The “Best Business Community Leader” title invokes images of someone heavily involved in philanthropic efforts. And while that holds true for this year’s winner, Bill Carle, our community has benefited not only from his involvement in local community and professional organizations, but also through his success in the legal field, real estate development and the wine industry. In short, Carle has achieved a level of success in many different endeavors, which isn’t only a personal accomplishment but has also added to the economic vitality of our community.
Carle helped found the Santa Rosa-based law firm Carle, Mackie, Power & Ross LLP in 1998. He worked there as a partner until about two and a half years ago, when he stepped back into an Of Counsel role to focus on other endeavors. This year, marking the firm’s 10th anniversary, CMPR won the Gold award in NorthBay biz’ readers’ poll for Best Law Firm.
“Our firm is a smaller business firm with a lot of very good business clients, but it’s not one of the firms in the North Bay with huge numbers of individual clients,” says Carle. “So to [win the award] says an awful lot about the quality of the people working at our firm and the quality of work that’s done there.”
In true leadership fashion, Carle humbly expressed his embarrassment at winning Best Business Community Leader, saying he’s “at no loss for words when advocating for a client, project or nonprofit—but I’m not one that typically advocates for myself, so I’m not sure what to say.”
Carle credits his parents with instilling the mindset of “doing what you can do in your community. It’s important to do what you have a passion for and never expect anything for it except personal satisfaction. I think that’s pretty important,” says Carle.
Currently, Carle is a managing member of CGF Equities and a principal shareholder and executive vice president of Hugh Futrell Corporation. Both entities are actively engaged in real estate development in the North Bay and share Carle’s belief that developers and builders have a moral responsibility to demand good design and work inside urban boundaries—not sprawl across agricultural lands. In addition, staying true to his family’s history of growing grapes in Sonoma County for more than 25 years, Carle decided 10 years ago to become an active one-third owner of McNab Ridge Winery in Mendocino County, along with John and Rich Parducci.
However, what very likely put Carle on the forefront of readers’ minds is his involvement with the Santa Rosa School Board, having been elected to the board since 1998 and having served as president in 2000, 2001 and 2006. “I actually wasn’t going to run in 2006, because the second of my two boys graduated that year,” explains Carle. “But two days before the deadline, only two of the three incumbents had filed and nobody else had. So a number of the board members said, ‘If you file and nobody else does, the district is going to save $125,000 in election costs and we won’t have to have an election. Would you be willing to serve four more years?’”
Wanting the district to save that money for a better purpose—and recognizing that he enjoyed the work—Carle decided to commit to four more years and is currently serving as clerk. Next year, he’ll be vice president of the board and will serve as president in 2010, presumably his last year.
Asked what he feels is the secret to success, Carle doesn’t have to think long about his answer. “I think it’s treating others fairly, that’s the number one key,” he says. “And always doing what you say you’ll do. I think it’s incredibly important for people to believe what you say and to know that, when you say you’ll do it, you’ll follow through. I think those two things are really critical.
“There’s a third element over which you have some, but not total, control. That’s to surround yourself with people in whom you have a high degree of confidence, whose core values are similar to yours and who’ll pull the boat in the same direction as you—once you agree on the direction. I think it’s important to have those people around you.”
Thankfully, the North Bay has Bill Carle to help pull our boat in the right direction.
