Duane Zobrist: Commerce with Integrity

Duane Zobrist was uninterested in college and working full time when he decided to go on a mission. “My mission to Brazil totally changed my attitude about school and intellectual endeavors,” he says. “It gave me tremendous self-confidence and the tools and skills which allowed me to be successful at school.”

So successful was Brother Zobrist that he is now an international business lawyer and president of the United States-Mexico Chamber of Commerce, a position that involves extensive travel between the two countries. Mexico is the United States’s third-largest trading partner, and promotion of that trade is the Chamber’s chief business. Brother Zobrist is also bishop of a singles’ ward in Pasadena, California.

Though of Swiss descent, Brother Zobrist speaks fluent Portuguese, learned while on his mission, and Spanish, learned after he returned home. His command of these languages helps him in his law practice, which deals largely with Latin-American business carried on in the United States. He believes that business practices, including the practice of law, can be consistent with the gospel principles of honesty and trust. “When people know you don’t compromise your standards,” he says, “you get honest, high-caliber clients.”

In July 1987, Brother Zobrist, along with other businessmen and dignitaries, was honored for his international service to the Church at the 150th anniversary of the Church in the British Isles.