Wednesday Meeting

Featured Speaker for April 10th Meeting: Kristen Dimas Family Physician Dr. Kristen Dimas is a woman with a heart for serving her community. After graduating with honors from Florida State University College of Medicine in 2016, she returned to Southwest Florida to complete her residency training at the FSU Family Medicine Residency Program at Lee Health. Throughout her residency, she earned multiple awards for service and advocacy in addition to being elected by her peers to serve as chief resident during her senior year. Transitioning into clinical practice, she decided to continue serving her local community by accepting a faculty position with the same program where she completed her training. Today, as a board certified family physician and clinical assistant professor of medicine, she not only works tirelessly to address health disparities among her patients, but also teaches physicians in training under her to do the same. Recently, Dr. Dimas has accepted a [...]

Featured Speaker for April 3rd Meeting: John Lai President & CEO John Lai is the President and CEO of the Sanibel and Captiva Chamber of Commerce, the premier business organization of Sanibel and Captiva Islands with over 450 members, and the Francis P. Bailey Visitor Center, which is open 365 days a year and sees over 80,000 visitors per year. Professionally, John has been in the hospitality and tourism industry for over 28 years and has been a resident of Lee County for over 30 years. He has operated resorts in Sanibel, Captiva, Clearwater, and Vero Beach. John joined the Chamber staff in 2017 and was promoted to President and CEO in 2018. John is the past president of the Lee County Chapter of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association and currently serves as their Government Affairs Chair. John is on the board of directors of Lee County Sports and is the Chair-Elect [...]

Featured Speaker for March 27th Meeting: Sandy Stilwell Younquist Owner & CEO - Stilwell Enterprises Sandy Stilwell Younquist grew up in the Fort Myers area. Working in her parent’s business Sandy learned the value of a strong work ethic and the role of sacrifice. She displayed her entrepreneur spirit early, starting a bank cleaning business when she was just 17 years old. At the age of 21 years old, Sandy founded Stilwell Enterprises. Over the past 27 years she earned a reputation as an accomplished entrepreneur in the Southwest Florida restaurant industry for her special brand of hospitality. Currently, she employs about 350 people to operate the Captiva Island Inn, Keylime Bistro, Sunshine Seafood Café & Wine Bar, RC Otters Island Eats, Cantina Captiva, Latte Da, and a shopping center. During her career, Sandy has operated under a single, guiding principle; ‘When you give somebody your word, your word is more important than [...]