Lake of the Ozarks, MO – At today’s regularly scheduled monthly meeting of the Tri-County Lodging Association (TCLA) Board of Directors, Administrator Jim Divincen announced his retirement after 27 years of service.
“It’s truly been an honor and a privilege to promote and advertise the Lake of the Ozarks for the past twenty-seven years,” Divincen says. “I’ve been so thankful and blessed to be able to work with such an outstanding Board of Directors, staff and business community through the years. I wish the current TCLA Board of Directors the utmost of future successes in promoting the Lake of the Ozarks to benefit all Lake-area businesses.”
Sue Westenhaver, chair of TCLA, commented that Divincen’s leadership has been key to the development and continued growth of the Lake of the Ozarks area.
“Thanks to Jim’s dedication and hard work on behalf of TCLA, he successfully brought in more than $3.5 million in cooperative marketing funds from the Missouri Division of Tourism to be used to advertise and market the Lake as a family vacation destination,” Westernhaver says.
“In large part, it’s because of Jim that the Lake of the Ozarks was named the ‘Best Recreational Lake in the Nation’ by readers of USA TODAY,” Westenhaver adds. “We will certainly miss Jim and we wish him good health and happiness as he enters into this new phase of his life.”
According to Divincen, some of his career highlights include being appointed to the Missouri Tourism Commission by Governor Matt Blunt from 2005 to 2009; his involvement the last two decades in the legislation that was recently signed by Governor Parsons that extends the summer travel season in regard to Missouri’s public schools not starting sooner than 10 days before Labor Day, which has been a top priority of Missouri’s travel industry. And, most recently, the fact that TCLA has had back-to-back record lodging tax collections the last two years.
