Tourism North Bay's executive director, Stephen Hollingshead, has quit the post after being on the job for just over a year. Hollingshead's last day was Feb. 22.
A former tourism officer from Sault Ste. Marie, Hollingshead was touted for having 17 years of tourism and marketing knowledge as well as hands-on experience co-ordinating and managing special events and sports tournaments.
Hollingshead worked in sales and marketing for Northern Ontario’s Algoma Country and was manager of special projects and sports tourism for Tourism Sault Ste. Marie, an arm of the Sault Ste. Marie Economic Development Corp.
Hollingshead is the second tourism officer to quit in the past two years.
Trista Verbiwski was hired as the initial tourism officer in July, 2016. But Verbiwski lasted only three days before she resigned, citing personal reasons.
“Unfortunately, due to a personal issue, she wasn’t able to fill the duties of the role and decided to resign,” Jake Lacourse, then-president of the North Bay & District Chamber of Commerce, said at the time.
Hollingshead drew considerable attention by vigorously defending a decision to feature a picture of an ice hut on a lake near Cochrane on the cover of a North Bay tourism brochure.
The resignation comes as a surprise, as he addressed the Chamber of Commerce just last month, laying out for directors his plans for the coming summer campaign, giving no clue he was just weeks from retiring.
He told BayToday at the time how excited he was, and described the upcoming summer plans as "magic."
