The Board of Directors Retreat this year brought new personalities and points of view to our discussions, and I am so inspired by the tremendous potential for the Chamber this year. It gives me great pleasure to introduce five of our new board members who will be bringing their professional experience to your membership this year:
John Lek is the senior vice president and general manager at the Green Dragon Tavern & Museum. John brings rich and diverse career experiences from recruiting to finance. And this is not his first Chamber experience. He did some public policy work for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce while getting his BA in Political Science at UCSD. His booming voice is a dominant force in the room, and his words bring meaning and insight to match the voice.
Sue Loftin is founder of The Loftin Firm, P.C., represented by a group of attorneys that handle most aspects of any type of litigation or transactional law. Most Chamber members should recognize Sue as her firm has been a member since 2005. In 2015 she won the Chamber’s Woman-Owned Business Award, and in 2016 she won the Chamber’s Businessperson of the Year Award. She is also a generous sponsor of the Glamour, Glitz, Hats and Heels event. Her ability to thoughtfully listen to other people’s points of view before offering her input is a skill that will be valued on the Board this year.
Catherine Magaña is a founder and Managing Partner at WWM Financial. As a mother of young twins, Catherine has a full plate and we appreciate her willingness to make room on her plate for the Board this year. Catherine has exemplified great leadership in her role as the co-chair of the Government Affairs Committee last year, and now she’s stepping up to lead the committee as the chair.
Josh Mazur is a software systems engineer and represents the Chamber with his own business, Upstream Consulting. Josh has been a regular attendee of the Chamber’s Technology Committee for many years, and has served as a recent chair of the committee. He has also been a great work-horse for the Ready Carlsbad Business Alliance in recent years, and we can thank Josh for a total revamp of the RCBA website.
Mike Weseloh from Weseloh Chevrolet/KIA is our representative from Car Country Carlsbad. It has been a few years since we have had a representative from this important Carlsbad industry on the Board and we look forward to once again having this valuable perspective. Mike continues to build the Weseloh business into its fourth generation, and having a legacy business that has seen the extreme highs and lows of the economy through immense technological changes over the years will be a very valuable perspective to the board.
We are also grateful to have Kyle Godat, General Manager of The Shoppes at Carlsbad join the Board this year. Kyle was unable to attend the Board retreat but we look forward to getting to know him better this year.
I would like to thank all of our Board members for their sincere commitment to the Chamber this year. We are at an interesting point in history with all of the technological changes on the horizon that can change our economy as we know it. We will have a fun year exploring ways for the Chamber to take advantage of these changes and continue to provide our members with opportunities for their own business growth and improvement.