From this Thursday one familiar smiling face on the CITA Board of Directors will be missing.
Rod McDowall is Operations Manager of the highly successful dive and watersports company Red Sail Sports. |
This is the first year since the inception of the CITA in 2001 that watersports representative Rod McDowall will not be running for a place on the board.
And although a permanent fixture for the past seven years, the 55-year-old sees the change as a good thing. ‘I think it’s good to have fresh blood in the association,’ he states. ‘Any association and board can get to a point whereby it becomes stale if you don’t allow other people in to express their opinions and their thoughts and their plans, so I’m more than happy to have other people step in. I think fresh blood’s always good.’
The initial President of the Association when it was formed, then when Mark Bastis took over Mr. McDowall remained on the Board as the Immediate Past President. When Mr. Bastis left the island and Karie Bergstrom took over as President, Mr. McDowall had to stay on as Immediate Past President. Now, as Ms Bergstrom relinquishes her position as President and takes over as Immediate Past President, Mr. McDowall can finally step down.
But that doesn’t mean he’ll necessarily be any less busy. ‘I’ve got a feeling that I’m not going to be allowed to disappear from sight. Even if you don’t sit on the board, the thing with the association is that it requires membership to be active. If you want to get some value from it you’ve really got to be into it and there’s so many different sub-committees and so many different projects that you can get onto and you don’t have to be a board member as such.’
Working in the watersports industry in the Cayman Islands for 27 years now, prior to the CITA Mr. McDowall was involved with the old Cayman Islands Watersports Operators Association at board level for about 15 years and had been the President just prior to the setting up of the CITA.
Back then there were separate associations running independently for the various sectors such as watersports, restaurants and hotels and condos.
‘At that point in time a lot of people within the industry got together and decided that it would be a much better use of our resources, both human resources and physical resources, to work together, because at the end of it we’re all in the same business and relied on the same results from people coming to visit so that’s when the CITA was formed,’ he explained.
In fact, he was one of the people to spearhead the amalgamation.
Under the CITA each sector is represented individually by different committees with one board to keep everyone on track and working toward the same goals for all of the membership.
It was back in 1981 when a young 28 year old Rod McDowall took a year off from his job as a school teacher in Australia to visit the Cayman Islands, with the intent on going back to teaching. ‘But as soon as I arrived over here that was the end of it pretty much.’
A part-time scuba diving instructor back in Australia, he put his skills to good use here.
‘Cayman was just immediately such a wonderful destination. To be able to go and to dive in one of the better diving locations in the world and to get involved in the business aspect of it aswell was like having your cake and eating it. It’s great when you can have a job when it’s something you enjoy doing so much.’
He met his wife Penny here and the pair weaved a successful life for themselves and their two children. Penny McDowall teaches at the Lighthouse school and has been involved in the Special Olympics for years. Son Jamie, nearly 21, is now in second year of the US Air force Academy and daughter Jessica is 18 this year, just finishing her first year of A levels.
Mr. McDowall himself is Operations Manager of Red Sail Sports in the Cayman Islands, Red Sail being a highly successful dive and watersports operation, with locations also in Hawaii, Aruba and St. Kitt’s. The Cayman Islands became the first of the Red Sail operations back in 1987.
‘It’s a great industry and there’s lots of opportunity in it,’ Mr. McDowall said of working in Cayman’s watersports industry.
Over the years, some of the biggest changes he’s seen in the tourism industry include the change from small dive hotels to the large corporate hotels of today.
The growth within Grand Cayman is another factor. ‘And that’s always been exciting. I think it keeps you interested. It keeps you moving, as long as you can be involved in change.’
While understanding both cruise and stayover tourism’s importance to Cayman, he said the one thing he feels has not been done as well as it could is managing the tourism visitor. ‘Particularly with the cruise, there’s a little too many of them. We need to have them and they are certainly important but sustainable management of the industry is very important.’
He would also like to see the Ministry and the Department of Tourism and the CITA working in more of a legitimate partnership, also.
‘Tourism is so important to the island that there really isn’t room for politics if we’re going to make our product to be as good as we say it is and want it to be then you’ve got to put aside a lot of issues that relate to politics and unfortunately that’s one of Cayman’s issues.
‘So much that gets done or doesn’t get done is because of politics rather than just the big picture. You need people to make some courageous decisions and move behind them and move with them.’
The CITA membership also needs to become more active, he asserts.
‘It always has to fall down on the shoulders of a few, and the more you can get involved, the better off you are. The more you’re involved the more you get out of it and I don’t think people realise the amount of time and energy and effort that the board and the executive staff in the office put towards looking after the interests of the membership in regards to Immigration and what not.
‘I’d love to see more people get involved and get some fresh ideas. People have got ideas out there but they don’t’ tend to stand up and volunteer as much as they could.’
And just because he’s not going to be on the board anymore, Mr. McDowall does not intend to take a back seat. ‘I tend to like to be involved. If I wasn’t involved I think it would be a dull existence so I certainly think I’ll be staying around as far as that goes.’
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