This year, your favorite regional business publication has started a new feature—South Jersey’s People to Watch.
  We’re spotlighting the men and women who are positioned to do something special in 2009…and beyond. So far, we’ve looked at Burlington, Gloucester, Cumberland, and Salem counties.
  We know that we will overlook some key people. But that’s the nature of lists. So, here’s our fifth list of the People to Watch…10 men and women who will play key roles in Cape May County in the months ahead.
  Check it out. And then drop us a note at
news@snjbp.com and tell us who to watch in your county. (Atlantic County is next on the list.)

People to Watch in Cape May County

  Judy Austermiller: The Chair of the Mid Atlantic Center for the Arts, Austermiller is also the co-founder Slow Food of South Jersey and (with Becki Wilson) Founding Director of Community Center for the Arts (CCA). Slow Food SJ is affiliated with Slow Food USA  and seeks to create dramatic and lasting change in the food system, including “a transformation in food policy, production practices and market forces so that they ensure equity, sustainability and pleasure in the food we eat." A professional facilitator and fundraiser, Austermiller has led board development and staff development workshops and conducted a program evaluation of a national community education program. She’s also been a lecturer at the Center for Labor Studies and an adjunct professor at Long Island University. Austermiller also founded the National Network of Grantmakers and the Women’s Funding Coalition.
  Curtis Bashaw: The well known redeveloper of Cape May’s legendary Congress Hall, Bashaw is co-CEO of Cape Advisors, a privately held real estate development, investment and management firm. The 47-year-old “visionary” was barely 30 when he opened Cape May’s sleek Virginia Hotel—the beginning of a new, upscale era in the Victorian town that had once been called “the domain of elderly fudge shoppers in track suits.” Bashaw almost single-handedly made Cape May “cool,” when he took the massive, pillared and empty old Congress Hall hotel and gave its 106 rooms a makeover that made it a destination for style-conscious New York and Philadelphia families. In addition, Bashaw, who took a brief detour into public service as the director of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority from 2004 to 2006, has more than a half dozen hotel and residential projects from the Hamptons to New York under way with his partner in Cape Advisors, Craig Wood. According to Philadelphia Magazine, the pair investing more than $100 million in redoing Atlantic City’s Chelsea Hotel.
  Robert J. Boyer: The Executive Vice President and CFO of Cape Bank, Boyer has served on the Board of Atlantic Cape Community College since 2000. He is involved in state-wide community college issues in his role as a Trustee Ambassador with the New Jersey Council of County Colleges. His community involvement includes service as President of the Middle After School Kare Program, a member of the Cape May County Special Services School District Board and as a volunteer for the Cape Cares Foundation. He is and Chief Financial Officer at Cape Bank.
  Alfred Campbell: The Managing Editor of the Cape May County Herald, the 57-year resident of cape May has been a weekly newspaper editor, reporter, photographer for more than 30 years. Employed at the Herald for the last 21 years, Campbell has covered, virtually every community in Cape May County.
  Vicki Clark: The executive director of the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce, Clark serves as an active member of the Atlantic Cape Community College Foundation's Restaurant Gala Committee and is a board member of the N.J. Travel Industry Association, the Lower Cape May Regional School Board and the Atlantic Cape May Workforce Investment Board. The CMCCOC represents more than 950 members with a 36-member Board of Directors. Clark leads a full time staff that implements member and visitor services and manages special events.
  Jane Kashlak: A journalist and founder and editor of Cape May Times (www.capemaytimes.com), an online guide to the Cape May area.  She loves to garden and writes a column called Cape May Garden Journal. In her previous career, Jane was an Emmy award winning news producer in New York, covering stories ranging from terrorism to Papal visits.    
  Dr. Peter Mora: Raised in Atlantic City, the eighth President of Atlantic Cape Community College has served ACCC for more than three decades years.
 President since 2005, Mora earned a doctorate in community college education from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Va., where he authored a dissertation on "Economic Development Functions of Community Colleges in New Jersey."

His master's degree in community college teaching is from the former Glassboro State College while his bachelor’s degree in History and Economics is from Connecticut’s University of Bridgeport. Mora chaired the college's Cape May County Comprehensive Campus Transition Team and serves on the board of directors and as treasurer of the N.J. Community College Consortium for Workforce and Economic Development. He serves as a board member with the Community Development Corp. of the Atlantic County Chamber of Commerce and is a former chairman of the Atlantic-Cape May County Regional Employer Council. He was a board member for the National Council for Continuing Education and Training and serves with the N.J. State Employer Council and Southern N.J. Development Council. 

He serves as a board member with the Greater Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce and the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce.
His volunteer service includes trusteeship with the Volunteer Center of Atlantic County, the Atlantic County Heart Association, and the Kentucky Avenue Renaissance Enterprise Foundation.

Mora served on the board of directors for the South Jersey Stage Co., Greater Atlantic City Tourism Commission, and the Stan Marczyk Scholarship Fund at Holy Spirit High School.

Prior to joining ACCC, Mora was director of educational services at the Atlantic Village School in Atlantic City and a senior planning analyst for Prudential Insurance Co. in Linwood.
  Carol Stone and Woody Woodland: The co-founders of the nationally-recognized Cape May Jazz Festival, Stone and Woodland conceived the idea of a jazz festival in Cape May in 1993, while returning from the Rehoboth Jazz Festival on the Cape May Lewes Ferry. With this pair at the helm, the Festival has grown into one of the premiere weekend musical events on the East Coast, presenting at nine different sites ranging from larger auditoriums to clubs and restaurants along the beach front. The semi-annual festivals attract over eight thousand Jazz lovers to the three-day events.
  Michael Zuckerman: The Director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts, Zuckerman since 1982, Zuckerman has helped MAC grow into one of New Jersey's leading cultural and heritage tourism organizations, with significant increases in membership (from 500 to 4,000), operational budget (from $189,000 to over $4 million), staff (from 2 full time/20 part time to 40 full time/120 part time), and audience served (from uncounted to some 340,000). He has also been active with a number of statewide cultural organizations, currently serving as a Member of the New Jersey Historical Commission, Treasurer of Art Pride New Jersey, 1st Vice President of the Advocates for New Jersey History, an Executive Committee Member and Chairman of the Cultural Tourism Committee of the South Jersey Cultural Alliance and 1st Vice President of the Doo Wop Preservation League. He has also spearheaded the spring advocacy campaign of the Advocates for New Jersey History, leading the efforts to save the grant budget and staff of the New Jersey Historical Commission and to forge crucial alliances with the Arts and Tourism communities.