FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:    Donald D. Stilwell, County Administration
                (941) 335-2221
               

FORT MYERS, Fla. (November 2, 2000) – Lee County Manager Don Stilwell announced today that he has selected D.T. Minich as new Executive Director of the Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau.

Minich replaces Elaine McLaughlin, who retired in August after serving 11 years as the VCB’s director.

A nine-year county employee, Minich has been the Bureau’s deputy director since March 1997. He came to the VCB as a public relations intern in 1992 and soon became tourism sales manager. Two years later, Minich was promoted to senior tourism sales manager, then to director of sales in 1996. He received his bachelor of arts degree in history and marketing from the University of Kentucky in 1986.

As director, Minich oversees an 18-member staff and an annual operating budget of more than $7 million. The mission of the Visitor and Convention Bureau is to increase tourism in the off season (Post Easter to February 1) and to increase awareness about Lee County as a vacation destination. The VCB is funded through a 3 percent bed tax on room nights less than six months in length. Nearly 1.9 million tourists visit Lee County each year. The VCB is advised by the nine-member Tourist Development Council, which is appointed by the Board of County Commissioners and oversees the entire tourism and development fund, provides direction on programs and budget, and reviews quarterly VCB expenditures.

An eight-member panel of county employees and tourism industry representatives interviewed the five finalists for the position today and recommended two (Minich and Jack Wert, Seminole County’s Director of Tourism) for final interviews with County Manager Don Stilwell, Deputy County Manager Bill Hammond and Assistant County Manager Bruce Loucks.

Minich’s duties and achievements at the VCB have included collaborating with the Lee County Port

Authority to expand passenger air service, and leveraging the VCB’s advertising budget to create partnership cooperatives.

He graduated from the International Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus’ (IACVB) executive program in destination management and received his Certified Destination Management Executive (CDME) designation in 1998. The program is recognized by the tourism industry as its highest educational achievement, with course work covering vision, leadership, and business strategy implementation in preparation for increasing change and competition.