The Powers to Be

When there's a vacuum of established leadership, real or perceived, it leaves a critical shortage of role models for the next generation.

(page 3 of 3)

Arts

Tyler Hewes
People thought he was audacious when he interviewed for the executive director position at the San Diego Chamber Orchestra at 26. (After all, he still collects Batman action figures.) Now he’s 27, and the youngest to hold the position by about two decades. Before joining the orchestra, Hewes was production manager at Mainly Mozart, in charge of concerts and special events. Before that, he’d mostly been involved in the theater. And now he’s glad he decided to move to San Diego after college for his first job at North Coast Repertory Theatre—even though when he arrived, no one had bothered to tell him the job was no longer available.

Honorable mention:
Esther Emery It wasn’t so long ago Emery was in charge of props at the renowned Old Globe Theatre. She says she was “working her way up.” At 29, she’s not the prop girl anymore. With the debut of Sight Unseen in September, she’s one of the youngest ever to direct there. “It’s unusual for the Globe to hire local directors or someone of my age and experience,” Emery says. “Just getting this gig was an accomplishment. They have their pick of people who work on Broadway. I feel really good about it.” Her next directing gig: Labyrinth of Desire, a joint production of Moxie and Ion theaters.

Politics

Carl DeMaio
He doesn’t take office until December, but this 33-year-old San Diego City Council member-elect is already holding press conferences and taking controversial positions, all in the name of cleaning up the good ol’ boys network. He’s so worried about succumbing to pressures of the office that he refuses to work out of City Hall. Instead, the office will be located in his Scripps Ranch district. “My biggest fear going down there is getting sucked in by the culture,” he says. By age 30, DeMaio had founded two successful think tanks aimed at reforming government and corporate accountability. His status as a watchdog and his crusader personality have made him a political force to be reckoned with. He won his seat outright in June with 67 percent of the vote, after personally visiting 15,873 homes between July 2007 and June 2008. He said he heard the same five requests over and over: Balance the budget, reform the pension, fix the roads, add cops and firefighters. And don’t get indicted.

Honorable mention:
Geoff Patnoe
Politics was a passion for Patnoe as early as high school, when he spent a year on Capitol Hill as a congressional page. After college, he realized a childhood dream by running for city council in his hometown of Cupertino, but the bid was unsuccessful. That’s when he realized he’d rather work behind the scenes. Now, at 36, he’s taken the reins of Public Policy Strategies, the lobbying side of political giant Tom Shepard’s business. Shepard will continue to run his campaign consulting firm. Until June, Patnoe was chief of staff to County Supervisor Dianne Jacob.

Lani Lutar
She’s held a number of powerful positions, all before the age of 31. Lutar recently returned to her post as president of the influential San Diego County Taxpayers Association after just six weeks as vice president of public policy at the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. She says that in the context of the threatened global financial meltdown, she will make a greater impact at the taxpayer group. She previously was executive director of the Asian Business Association of San Diego, where she increased membership by nearly 40 percent.

Development

Alex Plishner
Maybe he was driven by the competition with his identical twin, an executive at Sony Pictures. Whatever the reason, the senior development manager at Shea Homes is in a hurry for success. At 32, Plishner is the youngest board member at the Building Industry Association and a cofounder of its young leaders group, Y-Gen. He’s the guy in charge of land acquisitions for those big developments. He’s an overachiever with a double master’s degree in architecture and in business administration. And he graduated with honors. His modest goal? “To take over the whole world.”

Honorable mention:
Russell Murfey
He’s a 28-year-old CPA who traded a career at the giant accounting firm Ernst & Young to be finance manager for a small San Diego real estate firm, CityMark Development. The company, probably best known for projects in the East Village and Little Italy areas of downtown, specializes in combining residential and commercial units in urban areas. CityMark’s latest project: a mixed-use development in Ocean side that will span five blocks near the pier. Murfey is the other founder of the Building Industry Association’s young leaders group.

Jacob Schwartz
At Urban Housing Partners, the unofficial motto is “If you need a car to get there, we aren’t interested.” It’s all about walkable communities and high-density urban development near transit, says Schwartz, a 34-year-old project manager. He was a key player in the Smart Corner project, a 301-unit, mixed-use development in the East Village that’s bisected diagonally by the San Diego Trolley—or as Schwartz calls it, the red limousine in the lobby. He’s an informal mentor to college students and a guest lecturer at his alma mater, the University of San Diego.

Biotech

Farnaz Khadem
When she moved here as a child from Iran, Khadem spoke only Farsi. Since then, she’s mastered English and several other languages and held a variety of jobs around the world. She returned to San Diego in 2006 as director of corporate communications for Invitrogen, a North County biotech research tool-maker that’s in the midst of a $6.7 billion merger with Applied Biosystems to make it the biggest lab-supply company in the world. Khadem, 39, was a key leader in the recent launch of the Invitrogen Foundation, which will fund programs to encourage children to embrace science.

Honorable mention:
Brian Meshkin
At 13, Meshkin led the effort to pass the first bicycle-helmet law for children after his friend was hit by a car and killed in front of his house. The tragedy sparked a lifelong interest in healthcare. Now 32, Mesh kin is a founder of Salugen, a San Diego–based company that specializes in the development of DNA tests to determine genetic links to health problems such as obesity or alcoholism, and then offers customized nutritional products to balance brain chemistry and fix the problem.

Education

Lihini I. Aluwihare
At 29, she was the youngest professor ever hired at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. As professor of marine chemistry, Aluwihare spends weeks at sea studying ecosystems and the impacts of climate change and carbon-dioxide emissions on the ocean. She distinguished herself right away with her research and by developing a new course about California’s coastal ecosystems to “place it in the context of our own backyard.” While her research is unique and significant, she believes her biggest impact is with college students and underprivileged high school girls she invites to work in her lab during summers. Some of her interns have since graduated from college and are pursuing science careers. “That’s certainly the most rewarding aspect of my job,” says the 36-year-old Sri Lanka native.

Honorable mention:
Shawn Flanigan
The 32-year-old Tennessee native has been an assistant professor at San Diego State University for only a year, but she’s already presented research at the White House and has received grants—including one from the Department of Homeland Security—to further her groundbreaking investigation of nonprofit organizations and terrorism. She’s visited troubled regions of Bosnia, Lebanon and Sri Lanka to interview members of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Tamil Tigers and other terrorist groups. She explores the ways terrorist organizations recruit members and how they raise funds by providing charity to the poor through their nonprofit work.

Bob Benson
He’s one of the founders, and also the director, of UCSD’s service and civic leadership department, launched in April. As part of his responsibilities, he also manages the Center for Global Volunteer Service, which provides resources and even short Peace Corps–style trips for those interested in international volunteerism. Benson, 37, knows the ropes; he served in Bolivia as a Peace Corps volunteer. He’s also involved in developing courses, along with the San Diego Foundation, that teach aspiring politicians about campaign strategies, ethics and leadership.

Do you like what you read? Subscribe to San Diego Magazine »