Hi Friends!
One of my all-time favorite stories involves a personal hero of mine and a great friend Renzo (pronounced Henzo) Gracie as told to me by his brother Ralph Gracie (pronounced Halph), who I have been a student of for 30 years now. We’re all Jiu Jitsu guys of course and our specialties involving grappling (get ahold of someone) but of course there are other martial arts such as Muay Thai. The Bay Area actually has a great tradition in both arts by the way and if you’ve ever seen an authentic Thai fighter from Thailand kick, you’d be safer if they swung a baseball bat at you than hit you with their shins. Proof being that one of the parlor tricks of a Thai fighter would to literally kick through a baseball bat. A much younger Renzo (back in his days in Brazil) declares that a “Black Belt in Jiu Jitsu is a Black Belt in Everything Else” and to the amazement of his friends manages to kick through a baseball bat on a dare. When Renzo made his point and impressed everyone, when no one was looking he limped out and was in pain for weeks afterwards. “Worth it” he’d tell you.
I kind of feel this is a pretty good analogy on my experience as your Interim CEO of the San Jose Downtown Association.
I stepped into this role because I honestly love San Jose, the San Jose Downtown and the San Jose Downtown Association. I feel like I did good things and elevated all three in my time here. Rather than summarize my tenure, I’d like to highlight three areas that I think the SJDA should be focusing their attention on in 2026:
Stitching Districts– Firstly, I want to give credit where credit is due, but I think the vision for this project (concentrating on improving a smaller area or passageway between destinations downtown) really started with Chris Frieise (back when we were both Presidents of the Board) and his efforts along the Santa Clara Street Corridor between City Hall and San Pedro. That not only had a significant impact on the Downtown, but also gave us a blueprint for Stitching Districts (giving credit to Gensler for coming up with the term). Since then Lou Jiminez has taken the reins of this project and really redefined the role of the street life manager, and now “Stitching Districts” is literally one of the hottest buzz words in San Jose and become one of, if not THE defining Projects of the SJDA. Sharks Way is coming along nicely and the 100 Sharks between San Pedro and the Arena starts painting on Monday and I think this is going to blow people’s minds!
The 3.0 or third year of Stitching is very much up for discussion. I personally think the Paseo de San Antonio in partnership with SJSU or the SoFA district would be the ideal next candidate but I’ll let you decide. I do think this project is going to be critical for the SJDA and the City however.
The City of San Jose, The County of Santa and the MVP list– Just before the Holidays we had our Advocacy Committee meeting (great job to Chris Shay and Anjee Helstrup-Alvarez on this). Present at the meeting as scheduled was Councilmember Anthony Tordillos and surprise special guest Supervisor Betty Duong at the new San Jose Visitor Center. When it came to the topic of safety and our unhoused population the always colorful but speaks his mind honestly David Mulvehill wanted to share something, and I literally gripped the table. But he shared that through the struggles and difficulties the downtown has seen, including incidents that were in his personal sphere, he has seen and feels a noticeable change for the better, to the point where people are envious of us here in San Jose. That almost choked me up when he said that and made my time here feel especially well spent.
There is still a lot of work to be done in this area however. I think the focus on our MVP (Most Vunerable People’s list) is extremely important from both a good for our Downtown perspective and all the great things we are trying to accomplish and a simple humanitarian perspective. A line we’ve been using is that it really isn’t the SJDA’s job to be providing homelessness services (and we are not service providers, we are connectors), but we saw a need and we’ve done our job very well.
I can also talk about the relationship that the City and the County have with each other, and there is no other way of putting it other than things were broken from an organizational standpoint and a personality standpoint and it’s been that way for year. Maybe it took a crisis to move things forward, but I also believe we get talented and good people working together for a common good, and I do believe in and support both Supervisor Betty Duong and Mayor Matt Mayhan, we can see progress, but only if all parties row in the same direction. If the SJDA has a role to play now from bridging this gap is to hold all parties accountable.
I also want to take this opportunity to single out the dedication of Chris Kendrix, who really, really cares. Chris once mentioned that the Clean and Safe Aspect of what the SJDA does is kind of the least glamourous role, but I’m happy to announce that a part Mayor’s Bloomberg initiative that Chris has been invited to Harvard to take part in the workshops over there and we’re very lucky to have such a great spokesperson to represent us.
Member Outreach, particularly Small Businesses- One of the real strengths of the SJDA is that we are an organization representing over 2000 property owners and business owners of all shapes and sizes. We need to continue to lean into that representation and make sure that we realize that in order to build a great downtown community we need all people in all their roles working together.
Two stories I’d like to share from my time here. First was a conversation I had with Gary Dillabough about synergies between our organizations and goals, where he put out the challenge that downtown needs 20 great spaces to help make it vibrant. I whole heartedly agreed with him but also pointed out that will need 20 great operators to own and manage those spaces.
Secondly, in the conversations we’ve had with Nvidia, and the City, and the City regarding NVidia for the upcoming GTC conference the experience with our service industries and restaurants. The mayor in particular (an admitted caffeine addict) mentioned his concern that it took him 50 minutes to get a coffee. NVIDIA is obviously a big deal and this conference will be the biggest thing that hits downtown and it’s clear that it’s going to be the seemingly very smallest details that are going to get noticed and make the difference in experience.
Those businesses and people who are often the most likely to slip through the cracks.
The businesses that we as the SJDA are representing in our membership.
We have a duty to meet people were they are at. It’s prove worth to our members, and it’s to prove worth to our Downtown.
I’ve had some opportunity to work with and get to know the new CEO Brian Kurtz and I’m happy to be passing the torch over to him. His resume and credentials are obvious and he survived a grueling process (on all sides) to land the position. But more importantly to me is that we have a shared set of values and he’s someone who I genuinely believe puts community and people first. Although this is my last day as the Interim CEO I am on contract through the end of the month and will be helping Brian as much as possible to make his run as successful as possible. I will also make myself available afterwards in much the same capacity that I have in the past dozen years with the organization.
As a past President/Chair I’ve also said I would make myself available to our new chair Adolfo Gomez, who also holds those vales or community and people tightly. I’ve been calling him the Godfather of Downtown San Jose, and the more you hang out with him the more you realize how true this is. I’d be delighted if I can make this nickname stick. I’m really excited to see what he will accomplish in his tenure as well.
Everyone that I got to work and interact with, my thanks.
I’d like to thank the boards for your patience and efforts to make downtown a better place for all.
I’d like to thank the staff of the SJDA for being rockstars. You made this job look easy.
Special thanks to the ones who came before me and set this up: Alex Stettinski, Scott Knies and Dan Pulcrano who brought me into this a dozen years ago.
I’ll be around of course and I’m to running my studios (easiest way to get ahold of me is show up at 6:30 AM and sign a waiver, you’ll get my undivided attention
I already have some new projects on the horizon, including be approached by Scott Coker (one of the greatest fight promoters in the world and proud native to San Jose) on a mission to make San Jose the Martial Arts Capital of the World (which in my mind it already is).
So it’s not really goodbye and I’m not really fading into the sunset, but some of you out there have organized a “Thanks” Party for me at Mezcal on Thursday, Jan 22. You can RSVP at https://tinyurl.com/gumbysthankyou
It’s been an honor and privilege to serve as your Interim CEO.
Onwards and Upwards
Gumby
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