50 People to Watch in 2007

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Rosina Reynolds
One of the city's most prolificand laudedactor/directors, Reynolds has played a starring role in elevating the quality of local theater. Born in London, she came to San Diego in 1978, prompted by a San Diego Magazine article about the Old Globe Theatre. This month, she directs Happy Endings Are Extra for Diversionary Theatre; in the spring, shell sport a bald head for her part in Wit at North Coast Repertory Theatre. There are new companies forming all the time in San Diego, says Reynolds. I like that constant sense of renewal.

Fred Sainz
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders is a busy man. So when the mayor is busy attending to city business, his words are deftly carried by the voice of Sainz. The mayors primary spokesperson is a governmental veteran. He came to San Diego working for the Republican Party, serving as a primary planner for the 2006 GOP National Convention. After the party, he stuck around as a member of Mayor Susan Goldings team. Before finding his way back to a new mayoral administration, Sainz worked for the San Diego Convention Center and the Waitt Family Foundation.

Holly Steele
The self-dubbed Lyric Lady beat out 30,000 entrants to win the VH1 Song of the Year contest in 2005. Shes won a host of other awards for her songsmostly pop/rock and countryand was a finalist in last summers San Diego Songwriters Guild competition, where she met cofinalist and local singer Candice Graham. The duo is currently collaborating with industry guru Tim Turner (Blondie, Pat Benatar, Moody Blues) on an album to be released this spring.

Kathleen Ann Sellick
The same year it got a new namethanks to a generous benefactorwhat is now the Rady Childrens Hospital & Health Center appointed a new CEO and president. Sellick has a pair of formidable shoes to fillthose of retiring Blair Sadlerbut observers say shes more than up to the job. The previous executive director of the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle says she already has big plans for 2007: completion of major remodels, groundbreaking for an acute-care pavilion and strengthening our acclaimed pediatric programs.

Aloha Taylor
Aloha, Aloha. A native Hawaiianand Miss Hawaii 1996, Taylor started her stateside stint on television in 2001. From 2001 to 2004 she was the morning and noon meteorologist for KFMB (Channel 8). We said aloha to Aloha after she met and married a surgeon, who took her to Minneapolis. Now Taylor and husband, Gregory Campbell, are backas a threesome, with daughter, Taylor Alohalani Campbell and the 1996 Miss Congeniality is the weekday evening (10 p.m.) weathercaster for Fox6 News.

Aleksandra Vasic
The 14-year-old from Chula Vista recently became the youngest model to strut down the catwalk at London Fashion Week. After discovering Vasic through a local modeling school, fashion designer Zandra Rhodes flew the high school freshman to London for a starring role in her show. The designer says Vasic, who started modeling at age 10, is poised to follow in the footsteps of supermodels like Kate Moss.

Angelo Turner
Others might talk about getting out the vote, but hes taken matters into his own hands. This 31-year-old dynamo has launched a national on-line campaign to register young people to vote and learn more about their elected officials and the voting process. His nonprofit's Web site (usayfoundation.org) also has a voting-rights timeline that highlights milestones in the Civil Rights movement. Turner, who has received letters of support from President Bush and other leaders, calls his efforts a timely movement to get more people involved in their government . . . and reduce apathy and cynicism.

J.P. Theberge
The Carlsbad resident captured silver for the United States at the 2006 Triathlon World Championships (challenged athlete division) in Switzerland, finishing just shy of the win. I was within two minutes of taking gold, he says, which I lost in the two transitions while switching my feet with an Allen wrench. Theberge, 34, lost his leg below the knee in a motorcycling accident eight years ago. Hes since completed four marathons, 10 halfmarathons and 12 triathlons. A spokesperson for the San Diegobased Challenged Athletes Foundation, hell again go for gold at this years championships in Germany.

Danny Way
How can we not watch the 32-yearold pro skateboarders seeing-is-believing stunts? He's set records for flying the highest and farthest on a skateboard and became the first (and only skateboarder so far) to drop from a helicopter onto a skate ramp - a move dubbed the drop bomb. In 2005, Way jumped the Great Wall in China on his board; a month later he won his second Big Air gold medal at the X Games. Continually voted best skateboarder by fans and critics, Way isn't slowed by numerous surgeries, the fallout from his aggressive bent on boarding.

Randolph Ward
Photos of Ward taking over as superintendent of San Diego County schools show the Harvard-educated administrator smiling broadly. His last assignments have been tough fix-it jobs in Compton and Oakland. Locals hope his connections with foundations will lead to the one thing the 42 districts served by the county office of education can use most: money. And Ward says his key goal is to work with superintendents, school boards, teachers, parents, students and the business community to close the achievement gap and accelerate learning for students of all abilities.

Shaun White
You say toe-may-toe, we say the Flying Red Tomato is one to watch in 2007. The 19-year-old, red-mopped, frecklefaced snowboarding prodigy became a household name during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, where he brought home gold. He won all five competitions of the 2006 U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix series and dominated last years Winter X Games. Also a pro skateboarder, the mega-sponsored Carlsbad teen was the first athlete to compete in both the winter and summer versions of the X Games.

Jeffrey Wiemann
If anyone deserves credit for getting the local chapter of the Red Cross back on track, insiders say, it's Wiemann, appointed CEO last March after three years as part of the chapter's turnaround team. The rebuilding effort took vision, leadership and guts, and Wiemann, as chief operating and financial officer, drew high marks for a series of legal, financial and operational strategies that returned the chapter to solid footing. He says his primary objective is to embed a culture of preparedness . . . because the only thing harder than preparing for a disaster is explaining why you didn't.

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