With the announcement of Max Picton as their new chair, the board of the Tourism Penticton society is back up to full strength.
Diana Stirling, owner of Loco Landing, was announced as vice-chair at the beginning of March, following the resignations of the previous chair and vice-chair, Miranda Halladay and Sally Pierce in January. The chair position, however, has remained vacant until now.
“We were very specific with who we felt would be the best person to be chair of our board. We specifically went out and recruited Max and he was up for the job.” said Stirling, who cites energy, progressive leadership and tourism industry experience in the move to recruit Picton.
Picton’s first involvement in the tourism sector came as a youth, when his parents operated the South Beach Gardens Campground and Edgewater Motel. As the co-owner and president of Barefoot Beach Resort, Picton has garnered a high profile in the tourism sector, being named Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2012, and in 2013 was the first inductee into the Top 40 under 40 series honouring young entrepreneurs.
Picton said he isn’t underestimating the job he is taking on, at a critical time for the tourism industry in Penticton.
“I have juggled multiple projects before and I do understand the commitment it is going to require of me, but I am up for the challenge and I feel it is such a natural extension of what my business goals are, so that it goes hand-in-hand,” he said, adding that the goal is to define creative ways for Penticton to stand out.
“We are in a pretty fierce market here with several local communities that are all competing for the same market segment. I think there are quite a few aspects that make our town unique and we just really need to focus on highlighting them,” said Picton. “We want to educate the consumer market and leave a lasting positive impression of the city, that is really the goal here.”
Picton joins the board as chair immediately, filling the vacant Penticton Indian Band appointed seat on the 11 member board, which includes representatives from all the major tourism sectors and stakeholders, including the city of Penticton.
“We are happy to see Mr. Picton fill the Penticton Indian Band seat on Tourism Penticton’s Board of Directors,” said Chief John Kruger of the Penticton Indian Band. “We look forward to an even closer working relationship with Tourism Penticton.”
With the board now back at full strength, Tourism Penticton still needs to hire two new staff members to replace those who resigned in the last few weeks. First will be a new executive director to replace Jessie Campbell, who finishes at the end of this week. That position was posted last Friday, said Stirling, and they will be accepting applications for three weeks.
“Then we will shortlist and do an extensive interview process and we will select our new executive director,” said Stirling. “We could be looking at two to three months before we have that placement. But it was imperative for us that the first step was getting our board together and our chairperson in place.”
The job description includes factors like “exceptional relationship abilities and demonstrated accomplishments in sales, marketing and brand management as well as transparent stakeholder, public and government relations.” The full job description is available at: http://tourismpenticton.com/content/about-tourism-penticton-team.