Diane Hichwa
Sea Rancher of the Year 2022
“I welcome Gina’s depth of appreciation for the ecology of The Sea Ranch. This is strengthened over time by her long experience with this place. Her management skills, financial experience and ability to listen carefully and hear someone’s perspective before forming opinions make her a strong candidate whom I support for our Board of Directors.”
Meet Gina Hubbell
I arrived at TSR with my family at the age of twelve, visited every chance I could for twenty years, purchased a 1974 William Turnbull house in 1988, and worked with Bill to renovate it. I now live at TSR full time with Bingly, my mixed-breed rescue dog.
I received my B. A. from Stanford and my J.D. from Northwestern. I practiced corporate law at a premier international firm, Sidley & Austin in Chicago, for five years and then accepted a position at Credit Suisse, a global investment bank, in the Finance Division. There I designed solutions for complex financial issues and modeled the risks and rewards of different financing strategies. In 2010, I joined Guggenheim Partners, a private financial services company where, over the last decade, I worked as a Senior Managing Director structuring financial transactions. Hiring and working with lawyers, I took financial ideas from conception to fruition. I know how to identify tough issues and propose good solutions. I currently am working on a capital investment project to fund the development of multi-generational low-income housing, including on three local sites.
With an appreciation for TSR’s history, I want to preserve our inheritance of forests, meadows, beaches, and wildlife. TSR needs Directors who see protection of our Commons and preservation of our coastal landscape as priorities. The Board with Staff should seek input from experts and incorporate solid scientific evidence into all decisions that affect our environment.
My service on the Planning Committee (where I am currently Chair) and the Finance Committee has educated me about what TSR needs to stabilize within a shifting financial environment. If I am elected to serve you, I will work to uphold rigorous TSRA Board oversight of TSR’s planning and financial affairs and legal affairs. I will advocate for strict scrutiny of TSRA’s planning and expenditures and will demand careful selection and use of attorneys. Our financial resources cannot come solely from increasing dues. We must seek other available sources, such as grants and philanthropy.
I favor a frugal Sea Ranch that devotes its fiscal resources to the preservation of its environment and infrastructure. I recommend simplicity and integrity in governance for the simple reason that I want all of us to sleep at night.
Our founders’ mantra, “living lightly on the land,” still encapsulates our values. TSR’s mission encompasses a reverence for our environment, a devotion to simplicity in governance, and the encouragement of true community. The Sea Ranch was designed with half of our lands held in common and our homes clustered to encourage a communal perspective. We desperately need a consistent vision to create and maintain a community with shared values that embraces diversity. I want us to foster a spirit of cooperation, both within TSR, and with our neighbors, north and south.
Susan Sandoval
Former Member Point Arena School Board
“I am whole heartedly supporting Gina Hubbell in her quest for a Board seat. Gina is a highly competent attorney and financier -- skills apparently very much needed. But these are not my main reasons for supporting her. Those are more personal. We both are dedicated to preserving the beautiful and unique natural environment in which we live. Neither of us came here to make the area something different; we came to revel in the beauty that surrounds us. Gina’s approach as a Board member is to insure that there is an environmental component to Board decisions, that is, that the impact on and value of the environment is one of the factors that is omni-present in Board deliberations. This perspective is vital to the continuance of the natural glory in which we live.”
