With tourist season around the corner, the Cortez Cultural Center is aiming to inject some life into its programming this year, with new executive director Jeff Weinmeister at the helm.
Weinmeister, former deputy director of the center, takes over the position from Donna Steward who resigned on March 13 after nearly a year of service. Theresa Hawkins has been named deputy director.
Steward contends that her resignation was unplanned and came after the Cultural Center’s Board of Directors unanimously stated they no longer supported her in the role.
“Donna was not pushed out. ...We have had high turnover, and I’ll be very honest about it. One of the difficulties that has occurred here, in my mind, is that people haven’t accepted the fact that we’ve got to change,” said Cortez Cultural Center board president Lee Bergman. “We really need to change a lot of things.”
So far this year, the interior of the Cultural Center and gift shop has been refreshed, and the center plans to update its display cases after a grant from the Heart & Soul Foundation.
But aside from aesthetic updates, the Cultural Center’s leadership says it times to refresh the programming and in turn, the cultural center’s position on the itinerary of travelers.
Weinmeister has lived in Cortez for roughly four years, working within the local nonprofit sector and a stint in the travel industry, but regularly visited the area during summer season for about 20 years with his family.
His dual-sided perspective – part-tourist, part-resident – gives him a unique foundation to start with reinventing the wheel at the 27-year-old cultural center.
“I’ve got a prior life in the tourism industry, so this is really a perfect fit when you look at the tourism aspect in terms of our summer programs that are really geared towards visitors to Cortez,” said Weinmeister. “Our goal is to help create Cortez more as a destination for visitors ... to jumpstart and increase visitor stays.”
While main draws such as the annual Pueblo to Pueblo Run, Birding Festival and Indian Dances, the center is working on starting more ecology-based tours, as well as a special “to-be-announced” program that Bergman says that are “consistent with the area’s heritage.”
Weinmeister and Bergman say one of the center’s main charges in the 2015 tourist season, is to make it more visible. It has a new logo and a new tagline: Home to the creative spirit, cultural heritage and natural wonders of the Four Corners.
“We’re going to do a much better job about getting into the community what we are and what we want to become,” Weinmeister said.