if we don’t get them the tools to be successful and show them how to open businesses the right way and help them, because not that they need help, maybe some of them don’t, but it’s always nice to have that place that you can go back to feel comfortable and ask.”
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