After more than a year at the helm of San Juan Bautista’s
business sector, Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Halina
Kleinsmith is stepping down next month to focus on her own business
in the Mission City.
San Juan Bautista – After more than a year at the helm of San Juan Bautista’s business sector, Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Halina Kleinsmith is stepping down next month to focus on her own business in the Mission City.
Kleinsmith, who has been a San Juan resident for more than 10 years and the owner of Fools Gold Antiques for about eight, accepted the daunting task of spearheading the tourist town’s chamber in June of last year. She was the third executive director of San Juan’s chamber in two years.
But after losing her business partner, she will leave the post next month to focus more intently on Fools Gold, according to Chamber President John Hopper.
Kleinsmith was unavailable for comment, but Hopper said that during her tenure she was able to improve relationships with merchants and strengthen tourist-based programs within the chamber. And she did it, he said, all with creativity and a positive attitude.
“The reality is local government really isn’t in a position to promote tourism, so the San Juan Chamber of Commerce really is the only group promoting local tourism to the town,” he said. “She’s been very upbeat, very hard-working, and she’s a tremendous loss to the chamber.”
Mayor Arturo Medina also expressed disappointment in Kleinsmith’s departure and said she was instrumental in bringing higher-quality vendors to the multitude of street fairs that descend on city streets throughout the year.
“She’s wonderful to work with and I’m sorry to see she’s stepping down,” he said.
When she took over as the chamber’s director, Kleinsmith said her goals were to improve San Juan’s tourist economy. Hopper believes she accomplished that goal by aggressively advertising San Juan’s assets in periodicals published all over the world and keeping the city’s calendar of events up to date.
Kleinsmith’s last day is Oct. 15, and Hopper hopes to have her replacement in before then so Kleinsmith can help train the new director. Several applications for a new director have already landed on Hopper’s desk, however it hasn’t been narrowed down to the perfect person who combines the right amount of public relation knowledge and tourism advocacy, he said.
“It’s a tremendous amount of work,” he said. “It takes someone who has a lot of patience.”
