Bret Schanzenbach, President and CEO of the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce and his staff presented the online version of the 2021 Carlsbad State of the Community with several governmental and business presenters speaking about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the businesses and other agencies and the response the city and the business community made to the address the pandemic. The presentation began with the singing of the National Anthem by Samantha Robertson, a Senior at Carlsbad High School. Bret thanked the sponsors for this event, Tri-City Medical Center, Grand Pacific Resorts, Wells Fargo, Seas Production, ViaSat and Scripps along with numerous other businesses.
Steve Dietlin, CEO of Tri-City Medical Center, introduced Carlsbad Mayor Matt Hall. Mayor Hall has been Carlsbad’s Mayor since 2010. Mayor Hall spoke about the resiliency and collaboration between the mayors on the 78 corridor and all the people in the governmental agencies and the businesses in the city. He was proud to announce that Carlsbad still has the lowest COVID-19 test rate in the region and one of the lowest unemployment rates of 5.6%. His presentation listed business after business and their willingness to help and assist wherever needed during the pandemic. He pointed out the success of the Carlsbad Magazine, entering its 18th year of production, in promoting everything Carlsbad. Mayor Hall also wanted to give special recognition to Jimmy Ukegawa, owner of the Strawberry Fields, who will soon be recognized as Carlsbad’s Citizen of the Year. A short video showing a number of different scenes around Carlsbad was shown at the end of his presentation.
David Harrison, Assistant Director of Emergency Services presented the Ready Carlsbad Award to Christine Davis, Executive Director of the Carlsbad Village Association, for her work in revitalizing the Carlsbad State Street Farmer’s Market. Following this was the presentation of three of Carlsbad’s major business enterprises. Tim Stripe, Co-President and Co-owner of Grand Pacific Resorts introduced Ric Baldridge, President of ViaSat, the largest tech employer in Carlsbad; Chafic Roubana, Financial Advisor for Wells Fargo introduced Steve Hendren, Vice President and General Manager of TaylorMade; and Catherine Magana, Managing Director of WWM Financial introduced Win Cramer, CEO of JLab Audio. Each of the businesspeople spoke about the effect of the COVID pandemic on their business, how they adjusted and grew during 2020 into 2021 and what the future holds for their companies.
View the attached State of the Community in full to see each of the presenters and all of the presentations made during the State of the Community 2021.
