Main story: After 17 years at the helm of Visit Gilroy, Jane Howard to retire

Executive director’s efforts have increased tourism in South Valley

---

By Kelly Barbazette

After 17 years of being at the helm of Visit Gilroy and the California Welcome Center Gilroy, Jane Howard is set to retire at the end of June, confident that Gilroy is poised to continue to grow as a year-round destination, attracting visitors from around the world.

Under her leadership as executive director of Visit Gilroy, Howard moved in 2011 the Gilroy Welcome Center from downtown to the Premium Outlets where its staff has welcomed thousands of visitors each month.

Howard helped establish the city-wide wayfinding sign program, established the Gilroy Tourism Business Improvement District to bolster marketing, and created partnerships integral to boosting tourism in Gilroy.

Howard’s efforts under her leadership have increased tourism to Gilroy, said Mark Turner, president/CEO of the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce.

“She’s grown to be an excellent leader not only in our community, but also in the destination marketing organization world. With her connections in that industry, she has grown to be quite the expert and as a result of all of that, her efforts have made Gilroy a destination location,” he said.

Howard, 69, accepted the position of interim executive director in late 2004. The role had languished for a number of months. The Visit Gilroy Board of Directors asked Howard to assess the viability of the 10-year-old organization.

“I really wanted to see what does Gilroy have, what are we doing, and what’s our future,” Howard remembered. “I looked at the inventory of assets and what we were missing.”

While Howard noted that the organization and town had plenty to work with, she noticed an absence of partnering with other tourism industry groups.

“What was missing is that the organization wasn’t collaborating. It was working in a silo,” she said.

After accepting the executive director position in January 2005, Howard quickly remedied that, joining forces with other groups, including the Central Coast Tourism Council. She also looked beyond the Garlic Festival and other seasonal events that attract visitors to Gilroy and focused on the town’s year-round offerings, including hiking trails, parks, wineries, golf courses, restaurants, and shopping,

“We can build ourselves as a destination. We saw that people can come for more than one day and enjoy multiple experiences,” Howard said.

Relocating the Welcome Center to the Premium Outlets in 2011 gave Visit Gilroy a way to interact with visitors. Howard takes pride in the fact that the center earned the designation of a California Welcome Center — granted to only 21 welcome centers in the state. The center welcomes 1,500 visitors monthly during a low cycle — and up to 4,000 visitors per month during the busy season. It has teamed up with local vendors, including Casa de Fruta, the Gilroy Garlic Festival, and the Gilroy Historical Society to sell Gilroy souvenirs to visitors. Howard noted it’s one of the few California Welcome Centers to be open continuously during the pandemic, with the exception of March through June 2020.

Visit Gilroy’s efforts to market the town as a year-round, multi-day destination gained further traction and a wider audience in 2012 when local hotels agreed to a 2 percent tax to fund a tourism business improvement district that funds Visit Gilroy’s marketing plan.

Howard says she’s also proud of the 120-plus directional signs guiding visitors to Gilroy’s various attractions. Visit Gilroy painstakingly laid out the signs beginning in 2009 over three different sections of town.

Vic Vanni, Visit Gilroy chairman of the board, has worked closely with Howard on tourism-focused projects for the past 25 years. He said Howard’s incredible passion for Gilroy paired with her vision and know-how in coordinating multiple aspects of tourism in Gilroy brought all of these components together.

“It’s all of those things added that up that she has done for this town that make people recognize that Gilroy is a place they can stay for multiple days to golf, to visit wineries, to go to the Premium Outlets . . . and gives tourists the big picture of all the fun things there are to do here in the South Valley,” Vanni said.

Howard’s networking and partnering with groups like the Central Coast Tourism Council have enabled Gilroy to become a known entity among other tourist locations, including Monterey and Santa Barbara, Vanni said.

Recently, Howard has helped come up with more ways to enhance Gilroy’s reputation as a recreation destination. In the past two years, Howard worked closely with Turner to co-found the Gilroy Economic Development Partnership. It’s made up of eight economic development partners in the community, including Gilroy Gardens, the Gilroy Garlic Festival, Gavilan College, and the Gilroy Downtown Association. It’s dedicated to supporting the long-term economic recovery and growth of the region. Howard said the partnership forged in 2020 was in response to the city’s void in economic development during the pandemic and when the city administrator retired and the former mayor didn’t seek re-election.

“We all came together and asked ourselves what initiatives could we bring to the city council to help drive our economic recovery,” Howard said.

As a result, talks with the San Jose Sharks to bring a public multi-use recreational facility to the Gilroy Sports Park have been re-initiated. Additionally, the group renewed the city’s focus on ways to develop empty parcels adjacent to Gilroy Gardens into a family-oriented attraction to bring more tourists to the park. Last year, the Gilroy City Council entered talks with Select Contracts, a company that develops recreational parks internationally, to develop a plan for a mountainside adventure park adjacent to the park.

The group also took up the idea of transforming Gourmet Alley — the vacant alley parallel to Monterey Street — into a culinary destination with restaurants and entertainment venues. Last year, the alleyway between Fourth and Fifth streets was spruced up, receiving a spray-painted brick walkway design, and hosted food and live music last June.

Looking to the future, Howard said there’s a focus on stewardship within the tourism industry.

“There’s a real focus on sustainability and longevity, not just using your assets until they’re all used up, but that if you’re on a hiking trail that it’s taken care of, that if you’re doing those types of things, the experience, that it will be there for the next generation,” she said.

Gilroy is also challenged with creating destination experiences for the next generation, Howard said.

“For me, it’s very important that the organization continues and accelerates,” she said.

In 2019, the Visit Gilroy board of directors adopted a succession plan for the executive director position. They have begun seeking candidates to fill the role.

Howard, who moved to Gilroy with her husband Al in 1980, is looking to move from her home on three acres east of the city and is considering what she wants to do next. Al passed away in May 2020.

“It really has been a joy, living here and to be able to promote it, it doesn’t get much better,” Howard said. “When I see visitors walking into the center, to be able to share our little slice of heaven, I’m very blessed.”