The Sacramento Metro Chamber remembers a great friend to business State Senator Dave Cox, who passed away on July 13.

Sen. Cox began public service on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and was a longtime member of the Sacramento Metro Chamber. In fact, Cox often said he was proud to be a member of every chamber of commerce in the jurisdictions he represented during his long public career. He was a previous member of the Metro Chamber board of directors and longtime chamber member.

“The Metro Chamber, business and our region have lost a great champion,” said Metro Chamber President & CEO Matt Mahood. “We send our thoughts and prayers to Dave’s family, his wife, Maggie, their three daughters and six grandchildren, on the loss of their husband, father and grandfather—which is our loss too.”

In the business community, Sen. Cox was known for his common sense approach to representing the First Senate district and helped saving many jobs through support of legislation that fostered economic prosperity.

The Metro Chamber particularly recalls that in 2008 Sen. Cox was author of legislation sponsored by the Sacramento Metro Chamber, SB 1662, that paved the way to save hundreds jobs in El Dorado County. The extraordinarily complicated piece of legislation dealt with air quality and recognized that the state boundaries of air quality basin are artificial in that they are drawn in conjunction with political boundaries and don't conform to the real wind patterns.

“This was Dave at his best—seeing that government became part of the solution and not the problem—and this preserved many important jobs,” Mahood said. “We are really going to miss Dave—his humor, his candor and dedicated public service.”