Pittman and Friends Podcast
Welcome to Pittman and Friends, the curiously probing, sometimes awkward, but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman - that’s me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear.
This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County Government, so don’t expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government - of, by, and for the people.
Pittman and Friends Podcast
Talking Tourism with Kristen Pironis
Tourism is evolving beyond simple transactions – it's now about creating transformational experiences that benefit both visitors and residents alike. In this enlightening conversation with County Executive Steuart Pittman, Kristen Pironis, CEO of Visit Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, reveals how she revitalized the organization during a challenging transition period to become a dynamic force for community development.
Pironis took a leap of faith when she left a comfortable 16-year career at the Naval Academy Alumni Association to lead a tourism organization during a pandemic. That confidence has transformed the organization, which now champions both visitor experiences and community wellbeing across Anne Arundel County.
The statistics speak volumes – Anne Arundel County represents 20% of Maryland's tourism while containing just 10% of the state's population. This remarkable impact stems from the county's extraordinary assets: 530 miles of coastline, the internationally recognized Chesapeake Bay, vibrant historic districts, and diverse attractions from BWI Airport to South County's agricultural treasures.
Exciting developments include federal funding for electric ferry service connecting Annapolis with Baltimore and across the bay, the transformation of City Dock from parking lot to vibrant public space, and the organization's new role leading international tourism marketing for the entire state of Maryland. Pironis has also established a 501(c)(3) foundation alongside their existing organization to address tourism's broader impacts on workforce housing, transportation, and sustainability.
What truly distinguishes Anne Arundel's approach is its commitment to authentic storytelling and inclusive history. From expanding the narrative at historic sites to creating award-winning civil rights guides, the organization ensures visitors connect with the full spectrum of the region's heritage. Programs like Anne Arundel River Days introduce local schoolchildren to their waterways, fostering community pride while building future environmental stewards. You can find out more about all their events and attractions at visitannapolis.org.
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Welcome to Pittman and Friends. The curiously probing, sometimes awkward but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman- that's me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear. This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County, so don't expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government of, by, and for the people. Welcome everybody. I am here today with my friend Kristen Pironis, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Visit Annapolis and Anne Arundel County. Welcome.
Kristen Pironis :Thank you so much for having me here today.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Al right, this is going to be fun. I know you walked over from just around the corner where your office is, from our office, with a great big old cup of coffee. It says Damn the Torpedoes. U. S. Naval Academy. We'll get to the Naval Academy in a bit. First, tell us what this organization, Visit Annapolis in Anne Arundel, is and does.
Kristen Pironis :Al right, I like that you started with Damn the Torpedoes, because I think I came into the organization at a time where we got to rethink what tourism was and what it should be for the community. And so I'll go back before I really answer that we are a destination marketing and management organization. The marketing side everybody understands. We promote and sponsor things that get visitors to come to Annapolis and Anne Arundel County. The destination management side of it is we want to make sure the county and the city are ready to accept those visitors, and we live up to the promise that we've made in our marketing. So those two things go hand in hand.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Wow, I hadn't even thought of that part being prepared for all those visitors. Great.
Kristen Pironis :It's important that we're prepared because if you get, here and you don't have a great time. That's what you talk about. But if you get here and have a wonderful time, and we know our visitors do they come back and they come back an average of seven times to our county.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Really. Wow. So the organization itself is. I know you have an office on West Street in Annapolis, right. Right, practically behind us. Almost adjacent is adjacent. How many staff you have?
Kristen Pironis :So, we've grown a bit. We hit 20 staff members just recently.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Wow.
Kristen Pironis :And your funding comes from a number of different places. But first and foremost, the hotel tax. So we receive a percentage of the hotel tax from both the county and the city. When I came on board, it was during COVID, and so we were looking at our revenue sources, and so we've been able to shift those up a little bit. One thing that you would think about from a membership organization or member dues, we actually ceased charging people member dues. We realized that we wanted everybody to be a member of our organization if they served our visitors and they have. And so instead, we really diversified our revenue by offering them opportunities to advertise with us in our visitor guide, provide real value, co-op advertising, things that they couldn't afford on their own. So we've diversified with those self-generated funds, but also through different grants at a local and a state and federal level.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I like that. I didn't realize you stopped charging membership dues, because it seems as though if you were charging dues then the marketing that you do for organizations, destinations, businesses, really in some cases you would end up doing just your members and you want to make sure that you're fair and you really market whatever the cool stuff in the county is.
Kristen Pironis :Well, you hit the nail on the head with that and we've had a lot more members get involved, and then they see the value of their organization and they become more involved, right. Right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Good, cool stuff. I really want to get into all of the great assets that we have in the county and we can talk about some of those, because those of us who live here are also kind of visitors. Or, you know, on a weekend like Memorial Day weekend that we just had, it's great to go out and see some of the stuff that we've got, and I think we forget often. So we'll talk about some of that, some of the things that you market. But first, you who are you and how'd you get? How'd you end up in the job?
Kristen Pironis :I'm Kristen Pironis and I've been here four years now, which went really fast. To be fair, I was not looking for a job when the recruiter came and chatted with me about it, and I also said something that she reminds me of all the time that I asked the question to her; "how dumb do you think I am to go into tourism during a pandemic? And I took the job and I'm here four years later to say it was the best choice of my life.
Kristen Pironis :So I'm really happy to be here.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Really, you weren't looking for a job because you had one or because you just didn't want to work?
Kristen Pironis :Can it be both? No, I did have a job. I had a great job. I worked at the Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation. I'd been there 16 years. It was terrific. It was a non-profit and a higher ed that really made a difference to a federal institution. So that's what we did. We supported the alumni, but also supported the institution. Because we know government can be funded to good, but not necessarily great.
Kristen Pironis :And we wanted to make sure the Naval Academy was great through its alumni and through philanthropy, and I really learned what it meant to work for a mission-driven organization. And I still carry that with me.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And that's why you carry that mug everywhere you go. Damn the torpedoes US Naval Academy.
Kristen Pironis :I mean, I don't carry it all the time.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It's a big blue coffee mug.
Kristen Pironis :I mean, I think you do things intentionally right. And so my mugs tell a story, and this is my mug for today.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah, awesome. Okay. Well, and I know you came in. You know you came in sort of a time of transition was the chair of the board at that time and there had been some you know some internal problems in the organization. So you got to sort of clean up and start anew. And I know that from my perspective anyway, and I think everybody I've talked to you have been amazing, like really taking this organization and made it fun. And if tourism ain't fun, it ain't gonna work right.
Kristen Pironis :It's beyond fun, but I do appreciate you saying that. Because that was one of the considerations I had even going into the job. It was a pretty public reputation crisis that went through, and you were one of the first people I talked to. I don't know if you remember this after I accepted the job. We were all on Zoom because we weren't in person at that time. We had a great conversation and we talked for a lot longer than I anticipated. But I was smart enough to know not to cut a politician off. Like, let's, let him talk, and I will stay on the phone as long as possible.
Kristen Pironis :But the very last question you asked me, you're like why are you doing this? Why are you coming from a job that you love and you're respected there to go into this place? That was going through this very public crisis. And I will tell you, I remember the words really well. I was like it's a pretty low bar. I knew I could do better and I know that that will be the name of my book eventually that I write about you know change management. But it really was an opportunity to pull together what I'm good at, right. I'm an ethical leader. I know governance. I understand mission-driven organizations and I knew nothing about tourism, but I knew I could learn that. So the great thing is, the board and the staff already knew about tourism, so I didn't have to be expert in that. I had to be expert in letting them do what they needed to do govern from the board's perspective and operate from the staff's perspective, and I just had to be in the middle trying to make it all work together.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And we're getting a little off topic here. We'll get on to what all of our assets are, but I think that when you hire somebody into an organization like that and a field like that, that didn't spend their whole career in it, you come in with fresh ideas. I mean, I think about Amy Gowan in economic development. She's done a lot of other things: planning, regulating, and all that. I know you two of you hit it off really well, which is important for economic development and tourism to be linked. We've spent time in Sweden together and, you know, gone on trips and worked together on the ferries plan and the ferry study. And I find you incredibly creative, but also forceful when it's time to move something forward. So lots that we can do. So first of all, I guess you know why is the work of tourism important? What is really? What are you? Why is the work of tourism important?
Kristen Pironis :So it's interesting that you talked about having that fresh perspective, because it's really easy from a tourism perspective to look at certain numbers in those transactions. How many people sleep in a hotel overnight? How many people cross the county line and come in? How many people do X, Y and Z? I mean, I will say from a tourism perspective, our county accounts for 20% of the tourism in Maryland. That's pretty impressive on its own, right?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:But if we just stop there. It is when we know that we're 10% of the population. That's a really good point. That's a great way to look at that of the state.
Kristen Pironis :Yep, but if we stop there, we're going to go to those metrics only. You're only going to look at heads and beds. That's one of my least favorite terms, because if you just focus on the transaction, you forget the transformation. And so the way we really went about our strategic planning and the way we really thought about what a destination marketing and management would be is how do we make the community better for our residents? Because if you have visitors that want to come to your community, you have community members that are going to welcome them. You have residents that are employed by these businesses. I haven't experienced that. I haven't experienced that. But that is a trend, right.
Kristen Pironis :So you have to look at those sort of unintended consequences of tourism. Like what is the downside, and how do we address that?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah. I know that there are places in the world where residents feel like the tourists are just an annoyance. Small businesses in those jurisdictions almost always love the tourism because it's business and it's money. And I would say that, you know, as somebody who has lived in the county all my life, but not in the city of Annapolis, I as a kid always thought of Annapolis as a place to go. That was. You know, I felt like a tourist going in because I get, you know, go get an ice cream cone and go hang out at the city dock. And so, to the extent that we make the destinations that we have really good, we're making them really good for our residents as well. So what are some of the cool assets, the things that you actually market in this county?
Kristen Pironis :I want to go back to one thing you said, though, because I love the idea of always being a tourist where you live. Because there's always something new. There's things that are changing, and we really can take advantage and have a great quality of life. And it's important for our organization to make sure the residents feel welcome throughout the county.
Kristen Pironis :So, some of those great things. So we know one of the biggest differentiators for our not just county, but for the region the Chesapeake Bay. People might not know what Annapolis is, they might not know what Anne Arundel County is, but from an international perspective people know the Chesapeake Bay. They've got crazy, crazy stories about it, and they are so excited just to have that access to the water.
Kristen Pironis :And I know access to the water has been something really important to you. Imagine that for residents. But just take that even further for our visitors. They get a chance to get on the water, and do different things. And we've looked at the studies, and we found that once people get on the water, get on the bay, they care about it. Then they care about stewardship of the bay, they care about what's living in there, what shouldn't be living in there, what we need to change. And so it's really a great, I'll say not just an asset, but a real draw for the entire region.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So we just had last week. I guess it'll be two weeks by the time this comes out. But the first of this year's Anne Arundel River Days, and it is exactly that.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I mean, we really focus on residents on that. I remember the first ones. We marketed exclusively the boat rides to kids in schools that had the highest levels of poverty, thinking that there were probably more kids in those schools who had never been on the water, which was the case. And the theory is exactly that you get people on a boat on the water, which was the case, and the theory is exactly that you get people on a boat on the bay. We actually send tour guides out with them to talk about the bay so that they learn as well, at a festival kind of a setting. And part of the idea is to make people love where they live, which I think is really important for building community, and it is to connect them to the actual bay so that they will fight for it in the future. Okay, so you do that for the bay, for people from all across the world, and it's cool to hear that Chesapeake Bay has a people know it more than they know. Certainly Anne Arundel County. What else we got?
Kristen Pironis :Well, I want to go back to the international for a second, because it is something that's fairly new. So I think we're breaking news on your podcast. We worked with a company called Capital Region USA for a number of years to focus on our international travel. So, to visit Baltimore a number of other destination marketing organizations because we knew on our own we wouldn't be a very strong. We wouldn't be that competitive again. Bill don't necessarily know Baltimore. They don't necessarily know Annapolis, but they know DC. They know certain areas.
Kristen Pironis :So we partnered with Destination DC and a number of folks in Virginia to pull together our resources to advertise internationally. That organization has decided to disintegrate. They're going away at the end of this fiscal year, and so we're working with the state of Maryland Office of Tourism Development, and Visit Annapolis in Anne Arundel County will be the lead on international tourism for the entire state of Maryland. So that's a huge responsibility and so exciting and kind of one of the ways we're going to break down some of those county lines to get people to the region.
Kristen Pironis :We know international travelers stay longer and spend more, and that's a great thing. You know they're going to go to Baltimore. They're going to come to Annapolis. They're going to go to Montgomery County. They're going to go to the Eastern Shore, and we can really spend time with those differentiators, with those assets. So, going back to the real question that you asked, as assets we have a lot to go for. You said we are only 10% of the population, but I think we have like 100% of the representation on things to do. We've got an amazing shopping area. We have some exciting draws with BWI being sort of that footprint for that first place. You've welcome a visitor. We've got South County with agritourism. We've got everything sort of in between with wine tours, beer tours, outdoor recreation, tons of outdoor recreation, and we leaned on that heavily during COVID. Amazing county parks, amazing county parks, amazing county parks that we'd like to even partner with them more to make sure that we get visitors there.
Kristen Pironis :So during their off seasons we make sure that we're activating that space.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, and you can go to Anne Reynolds Rec and Parks and you can. There's all kinds of maps with all the parks and all the features that they have and it all does keep sort of. Coming back to the water, because for our county we have 530 miles of coast and all these tributaries that come in and jut into our county. We even have the Patuxent River. That is really the western boundary. We're almost an island, I like to think of it.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So we did skip over when we talked about water access and water ferries, and I was actually sort of laughed at by the governor. The former governor, his communications director, said Pittman doesn't know what he's talking about. Dreaming of ferries. We were talking about the Bay Bridge. You know they were pretending that I was saying it was a replacement for the Bay Bridge. Ferries would never be a replacement, but ferries do get people across the Bay and it's a lot more fun to cross than it is crossing the bridge during traffic. So you did a crazy thing and you got together with other counties and created a feasibility study. Tell us about it.
Kristen Pironis :We did and it was sort of a crazy thing. We were on a call with all the other destination marketing organizations from across the state during COVID. We got together once a month on Zoom, talked about what was working, what wasn't. Found out there was some opportunity for some federal grants around transportation and on the call said to Queen Anne's County. My counterpart there, hey, what if we start a ferry? And we started looking into it, and it was a real possibility to see if we could do it.
Kristen Pironis :And I think you are right about one thing it's not just about getting from one side to the other. It's not just about the transportation. It's about that experience and that story, that connection to the water. People want experiences. They don't want the key chain, they don't want the plastic thing made in China that's sold in Annapolis. They really want an experience. And that's something that again differentiates us, what we're able to offer. And as we went through this with Calvert, St. Mary's, Queen Anne's, us and Somerset County, we realized that every person we talked to they started out pretty skeptical, right. Even like the biggest reporters who you know, I'm sure you meet with all the time like, "oh, this is a really bad idea, it's not going to replace the Bay Bridge, but even they started thinking about wait, if I could go from Annapolis to Crisfield and get a Smith Island cake there and then stay overnight there and come back here and do something else. They started seeing how they could experience something very different than what they have to offer now. What we have to offer now.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah. Yeah. So you did it from a tourism aspect but didn't negate the possibility of some people actually doing some commuting. So then we, our transportation department, actually did get one of these federal grants to get two ferries correct, and we asked for three. I think it got two. Hopefully, that grant won't disappear. Everything federal has got a question mark next to it or an asterisk, but so far so good. And we're really excited about doing some of the infrastructure work that would go between Annapolis and Baltimore city and then straight across to Queen Anne's County, right, what is it called? It's the old ferry site, right?
Kristen Pironis :Is it Matipique Beach?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah. There used to be a ferry that went, or exactly to that spot, and that's really close. So that's, that's a quick, quick jump. And you think about people who have boats and yachts and things. And it's exactly what they do. They get on, they go to St. Michael's, go to one of these fun little destination cities, towns, and spend the night or a weekend and then come back and that means everybody can do it for an affordable amount of money by water.
Kristen Pironis :And a pretty cool experience to boot. Yeah, yeah. So exciting, and we actually got to.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:We went on the Sweden trip with state and city and county officials and one of the things that we did was we visited a factory that was making electric hydrofoil ferries that hold what? 12 people, was it? I think.
Kristen Pironis :Twelve.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, and so they sort of fly. They go fast and they don't create a wake. And I know there are other companies that are starting to do that and they make these electric ferries, so it's a growing trend across the world. Right, well, and even better than that.
Kristen Pironis :Yes, it's a growing trend and it's environmental. It gets people on the water. But what I saw on that trip, and I know we all experienced, is it wasn't just getting into a car. It wasn't just getting onto a train. It wasn't just getting onto a bus or a ferry. It was all of the above. And so we found that, with all those different opportunities, you just increase travel opportunities across that, and so I think that's what we sometimes forget. More option for the visitor and the resident is so much better.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So when you put out your tourism guide, correct. Beautiful glossy magazine, and I always look through it and look at what the events are that you're promoting, and so you do you say it's experiences. You promote year-round things, but you also promote specific big events. What are some of the things that you're promoting? And so you do? You say it's experiences. You promote year-round things, but you also promote specific big events. What are some of the things that you?
Kristen Pironis :Well, one of the things that's coming up and I think this is so timely is Anne Arundel Arts Month. And that's something that started out as Annapolis Arts Week and we've expanded it to a month with Anne Arundel County Arts Council. And so there are events through the entire month of June, kicking off with Pride and then going with all different exhibits across, I'll say, across the county. And I think what's so neat about that is it goes back to the idea of experiences. People are experiencing the art, they're doing something different, they can try something new.
Kristen Pironis :I mean, you can walk around Annapolis and see the plein air painters. That's pretty amazing. And I highly recommend that you can go to BWI and see the exhibits there, and so it's sort of something for everyone. You can get your hands dirty in South County at the South County Arts Lab. I mean, I think that's one of the things that I'm most proud of. The team for looking at something that was a week and expanding it into a month and really getting people to both residents and visitors get around the county and experience all there is to offer.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah, and I've noticed that you've integrated with the Anne Arundel Arts Council and the arts and that's really pretty cool. Hey, I just something just popped into my mind that I don't know if you promote this or not, if you've noticed what an amazing phenomenon it's become. But this new soccer team called the Annapolis Blues. I've got my jersey, we've gotten season tickets every year. My kids. It's one thing they make sure that we go to. I've got boys who are soccer, you know, soccer geeks or soccer whatever and they just keep winning and winning, don't they?
Kristen Pironis :And they have a women's team now, which is pretty exciting.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And the women's team starting this year, yeah.
Kristen Pironis :And so we are well aware, we are actually the visitor uniform sponsors. So when they're playing away, there'll be a Visit Annapolis and Anne Arundel County logo on the front of that the home team. We didn't need the home uniforms. We didn't have to sponsor as much, but I love what they're doing. I can tell you it is sort of a decade of events for soccer, for football, because FIFA 2026 is coming all across the US.
Kristen Pironis :We're going to gain with that. I mean, sports travel is unbelievable, and that's true of the Blues. So I'm excited that they're here.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, I think this is their third season.
Kristen Pironis :That sounds right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, they did very, very well the first two seasons and what's amazing about it is they play at Navy Stadium. And because of the tradition of tailgating at Navy Stadium and people just love to go there. People, we, I even tailgate before the games and it's really a hoot. It really is. And it's really a hoot, it really is, and it's very affordable to bring the family.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So Google Annapolis Blue Soccer and hopefully join us at some of the other games. Let's talk about. Even though you're Annapolis and Anne Arundel, and historically it's been Annapolis- focused and you've made a huge effort to expand outside of Annapolis and promote things in the western part of the county. Promote things in North County. Promote things in South County, agriculture more and up and down the coast. Annapolis itself is absolutely a tourism destination. I love walking down the streets and hearing people speaking languages from all over the world, and we have boats that sail here from all over the world. And there's going to be some major work downtown raising of CityDoc, putting in a new welcome center. Tell us how you see that impacting tourism.
Kristen Pironis :Oh gosh, I think it's sort of. There's so much opportunity with that.
Kristen Pironis :The big change is of course going from, for our organization. A tiny little kiosk that looks like an old photo booth to actually having a proper waterfront welcome center to have all the amenities that you would expect. But even more than just the place to go refill your water or whatever you need to do. Get information. That entire area that's a parking lot, will be a place to activate. So there will be, I'll say, Arts Month. Can you imagine what we could do down there with different festivals, activities, all sorts of things, with music? I think it'll be a great driver for our locals to come there. One of the things that continues to drive me crazy is the Glen Burnie area feels more connected to Baltimore City than they do to Annapolis.
Kristen Pironis :And that's right in our backyard. We want to make sure that everybody in the county experiences what we know about the city of Annapolis. So I think it's a great opportunity to really reimagine what we could do, how we can act down there. Because right now there's not a lot of opportunity to do any of that.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah. To me it's really exciting because we do have a parking lot on the best real estate and Mayor Buckley has talked about this from his initial campaign. And I remember going to a session down on City Dock where they had a tent and they had tables and they had pieces of paper that showed the streets of the area and they had little buildings that you could move around, kind of like playing Monopoly, so that people could really engage in designing what could be. And what they've done is they've already torn down the Harbormaster building that blocked the view in the middle of the parking lot, and they have a plan for what I think is a beautiful building with a lot of glass. That will be the public. Some people call it the People's Yacht Club.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It'll be a place where, you know, student groups who come into Annapolis can go there to have, you know, to hang out and have their bag lunches and over the balcony with the best view of the bay. So you don't have to pay for a dinner at Chop Tank to be able to see that view, you know, on the balcony of a restaurant and or be a member of a yacht club restaurant and or be a member of a yacht club and then having room for a stage and grass instead of a parking lot. We all try to find a place to sit with our ice cream cone or whatever it is, right along the edge of the dock, you know, sitting on some of the some of the bird poop and finding a spot on a busy day.
Kristen Pironis :It's going to be amazing it is going to be amazing. There's so many things I could respond to in that I'll try and stay away from the bird poop. No, but I think you're right. Like one of the things that cracked me up when I started there, there's a thing called an ice cream trail, right? So people like travel to go eat ice cream across Maryland. That's something that I have not done and I probably will never do, but they do need a place to eat it.
Kristen Pironis :That's outside and on the water and amazing and I just think that we're only limited by sort of what we think. I really like Annapolis in that it has the history and tradition, but we're not stuck in the past. We're able to look forward and think about what's next, and I think this Waterfront Welcome Center is what's next. It's so much of what we just talked about with experience and water travel and access to the water. It brings all of that together in one. I think, beautiful building.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah. I actually attended the Annapolis Historic Commission meeting where they were evaluating the plan as whether or not it was, you know, the relationship to the Burtis House, which is an older building right next to it. And you know there's not total consensus on the design, there never is but it was amazing how careful they were to make sure that they didn't undermine the history that a lot of people come to Annapolis to see and that we all love. I think, but at the same time have something that is really functional for current times. I mean, historic Annapolis has preserved a ton of beautiful buildings in Annapolis and they now have this amazing museum downtown. Tell us about that.
Kristen Pironis :The museum is a really big draw for visitors because it really gives people a place to sort of get their grounding in, where they can go for the day. We are great partners to Historic Annapolis and I should say we when it comes to those meetings, because I was at that HPC meeting as well. We really, our role in those meetings and our role in the community is to be an advocate for the visitor. That is what I am literally paid to do to advocate for that visitor experience, and I can do so hand-in-hand with the city and with Historic Annapolis and with Economic Development and the Arts Council. And I think it's really important to think about if we're advocating for that visitor experience, which makes sense.
Kristen Pironis :We are making the quality of life better for our residents and we're making it welcoming for all the folks that come downtown.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Great, great. Yeah. And that museum is. I mean, I guess it just reopened a couple of years ago and I went down and had a tour with staff. And one of the things that it does I think better than it used to, and Historic Annapolis does is, it tells the history of Annapolis all the people. Not just the people who were, who were the oligarchs of the time, the folks with all the money and the big fancy mansions but it told the history of enslavement, Jim Crow, Black history of Annapolis and it told the Waterman's history of Annapolis. In fact, we have a whole other museum for that, which is great. So much history and so easy to access.
Kristen Pironis :I'm glad you brought that up because it would be very easy for organizations like ours or Historic Annapolis to just focus on the easy, shiny history and the fact that they are willing and do so with such care, to delve into the tough parts of our history and to tell that story so we can all learn from it. They were great partners to us for a civil rights guide that we put out last year and we're really proud of that. I mean, it's an award-winning piece.
Kristen Pironis :That's not why we did it, but it was a history that nobody pulled together yet, and we were able to do that with their partnership.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah. And we have organizations across the county that are doing the same thing.
Kristen Pironis :Chesapeake Crossroads is a great example of that. Banneker Douglas Tubman Museum, right in our backyard.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So you, as an organization, have maybe the last thing I have on my list. There's lots, and lots of other assets we could talk about.
Kristen Pironis :It's a good problem to have. Yeah, really good problem to have.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Your setup is, for those who don't know 501c6, which means you can do advocacy and things and government impact, but also you set up a foundation right, C3.
Kristen Pironis :We did.
Kristen Pironis :We realized as we went through our strategic planning process there were things that we wanted to do that were outside the mission of the C6, so of our partnership membership organization, but they were sort of critical to how we move forward in the community, and so we are able to address things like those unintended consequences of tourism. One of them is workforce transportation. Why would we ever get involved in transportation projects? But now we get to child care, affordable housing, sustainability, all of those things that make our destination better across the county but are not necessarily why we're funded through the hotel tax. So we wanted to keep those things separately.
Kristen Pironis :I think I started saying governance is really important, and you don't want to have just mission creep. You really need to have a focus with your organization, and so we stood up a 501c3 to really focus on those other areas that make the destination better, but they're not necessarily marketing and management. So the two of them work really well together. We have two separate boards, sets of governance, different funding sources, and it just makes sense for our organization at this time to really go through this, and it gets us, I'll say, at the table to talk about things that we wouldn't typically talk about? Because you started out saying, like you know, fun, tourism is fun. All of us get excited talking about vacations right. That's the most exciting thing to plan your vacation. But if we don't do it right from a management side, people are coming here to expect to learn, to have fun, to experience something. But if we didn't manage it, if we didn't address these issues before they became issues, they wouldn't have that fun experience.
Kristen Pironis :So there is a fun to it, but. But there's a real.
Kristen Pironis :There's a business side and economic impact, a real destination management side that we don't want to lose sight of.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Good, good. So it sounds like the organization is going to thrive, reaching out into new funding sources and new areas. We started with Chesapeake Bay. I want to end with Chesapeake Bay.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You said that a lot of people know the Chesapeake Bay from all over the world and care about it. They know that the Chesapeake. I think most people, I'm guessing now most people. When they hear about the Chesapeake Bay, they hear about loss of aquatic life and how it used to be this thriving place that created all this food, and the numbers are declining because of human development and human impact. And so they ask that question what's being done? How is the Chesapeake Bay health-wise? Are we making progress?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And we in Anne Arundel County applied for and just got designated from the state of Maryland the whole Watershed Act, which was something that Senator and our Congresswoman Elfreth worked hard on, and the governor jumped in and made a big priority of the funding's. Not quite what we had hoped because of state funding cuts. But hopefully, as the economy gets better and the state revenues get better, it'll grow. But the Severn River Watershed got designated partly because so many organizations were involved, and we had underserved communities in Annapolis that were going to be able to engage in this project. We had watershed organizations, we had you, we had Annapolis, so ecotourism, right.
Kristen Pironis :Absolutely. Is that something we can do? That is, and it's funny, nobody really likes the term ecotourism. It doesn't sound fun. It doesn't sound necessarily aspirational.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It sounds like going to Amazon. Yeah, kind of kind of, which could be fun. But of course I thought Amazon the company when you first said that, so that was not helpful at all in my head.
Kristen Pironis :But what you want to do is you want to take those opportunities.
Kristen Pironis :Whether you're going to the Museum of Historic Annapolis or the Banneker-Douglas Tubman Museum or get on a ferry, you really want to tell the stories about what's critical about that moment. Yeah, you want to do it in a fun way, but you want to introduce people to issues that you care about, to really change the world, and it is disappointing when you get funding for something. You don't get all that you hope for with this Watershed Act. But you've got to start somewhere, and I think that sometimes we get so excited about where we're going that we forget that incremental progress is still progress, and I think that so much of what we're doing in our organization, what you're doing at the county and certainly the city, is incremental progress. Getting us in the right direction, because if you're heading in the right direction, the chances of you falling off it get a little smaller. So I feel like we're all headed in the right direction, rowing the same way, and we get to tell the hard stories while enjoying our time.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I do too, and it's so exciting to have Visit Annapolis and Anne Arundel County and you as partners in the work, with all the other nonprofits and government agencies and the business community and everybody else in the residence moving in the same direction. So thank you for what you do. It's been a pleasure.
Kristen Pironis :Thank you very much.
