A Monroe County tourism director selection committee chose Joseph Boschulte, Laura Chmielewski, Kara Franker and Nerissa Serrano-Okiye as the top four candidates and will bring them to Marathon on Friday, July 26, for in-person interviews.
The committee is also planning to hold a social event the evening of Thursday, July 25.
The committee members asked the candidates questions about creating marketing campaigns based on sustainable tourism, plans for advertising and messaging following hurricanes and other emergencies and balancing tourism with the needs and wants of the residents and concerns for the Keys fragile ecosystem.
Given the last TDC director being fired after several scathing audits and tourism being a hot-button issue, the committee members were also asked questions about building trust with the local community and having tight controls over contracts and the spending of money.
Boschulte has been the commissioner for U.S. Virgin Island Department of Tourism since 2019 and was the president and chief executive officer of Halcyon Partners LLC in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, from 2017 to 2018 and president and chief executive officer of the West Indian Company, Ltd. in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, from 2012 to 2017.
Given his CEO experience and running a government tourism agency in the Caribbean with a large budget and geographic area, Boschulte appeared to have the most support for the position among the committee members. He also appeared to have the most experience in messaging following hurricanes.
The Keys had a strong brand, but Boschulte believed the goal is to “add value to a strong product,” and “letting the public know of the value of tourism while balancing the needs of the residents,” he said.
Boschulte also talked about “investing in the people” and visitors wanting the “local experience.”
“I have always been fascinated with Key West,” Boschulte said. “I like its hometown feel.”
Chmielewski has been with Team San Jose/Visit San Jose in California since 2015, currently serving as the vice president of marketing and communications. She was also director of marketing and communications for the Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau in Fort Myers from 2011 to 2015 and the deputy director of the Chicago Office of Tourism from 2000 to 2010.
Chmielewski is no stranger to the Keys and Key West, as she was part of crews that shot music videos in the Keys and worked with Charlie Bauer and other organizers of the Key West Songwriters Festival while she was working in the country music industry in Nashville, she said. She also came to the Keys with her parents when she was a youth, she said.
“You don’t get many chances like this,” she said of the opportunity to be the head of the TDC in the Keys.
If selected, she planned to do a traveling “road show” throughout the Keys to get input from local stakeholders in a “town hall forum,” she said.
Franker has been the chief executive officer with Visit Estes Park in Estes Park, Colorado, since 2021. She was the senior vice president of marketing and communication of Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau in 2019 to 2021, the founder of the communications company Kara Franker Inc. from 2012 to 2019 and a prosecutor at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office from 2011 to 2012.
Franker told the committee that one of the first marketing videos she worked on was Little Palm Island. She spoke about what an “incredible product” the Keys are and “each island has a different vibe,” she said. She also talked about the “authenticity and layers” to the Keys.
“I am looking for a sense of community,” and a place where “my family and I feel at home,” Franker said.
Serrano-Okiye has been the director of tourism for the Martin County Office of Tourism and Marketing since 2014. She previously worked as the director of research, director of special projects and operations manager for the Georgia Department of Economic Development in Atlanta from 2002 to 2014.
Serrano-Okiye is “looking for my forever home,” she said of the Keys and going back to the islands, as she is from the U.S. Virgin Islands. She applauded the current TDC for coming up with the logo “come as you are,” calling the phrase welcoming. She said the Keys’ “greatest strength is the natural reef, and the environment.” She also said protecting the natural resources is the Keys’ greatest challenge.
“You are tied to the environment,” Serrano-Okiye said. “Anything negative can impact your tourism.”
The TDC is one of the most important and well-funded county operations, with a roughly $60 million annual budget. The funds come from taxes on hotels and other transient rental businesses. For years, there has been debate in the Keys about how much the TDC spends on advertising.
The TDC board terminated the contract for the previous director of the TDC, Stacey Mitchell, on March 26 after the Clerk of Court’s Office issued three audits critical of her and the TDC operations. Mitchell, who was on paid leave for several months prior to being fired, was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the TDC, the county’s marketing arm. She operated the TDC through a company called Visit Florida Keys. The TDC has been under fire since November 2023 for lack of administrative and financial procedures.
In June, Mitchell’s attorney sent a letter to the office of the Monroe County administrator stating she was filing a whistleblower and wrongful termination complaint and claiming she was fired because the TDC did not support a drone show last year that was proposed by Monroe County Commissioner Craig Cates. A TDC board chose not to grant $150,000 in funding to the show because it did not meet certain TDC requirements for funding, but the Monroe County Commission agreed to fund the show after Cates put the funding request on a commission agenda.
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