name drop | Visit Santa Cruz County and Add to the Board – Santa Cruz Sentinel

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Visit Santa Cruz County announced the election of new members to its Board of Directors. Each member began their duties on July 1 and will sit on the 25-member Board of Directors for a term of two years.

The new board members are:

Foster Andersen, President – Shared Adventures: After a motorcycle accident that partially cut his spine, Andersen began using a wheelchair at the age of 17. While attending college at Rochester Institute of Technology as a chief manufacturing engineer, Andersen joined a brand-new “snowboard” program for People with Spinal Cord Injury and embraced the idea of ​​offering extreme adventures to people with disabilities. Andersen moved to Berkeley in 1987 to expand his outdoor adventures with the Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program and Environmental Travel Companion. Andersen arrived in Santa Cruz in 1990 to provide support to the community in the aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake and established Shared Adventures in 1992. Since its inception, Shared Adventures has served disabled residents in the Central Coast and Gulf region by promoting life and confidence building opportunities.

• Josh Belcher, General Manager – Santa Cruz/Scotts Valley Hilton: Belcher was born and raised in Waynesville, Missouri, and joined the US Navy after high school. Complete two rounds of service overseas aboard the aircraft carrier USS Constellation. After his time in the Navy, he has built his career over the past 24 years in hospitality starting at the Tan-Tar-A Resort on the shores of the Lake of the Ozarks in Osage Beach, Missouri. Over the past eight years, Belcher has worked with the Remington Hotel Real Estate Management Group, where he held leadership positions in properties in New Mexico, Texas and Indiana. In August 2020, he came to Santa Cruz to take over as General Manager at Santa Cruz/Scotts Valley Hilton.

• Mike Harris, Vice President – Lidgestone Hospitality / Hampton Inn – Watsonville: Harris grew up in Texas hospitality positions at the business line level before progressing to the position of general manager at the age of 19. At 23, he bought three hotels. Harris then founded a consulting firm and for more than a decade has helped many of the nation’s top hotel management companies with their sales efforts. He returned to operations in 1997 and was appointed as Regional Director of the National Hotel Brands Management Division. In this capacity, he was able to open and oversee operations at Hampton by Hilton, Holiday Inn, Marriott and several American Inns along with helping to set up a luxury four-diamond boutique hotel in Paso Robles. In 2009 he joined Ledgestone Hospitality, where he is currently Vice President and Partner, managing 30 hotels from Wisconsin to California.

education

• Ashley Miller, of Scotts Valley, was named to the Dean’s List for the Spring 2021 Semester at Emerson College in Boston.

• Mason Escalante, of Santa Cruz, was shortlisted for the Dean’s List for the Spring 2021 Semester at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.

• Matthew Olson of Scotts Valley was named to the Dean’s List for the Spring 2021 Semester at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.

• Spencer Loeb, of Los Gatos, was named to the Dean’s List for Spring 2021 at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.

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