Eliza Lotozo of West Cape May is Cape May MAC's Chief Outreach Officer. She earned a bachelor of science and arts degree in accounting from the University of South Carolina and is currently working toward an MBA at Stockton University.

She was born and raised in West Cape May and had what she would consider an idyllic small-town childhood here. After college, she faced the question, "What am I going to do now?"

"I came home to Cape May without a real plan for my next steps," she said. "At first it felt like a defeat coming home after college, but I just hadn’t figured out what I wanted to do with my life and career. A series of experiences, including working with the newly formed Exit 0 Jazz Festival, led me to a part-time position at Cape May MAC, which has now grown to a full-time position on the Management team."

COVID-19 has challenged her to find new ways to engage with members, volunteers and the community.

"As Chief Outreach Officer, I oversee our marketing department and, more specifically, our social media and website channels. When the government shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic began, we realized we were going to have to quickly pivot to producing much more digital content to keep our constituents engaged with us. It has also tested my management skills. As a member of our Management & Budget team I had to assist in making hard decisions about our budget and staffing in an environment when information was changing daily. We’re currently on the third round of revising our master budget."

Lotozo was the prime mover for Cape May MAC's two-year-long rebranding project, a process that she said sometimes felt like one step forward and two steps back. Persistence, patience, imagination and diplomacy from the very start paid off with a beautiful new brand and website that is clean, accessible and up-to-date.

"Hands down, my proudest achievement since starting at Cape May MAC has been my involvement in our recent re-branding project. I came to Cape May MAC with a soapbox under my arm about our branding, but as is the case with many initiatives that involve change, the timing has to be right! The project eventually developed out of strategic planning workshops held in 2018, and launched a two-year process that culminated in March 2020, with a new name, new website and whole new brand. Leading the project team was such an educational experience for me. Branding can be so subjective and leading the project meant managing a lot of opinions – who knew the color red could be so contentious!"

Since she has been at Cape May MAC, Lotozo has brought her many talents to the table, and in ways large and small, has nudged the organization along new pathways, with an ethos that honors the past, embraces the present and leads boldly into the future.

"I love the community at Cape May MAC" she said, "and I absolutely love living and working in my home town, feeling like I can really make a difference in a community I care about."