We turned the page in the Discovery Guide once again and landed upon the Bay of Quinte team! We market tourism and resident attraction for the region and are thrilled to share our passion for the BoQ with others—but how did we all come to be working for the Regional Marketing Board in the first place?
Read below for a background on Bay of Quinte’s Executive Director, Dug Stevenson (and connect with him here).
Bay of Quinte Regional Marketing Board: Executive Director Dug Stevenson
Why did you choose to live/work in the Bay of Quinte?
For love! My wife was hired back in 2006 to teach art in the secondary school system at HPEDSB. I was in my mid-20s and still didn’t totally know what I wanted to do. We stayed for a year or two, moved to Toronto for three years and then moved back officially in fall of 2010 and I was lucky enough to start with BoQ in 2013. Now my job is to tell people how awesome this place is—how terrific is that??
It seems these days that most people end up in careers unrelated to their degree/diploma. What is your educational background?
Ha! Yup, that’s me for sure… I have my BA from McGill in Psychology with minors in Social Studies of Medicine and World Religions + a post-grad degree in Creative Writing from Humber College. Now, I manage a destination marketing organization.
How has your education and previous work experience informed your work within tourism and marketing?
My previous work background is in entertainment, as a writer and a host, and in healthcare, in programming and project management. In an interesting way, I’ve found that those two backgrounds come together perfectly for my job. I have to do lots of public speaking, representing our organization on camera, writing every day while managing multiple projects and developing programs throughout the year.
Going back to the degree thing—I’ve always felt that it’s less about what your degree is related to and more about the experience you built going to school (projects, writing, working through stressful situations like exams) and/or the experience you built working in another job, however unrelated it might be. Does that person have the raw materials that could support them doing this job? Do they have the soft skills, so that they could be taught what they need to learn to do effectively? If “yes” is the answer to both, then, I think those are always worthy candidates.
Describe the work environment at the Bay of Quinte RMB in five words or less.
Brilliantly original Quality Rumblings Marketing the Bay.
What does a weekend in the BoQ look like for you?
We have three small kids at home and lots of family in the region, so we’ll do one thing in a day and that’s like an entire lifetime of exploration for our little Stevenson clan. We like getting outside and having options to get outdoors in all four seasons is definitely a highlight of living here.
We love to get out and go berry picking somewhere like Brambleberry Farms, or hit up a conservation area to go for a walk (Potter’s Creek is probably our fave) – preferably near the water so we can throw rocks and splash around. We’ll often take our supper down by the Bay and grab a picnic table or throw down a blanket and eat and then kick the ball around before heading home for bedtime.
My wife and I are trying to get out now at least once a month without the kids to go grab some dinner or a drink somewhere or try and meet up with friends. Any patio is great – Signal is terrific for that. We just hit up The Lark for a drink, which was going off when we were there, so that was neat to see.
