The outgoing executive director's last day is June 30.
In the spring of 2020, thousands of Los Gatos residents woke up to signs stuck on front lawns, pasted to lampposts and hung in front of businesses that read “We’ve got this LG!”
Those signs, which outgoing executive director Catherine Somers said is one of her favorite accomplishments during her time at the Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce, can still be found in windows and front yards around town three years later.
“We did do a full on midnight run; we went and put them up everywhere,” Somers said. “There was no way you could have woken up anywhere in Los Gatos and not been like, ‘What’s this?’ It was a total dream come true that we actually made that happen.”
After an eight-year run, Somers said it’s bittersweet to be stepping down from her position with the Chamber.
Somers announced her departure earlier this year, along with Chamber staff members Randi Chen and Donna McCurrie.
“There is a little bit of speculation I think of, ‘Oh my gosh, all three of them are walking out together; what’s happening?’ and there’s nothing behind that story at all, except for the fact that we’re just kind of a team and we had so much fun together, you can’t really imagine it without each other. So it’s time to go,” Somers said.
The group guided Los Gatos through the pandemic, lobbying for a sizeable chunk of the American Rescue Plan Act funding to put in semi-permanent outdoor parklets, host the highly popular summer Promenades and invest in destination marketing.
That work helped keep the local economy afloat and bring in tourists and visitors to town. Post-pandemic, the Chamber can get back to basics and focus on membership development and destination marketing.
“To carry a Chamber of Commerce, and in some ways a town, through a worldwide pandemic was exhausting. … We not only survived and were here for all of our members and all the town’s residents, but we kind of thrived,” Somers said. “But at the same time, what happened with that is that as a Chamber, we became everything to everybody. … The needs of our community revealed themselves, and so we started filling in the gaps.”
The Chamber took an active role in the town’s United Against Hate event programming and the Listen, Learn, Change, Grow campaign in 2020.
The Chamber advocated for making the pandemic-era outdoor parklet structures a permanent fixture in town. The town council voted in 2021 to allocate $680,000 of its ARPA funds to create a grant program for restaurants in town to build the structures at little or no cost to them.
The town streamlined the process so businesses could apply and build their parklets quickly to accommodate outdoor dining through the turbulent pandemic restrictions.
Somers and her team created the Summer Promenade event series, which closed North Santa Cruz Avenue for a music-centered street festival. The event ran from 2021 to 2022, and while the Chamber is not hosting them this summer, the promenades could one day make a comeback, Somers said.
Somers had a habit of bringing people with common goals together to help each other and get their work done. During her leadership, Somers convened service providers like West Valley Community Services and ANOTHER ONE in quarterly meetings to share ideas and resources.
Los Gatos has had a record number of ribbon cuttings in the past few months, McCurie said. Businesses like Salt & Straw and Restore Hyper Wellness have opened shops in town, and she said more are coming through the rest of the summer.
While it feels like the end of an era, Somers is looking forward to passing the baton to a new slate of leaders. The Chamber board is wrapping up interviews for Somers’ replacement, and they are feeling good about what’s to come, she said.
“It’s just hard to leave something that you love so much, or that you really have put your heart and soul into,” Somers said.
Somers said that she’s looking forward to seeing what comes next, whether it’s buying a guest ranch in Wyoming, becoming a podcast star or something unexpected.
“Because so much of my life has happened serendipitously, I’m sort of waiting for that next sign of what I am really supposed to do next,” Somers said. “I am a believer that something will present itself and that’s what I will end up doing.”
