HTA’s third-highest ranked leader resigns

The Hawaii Tourism Authority, the state agency responsible for Hawaii’s tourism marketing, announced another high-­ranking personnel departure.

Leslie Dance, HTA’s vice president of marketing and product development, has resigned from her position effective May 15. The agency hired Dance on Jan. 5, 2016, to fill the void left by the departure of David Uchiyama, HTA’s former vice president of brand management.

Dance said she plans to return to the mainland to be closer to her family and will assist in formulating a transition plan before her departure.

“I am proud to have been a part of what HTA has been able to accomplish with its branding and marketing of the Hawaiian Islands and seeing the industry flourish,” she said in a statement.

Dance, 62, who was making $180,000 in HTA’s third-highest leadership slot, is the second member of HTA President and CEO George Szigeti’s executive dream team to leave the organization over the past few months without providing a new job as the reason.

Szigeti’s right-hand man, former Chief Operating Officer Randy Baldemor, 44, resigned March 2 from the position that Szigeti had created for him. Baldemor was making $202,140 as the agency’s second-­highest-ranking executive and started at HTA on June 9, 2015.

Their resignations come as the agency enters into what could be its seventh consecutive year of record arrivals and tourism spending. They followed the February release of a negative audit from the Office of the State Auditor, which said that the agency exhibited “lax oversight (and) deficient internal controls.”

The resignations also have occurred at a time when the agency’s $108.5 million budget is facing serious cuts. The Senate’s version of House Bill 2010 is slated to go to conference at 3 p.m. today. The bill proposes to cap HTA’s tourism funding at $60.3 million and its Hawai’i Convention Center funding at $6 million. It also would limit HTA’s marketing budget to $49.2 million, down from the $60 million that the agency currently spends for that purpose.

“If HB2010 is passed into law, HTA will be forced to lay off several employees. However, until that happens, we do not want to speculate as to which employees and how many positions would be affected,” Szigeti said.

Despite budgetary uncertainty, Szigeti said HTA is moving to fill the positions left vacant by Baldemor and Dance. Szigeti said HTA already has identified “a candidate with excellent credentials” to fill Baldemor’s former job, although it has not yet tendered an offer. HTA will look to fill Dance’s job swiftly, he said.

HTA has undergone major personnel transitions since Szigeti became the agency’s top leader on May 28, 2015. Uchiyama, the manager that Dance replaced, was one of the casualties of Szigeti’s first restructuring along with Brian Lynx, the agency’s former vice president of meetings, conventions and incentives, and Angela Rodriguez, the former director of communications and brand management, and two administrative workers.

Other high-profile departures from Szigeti’s team in recent years were former Director of Tourism Research Daniel Nahoopii, former Cultural Director Keli‘i Wilson, former Brand/Sports Manager Michael Story, and former Brand Manager Miki Wakai.

The various personnel changes have left the agency with 20 full-time employees and 10 contract workers and a personnel budget of $4.4 million. In May 2015 HTA’s personnel budget was $4 million and it employed 26 full-time employees and two contract workers.