ARTICLE
On Tuesday morning your Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce held our Annual Members’ Meeting to a packed house at the Dream Inn. The room was full of energy and excitement about what lies ahead for your Chamber in 2018. The view of the Monterey Bay was picture perfect reminder that we live, work and play in a very special place. The Chamber’s outgoing Chair, Chris Maffia (Santa Cruz County Bank), was delighted to pass the baton to the new Chair, Mark Mesiti-Miller. Chris served with distinction for the past two years as the Chamber transitioned from one executive to another. She was the leader who captained the Chamber ship during this transition. If you see her around town remind her how integral her leadership was to the future of the Chamber. Today, we launched a new vision for your Chamber. Our Chair Mark Mesiti-Miller stated to the members in the room: “It is not what you can do for the Chamber but what you want your Chamber to do for you.” Mark emphasized, “We can only impact Santa Cruz County if we have full engagement of our board and our members. There is strength in numbers and we need to get every member involved in our mission to improve the economic vitality of our region.” This is a Call to Action to each and every Chamber member to get involved in a chamber committee, attend our events and participate in our programs. The Chamber will be sending out a survey to our members asking you a few key questions as to what is important to you and your company and your employees. Your Chamber board and staff want your feedback to understand how you want us to improve our economic climate, create jobs and improve our infrastructure. Mark introduced the audience to our 2018 board: Executive Committee Chris Maffia - outgoing Chair - Santa Cruz County Bank Gine Johnson - Chair Community Affairs Committee - Santa Cruz County Karl Rice - Vice President special Chamber projects-Seaside Company, Greg Lukina - Chair, Finance Committee David Lyng Associates Duf Fischer Board of Directors Hilary Bryant - Buoy Labs Mary Gourlay - Swenson Sarah Latham -UCSC Monica Martinez - Encompass Gary Merrill - Emergent Systems Stephanie Munoz - BTF Enterprises Rich Pickard - Plantronics (retired) Tina Shull - City of Santa Cruz Alan Smith - Grunsky Law Firm Thomas Wynn-Wynn Capital Management Our new Board members Zach Davis —The Glass Jar Chris Murphy — Santa Cruz Warriors Tom Stelling — Stelling Commercial Sid Slatter — Slatter Construction Joyce Orndorff —Kaiser Permanente Jon Sisk — Lighthouse Bank Jodie Kench, your Membership Director, presented the James C. Thompson Ambassador Awards to three Ambassadors who went above and beyond to help promote your Chamber. A huge shout out to Marc Murano, Rod Ca-born, and Manfred Luedge for all they have done for the Chamber in 2017. The highlight of our Annual Members’ Meeting was keynoted by Dan Schnur. Dan is a long-time political analyst, communication director of three presidential campaigns and former Communication Director to the Governor of California. Dan was introduced to the chamber members by Fred Keeley who worked with Dan on making government more efficient and accountable to Californians. Dan’s commentary on Tuesday was to give his impression of what happened during the 2016 election cycle — not slicing the pros and cons of the candidates for President but rather about the voter. The differences between Trump voters and the Sanders voters as well as why each felt empowered by their respective candidate. The Trump voter, as you can imagine, was described as the white man of a certain age who worked in the manufacturer facilities on the belt line, in construction jobs. These voters generally are angry about their future and Trump lead them to believe that he has their back. The Sanders voter is the younger voters who, too, are angry but for different reasons. Schnur surmised that these voters are not only angry but scared of an uncertain future. The Trump voter was advised to go out and get a good job in the factory, in the labor workforce, and then they would achieve the American dream. That future was taken away because of the Greatest Economic Depression of our generation where job loss was substantial in impacting those workers. The 20th Century workforce training is not a sustainable future in the 21st Century economy which is fueled by technology. Simply put, according to Schnur’s opinion, the fear of a no-job future for these folks lead to their protest vote. The same could be said about the Sanders voter as Schnur noted these younger voters were scared by the traditional public elected officials in Washington DC who do not represent their interest. Fear is an emotional guard that directs the individual to fight back or retreat away of the threat at hand. There is no one simple analysis that fear and scared voters of the 2016 election cycle can transcend into the 2018 election cycle. One observation that Schnur stated to the audience in the room Tuesday morning and to paraphrase Schnur, “We have the ability to make change by not walking away from fear. We need to engage all sides regardless of partisan opinions to make a positive path forward. He reminded the audience how fortunate we are to have such beauty in our Monterey Bay, and business and public sector officials that care deeply about our community. Leaders walk toward scary things to meet them head-on. It is the job creator who will help remove that fear by engaging those who fear the future. The vision of your Chamber is to hear from all of our members so we can be more effective for you. Let’s take Dan Schnur’s message to heart and begin this work towards a positive path today so that 2018 is a memorable year of positive change for our community.
On Tuesday morning your Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce held our Annual Members’ Meeting to a packed house at the Dream Inn. The room was full of energy and excitement about what lies ahead for your Chamber in 2018. The view of the Monterey Bay was picture perfect reminder that we live, work and play in a very special place.
The Chamber’s outgoing Chair, Chris Maffia (Santa Cruz County Bank), was delighted to pass the baton to the new Chair, Mark Mesiti-Miller. Chris served with distinction for the past two years as the Chamber transitioned from one executive to another. She was the leader who captained the Chamber ship during this transition. If you see her around town remind her how integral her leadership was to the future of the Chamber.
Today, we launched a new vision for your Chamber. Our Chair Mark Mesiti-Miller stated to the members in the room: “It is not what you can do for the Chamber but what you want your Chamber to do for you.” Mark emphasized, “We can only impact Santa Cruz County if we have full engagement of our board and our members. There is strength in numbers and we need to get every member involved in our mission to improve the economic vitality of our region.” This is a Call to Action to each and every Chamber member to get involved in a chamber committee, attend our events and participate in our programs. The Chamber will be sending out a survey to our members asking you a few key questions as to what is important to you and your company and your employees. Your Chamber board and staff want your feedback to understand how you want us to improve our economic climate, create jobs and improve our infrastructure.
Mark introduced the audience to our 2018 board: Executive Committee Chris Maffia - outgoing Chair - Santa Cruz County Bank Gine Johnson - Chair Community Affairs Committee - Santa Cruz County Karl Rice - Vice President special Chamber projects-Seaside Company, Greg Lukina - Chair, Finance Committee David Lyng Associates Duf Fischer
Board of Directors Hilary Bryant - Buoy Labs Mary Gourlay - Swenson Sarah Latham -UCSC Monica Martinez - Encompass Gary Merrill - Emergent Systems Stephanie Munoz - BTF Enterprises Rich Pickard - Plantronics (retired) Tina Shull - City of Santa Cruz Alan Smith - Grunsky Law Firm Thomas Wynn-Wynn Capital Management
Our new Board members Zach Davis —The Glass Jar Chris Murphy — Santa Cruz Warriors Tom Stelling — Stelling Commercial Sid Slatter — Slatter Construction Joyce Orndorff —Kaiser Permanente Jon Sisk — Lighthouse Bank
Jodie Kench, your Membership Director, presented the James C. Thompson Ambassador Awards to three Ambassadors who went above and beyond to help promote your Chamber. A huge shout out to Marc Murano, Rod Ca-born, and Manfred Luedge for all they have done for the Chamber in 2017.
The highlight of our Annual Members’ Meeting was keynoted by Dan Schnur. Dan is a long-time political analyst, communication director of three presidential campaigns and former Communication Director to the Governor of California. Dan was introduced to the chamber members by Fred Keeley who worked with Dan on making government more efficient and accountable to Californians. Dan’s commentary on Tuesday was to give his impression of what happened during the 2016 election cycle — not slicing the pros and cons of the candidates for President but rather about the voter. The differences between Trump voters and the Sanders voters as well as why each felt empowered by their respective candidate.
The Trump voter, as you can imagine, was described as the white man of a certain age who worked in the manufacturer facilities on the belt line, in construction jobs. These voters generally are angry about their future and Trump lead them to believe that he has their back. The Sanders voter is the younger voters who, too, are angry but for different reasons. Schnur surmised that these voters are not only angry but scared of an uncertain future. The Trump voter was advised to go out and get a good job in the factory, in the labor workforce, and then they would achieve the American dream. That future was taken away because of the Greatest Economic Depression of our generation where job loss was substantial in impacting those workers. The 20th Century workforce training is not a sustainable future in the 21st Century economy which is fueled by technology. Simply put, according to Schnur’s opinion, the fear of a no-job future for these folks lead to their protest vote. The same could be said about the Sanders voter as Schnur noted these younger voters were scared by the traditional public elected officials in Washington DC who do not represent their interest. Fear is an emotional guard that directs the individual to fight back or retreat away of the threat at hand.
There is no one simple analysis that fear and scared voters of the 2016 election cycle can transcend into the 2018 election cycle. One observation that Schnur stated to the audience in the room Tuesday morning and to paraphrase Schnur, “We have the ability to make change by not walking away from fear. We need to engage all sides regardless of partisan opinions to make a positive path forward. He reminded the audience how fortunate we are to have such beauty in our Monterey Bay, and business and public sector officials that care deeply about our community. Leaders walk toward scary things to meet them head-on. It is the job creator who will help remove that fear by engaging those who fear the future.
The vision of your Chamber is to hear from all of our members so we can be more effective for you. Let’s take Dan Schnur’s message to heart and begin this work towards a positive path today so that 2018 is a memorable year of positive change for our community.