Design Santa Barbara
On Design Santa Barbara we welcome special guest Angel Martinez. It is not often that we talk about someone ,who has a vision of designing an entire city. This week Michael Kourosh interviews Mayoral Candidate Angel Martinez.
Mayoral Candidate Angel Martinez
You might be asking yourself, Who Is Angel Martinez? A native of Cuba, Martinez immigrated to the United States in 1958. He left Cuba just before the revolution. As a three year old he was adopted by a relative and was living in Bronx, New York away from his close family due to political situation. Angel Martinez took advantage of all the great opportunities that America had to offer and eventually moved to the Bay Area. He is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, where he was an All-American in cross-country and track. Martinez has been an avid long-distance runner and cyclist since he was 14 years old. A lover of jazz and blues, Angel enjoys playing guitar and jamming with his friends. He has been a successful business man and has builds many companies from scratch. Angel Martinez is an innovative business leader with 40 years of experience building successful businesses including Reebok, Deckers Brands, Keen Footwear and The Rockport Company.
Inspiration
What inspired Martinez to run for Mayor of Santa Barbara you ask? Well, Many Reasons come to mind but Martinez feels that the city is currently moving in the wrong direction. He Believes that there is not much vision nor leadership in a beautiful town like Santa Barbara. The empty storefronts and aggressive pan handling on the State street for example are the tip of an ice-berg as Martinez quotes. If you live in our amazing town. You might notice that state street is not how it was before. Historic State Street Plaza in Downtown Santa Barbara was one of America’s most pedestrian-friendly downtowns. At large due to the amazing diversity of shopping choices that once was. Unfortunately, many of the stores on state street and surrounding areas are now closed. Some stores were even run off and were not able to do business, because of business unfriendly rules and regulation of the City of Santa Barbara. Martinez vision is to make Santa Barbara better with great leadership and management.
His Idea
Martinez has many plans! how he might plan to use the skills he has for running a company like Deckers, when running a city? Martinez feels that it is about collaboration and coming up with the best ideas to make a business great, or in this case a city great. It all has to start with a clear vision and how the people of the city see it. When someone loves their city then they come together to make it greater. As we all know! Santa Barbara Residence care deeply for this community. We only want what is best to help it succeed. A challenge that we might run into in our city of Santa Barbara is diversifying our economy. Angel Martinez has many thoughts on how to improve our city’s economy and diversity. One of the opportunities is Santa Barbara being an invention hub for environmental stewardship and partnership with University of California Santa Barbara is one idea that Angel Martinez has in mind. Learn more about Angel Martinez and his vision for Santa Barbara through www.angelmartinez.com
Angel Martinez on Design Santa Barbara with Michael Kourosh
