{"post":{"id":"a37c75ee-a948-4a27-b742-d5dc86a6fe42","slug":"invest-long-beach-funded-and-moving-forward","title":"Invest Long Beach: Funded and Moving Forward","body":"Another exciting milestone!!!\n\nI've had the honor of serving as chair of the Long Beach Economic Partnership for the last 18-months. This week we held our first board meeting under the new branding \"Invest Long Beach\" as part of the \"Vibe City\" rebranding initiative. During these last 18-months, the executive committee of Randal Hernandez, Ryan Altoon, and myself had to accomplish the following to get this this point (with special help from John Keisler and Sunstone Cities/Sunstone Management): \n\n1. CEO Transition - Just a few months after taking over as chair, our CEO resigned for a new opportunity, with the potential lack of financial support looming. \n\n2. Stable Funding - We worked collaboratively with officials from the Office of Mayor Rex Richardson and the City of Long Beach to secure 3-years of stable funding from the City, Port of Long Beach, and Long Beach Airport. A major thank you to Mayor Rex Richardson and his entire team (especially Lucius Martin), Bo Martinez and the economic development department, Dr. Noel Hacegaba and the Port, and Cynthia Guidry, P.E., USAP of the Airport. \n\n3. New CEO - Following the final budget approvals and new stabilized funding being secured, we conducted a search and hired Courtney Russell as our CEO. He is already making massive strides in the revitalization of our organization and a true \"Long Beachian\".  \n\nI am extremely proud of our mayor and city for their commitment to aligned growth in Long Beach, our board and staff for getting us to where we are today (a special shout out to Brianna Jackson), and the opportunity to be part of building the \"Vibe City\" in the LBC. \n\nJobs, Talent, Economic Growth... the work is never done, but we have the village to sustain.\n\n#EconomicDevelopment #LBC #GoBeach #GrowLongBeach #VibeCity #InvestLongBeach #LongBeach #Growth #Jobs #Economy","topic":"fractional","byline":"weston","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/westonlabar/recent-activity/all/","media":[{"h":600,"w":800,"id":"878d6edd-40b0-4dae-a1c9-cf76fa8bcfae","alt":"Group of leaders in formal attire","ext":"webp","kind":"image","bytes":179202},{"h":995,"w":800,"id":"fbfc5b61-0650-4da3-ad90-0305d3a9e0a6","alt":"","ext":"webp","kind":"image","bytes":123666}],"published_at":"2026-06-23T20:07:00+00:00","updated_at":"2026-10-13T16:24:15.444147+00:00","card":null},"prev":null,"next":{"slug":"ai-strategy-and-workforce-readiness-at-datacon-la","title":"AI Strategy and Workforce Readiness at DataCon LA"}}