Meet New Directors for Visit Santa Cruz County

COMMUNITY NEWS Meet New Directors for Visit Santa Cruz County

Visit Santa Cruz County announces three new members on the Board of Directors.

Each began duties July 1, 2021, sitting on the 25-member board for two-year terms, overseeing the Tourism Marketing District budget.

Tourism is Santa Cruz County’s largest industry, which impacted the area with $1.1 billion for the local economy in 2019, according to Visit Santa Cruz County.

Foster Andersen President, Shared Adventures

Following a motorcycle accident that partially severed his spine, he began using a wheelchair at age 17.

At Rochester Institute of Technology as a manufacturing engineer major, he joined a new “sit ski” program for people with spinal cord injuries and embraced the idea of providing extreme adventures for persons with disabilities.

Foster arrived in Santa Cruz in 1990 in the aftermath of the Loma Prieta Earthquake and established Shared Adventures in 1992 to serve the disabled population of the Central Coast and Bay Area through life-strengthening and confidence-building opportunities.

He has been active on numerous city, county, state and nonprofit committees, commissions and boards, including a 10-year term as a board member for the County of Santa Cruz In Home Support Services Advisory Committee and eight years on the City of Santa Cruz Board of Building and Fire Appeals.

Foster Andersen

Josh Belcher

General manager, Scotts Valley Hilton

Raised in Waynesville, Missouri, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy following high school. He completed two tours of duty overseas on the USS Constellation aircraft carrier.

He then built a career over 24 years in hospitality beginning at the Tan-TarA Resort on the Lake of the Ozarks. For the past eight years, he has been with Remington Hotel Property Management Group, taking leadership roles at properties in New Mexico, Texas, and Indiana. In August 2020, with the pandemic not over, he joined the Scotts Valley Hilton.

He lives with his wife and family in Santa Cruz.

Josh Belcher

Mike Harris

Vice president, Ledgestone Hospitality/ Hampton Inn, Watsonville

Growing up in Texas, he working line-level hospitality positions prior to advancing to general manager at age 19. By age 23, he bought three hotels in three Midwestern states.

He then formed a consulting company and for over a decade assisted many of the top hotel management companies in the country with sales efforts.

He returned to operations in 1997 and became regional director for a national hotel brands management division.

He opened and supervised operations for a Hampton by Hilton, Holiday Inn, Marriott and many AmericInns and helped create a four-diamond luxury boutique property in Paso Robles.

Mike Harris

He led the effort to develop an eCRM initiative for a national hotel brand.

In 2009 he joined Ledgestone Hospitality where he is partner overseeing the management of 30 hotels from Wisconsin to California.

He has been associated with Hilton, Sheraton, Holiday Inn, Best Western, Marriott, Wyndham, Choice and several independent hotels. He developed the winning site for the Western Management Development Center in Aurora, Colorado, managing and assisting in opening the Dole-Specter Conference Center/ hotel and spearheading creation of the Paso Robles Business Improvement District.

He lives in Phoenix with his wife and four children. n

To reach Visit Santa Cruz County, call 831-425-1234.

“Letters” from page 8

When my young kids fight over a toy train, they lose sight of the many other toys scattered around them. I encourage them to set the toy train aside and try stacking building blocks together, which is fun for both of them! The train will be there to settle later. In the meantime, everyone can play more happily & productively.

During Jarrett Walker’s 2018 presentation on our county’s transportation predicament, he coined the infamous term “Aptos Strangler” to describe our epic choke point.

No one is foolish enough to think that untangling the Strangler will be easy. But it’s also not impossible. If we can set aside past disputes, focus on common ground, and engage collaboratively, we may be able to turn this contentious choke point into the “Aptos Handshake.”

Centered at the vital interchange between north county & south county, the Aptos Handshake could help connect community members throughout Santa Cruz County — connect them to each other, to their workplaces & schools, to local businesses, to more enrichment opportunities, and to our spectacular public parks. All without having to fully depend on a car.

I know it may seem like the fate of our county’s future lies along two long strips of steel, but let’s set the tracks aside until the future is a bit more clear and instead focus on how to work together to improve things in the near-term. Many of our roads in Aptos are unsafe for pedestrians & cyclists, traffic congestion is a perennial frustration, our bus system is in need of investment & modernization, and our infrastructure is surely ill prepared for the coming boom in alternative vehicles.

For now, let’s let the tracks be the tracks. We can instead focus on how to improve our roads, widen our highway, scale our bus system, and safely accommodate newfangled transport tech like e-bikes.

Please don’t mistake me for an expert here. Far from it! I’m simply a newcomer, instantly smitten with Aptos, pleading for reconciliation and collaboration. The new nonprofit I’ve founded, Nisene Rio Gateway (NRG), promotes ecological & community harmony while improving safety & access for active transportation in the Aptos area. Our aim is to physically, logistically, and culturally connect our incredible natural spaces & local communities. If you like the sound of that, please join us, no matter your stance on rail!

If you’d like to explore more of the details proposed by the Aptos Handshake concept, visit the interactive map: https:// tinyurl.com/aptos-handshake-map. (Full URL: https://www.google.com/ maps/d/edit?mid=1jfuxi5dG7wI-Ru1xn2a7yT -Jx6EEAKDw&usp=sharing) — Todd Marco, Aptos