Leadership Santa Maria Valley Graduates Class of 2020 Terri Oneschuck, Program Director, Leadership Santa Maria Valley
Thank You to our LSMV Topic Day Lunch Sponsors A special thank you to the following sponsors, who generously donated lunch during our monthly Topic Days for the 2020 LSMV program:
Members of the 25th Leadership Santa Maria Valley class celebrated an outdoor, sociallydistant graduation in June 2020. The class of 20 members did a great job of adapting their programming during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Santa Maria Valley Chamber is proud to announce the graduation of the 25th Leadership Class. This class began with a retreat last August and then started their day-long topic days with a tour of Vandenberg Air Force Base in September. The usual format of Leadership Santa Maria Valley (LSMV) is to have 10 topic days where the class hears speakers and takes tours around a specific business sector each month. However, like so many other things in 2020, that format had to change in April due to the pandemic. Instead of the traditional topic days in April, May and June, the class held a series of Zoom meetings and invited speakers to share their expertise in the fields of Sustainability, Agriculture and Leadership, which would have been explored those months. June is the traditional time for graduations and the LSMV graduation was held in late June. We also had to re-imagine what our graduation would look like. Taking a page
from the local school districts, we decided on a drive-though graduation, which took place on the top level of the Santa Maria Town Center’s parking structure. Instead of the traditional evening reception, the class members drove past a line of LSMV and Chamber board members and received a box of cupcakes, a gift certificate to the Historic Santa Maria Inn and their framed graduation certificate. As a final stop, they got out of their car and where photographed with their certificates. Thank you to Mayor Alice Patino for joining us for the graduation and being part of the photo op. We are very proud of this class of 20 future leaders. They continue to work on their legacy project and we look forward to celebrating the completion of their project later this year. They have shown resilience and perseverance through this pandemic. It has been a pleasure to know them and watch them build their leadership skills.
Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce | August 2020
• Celeste Coelho-Hudson • CoastHills Credit Union • Community Bank of Santa Maria • Cubanissimo • Diane Alleman-Stevens • Honda of Santa Maria • Jersey Mike’s • Marian Regional Hospital • Maya Restaurant • Moxie Café • Naught Oak Brewing Co. • New Life Bath & Kitchen • Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce • Senor Taco • Starry Sky Coffee Co. • The Law Office of Helen Weare • Toyota of Santa Maria • WAV Group ...your generosity made for some delicious Topic Days, and we thank you!
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