Joel Deretchin is awarded special recognition

The Woodlands Township Board of Directors proclaimed June 21, 2010 "Joel Deretchin Day" for his many years of service, dedication and leadership to The Woodlands, Texas. The Woodlands Township’s Board of Directors gave honor to him with a special Proclamation.

 “The Board of Directors of The Woodlands Township commends Joel L. Deretchin for his countless contributions to the creation of a lasting foundation for The Woodlands community, thereby making The Woodlands one of the most emulated planned communities in the world,” said Bruce Tough, Chairman of the Board, The Woodlands Township.

For more than 33 years, he worked for The Woodlands Development Company and its predecessors, and served in every aspect of the community in The Woodlands, from governance, education, social and religious services to non-profit and philanthropic organizations and economic development.

For many years, he led the community associations, having served as president of The Woodlands Community Association, The Woodlands Association, The Woodlands Commercial Owners Association, The Woodlands Community Service Corporation and The Woodlands Fire Department.  During this time, he also oversaw the development of the award-winning parks and recreation system in The Woodlands.

In addition, Mr. Deretchin helped found 18 of the 19 Conroe ISD schools in the Woodlands, The University Center, The John Cooper School and the Villager newspaper. He also chaired many not-for-profit boards, including Interfaith of The Woodlands and Montgomery County Youth Services. He was the founding president of Congregation Beth Shalom.

He has been named Citizen of the Year, a Hometown Hero and a Paul Harris Fellow. CISD named the Joel L. Deretchin Elementary School in his honor.

“His leadership and dedication to The Woodlands has truly been outstanding,” Chairman Tough said. “The Woodlands is a world-class community and much of this can be attributed to his vision, his leadership, his commitment, and his love of The Woodlands.”

PROCLAMATION CELEBRATING DEDICATION TO THE WOODLANDS

A Proclamation of the Board of Directors of The Woodlands Township of Montgomery

and Harris Counties, Texas, in honor of Joel L. Deretchin, for his leadership, dedication to community, commitment, wisdom and knowledge over the past 33 years.

WHEREAS, Joel L. Deretchin made a study of municipalities and turned it into a multifaceted lifelong career, working on seven planned communities before settling in The Woodlands in 1977, and;

WHEREAS, Joel L. Deretchin has been associated with The Woodlands Development Company and its predecessors for 33 years, and;

WHEREAS, Joel L. Deretchin has overseen the development of a community management and governance system which has grown from a population of 1,500 to more than 92,000 today, and;

WHEREAS, Joel L. Deretchin has been involved in every aspect of community development in The Woodlands, including governance, education, social and religious services, non-profit and philanthropic organizations and economic development, and;

WHEREAS, Joel L. Deretchin has dedicated countless hours as president and member of the boards of The Woodlands Community Association, The Woodlands Association, The Woodlands Commercial Owners Association, The Woodlands Community Service Corporation and The Woodlands Fire Department, and;

WHEREAS, Joel L. Deretchin has overseen the planning and development of the award-winning parks and recreation system in The Woodlands, and;

WHEREAS, Joel L. Deretchin has been involved in the planning and early development stages of 18 of the 19 Conroe ISD schools in The Woodlands, and helped found The University Center, The John Cooper School, The Academy for Lifelong Learning at Montgomery College and The Villager newspaper, and;

WHEREAS, Joel L. Deretchin K-6 School was named in his honor, and;

WHEREAS, Joel L. Deretchin has been a director and has chaired many non-profit boards including Interfaith of The Woodlands and Montgomery County Youth Services, and;

WHEREAS, Joel L. Deretchin has been named one of the original Hometown Heroes of The Woodlands, The Chamber’s Citizen of the Year in 1990, and a Paul Harris Fellow by The Woodlands Rotary Club, and;

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT PROCLAIMED, that the Board of Directors of The Woodlands Township of Montgomery and Harris Counties, Texas, commends Joel L. Deretchin for his countless contributions to the creation of a lasting foundation for The Woodlands community, thereby making The Woodlands one of the most emulated planned communities in the world, and now proclaims June 21, 2010 as Joel L. Deretchin Day in The Woodlands, Texas.

PASSED, APPROVED AND ADOPTED this, the 17^th day of June, 2010.

Nina Marino - next Chair of South Montgomery County Woodlands Chamber of Commerce

The South Montgomery County Woodlands Chamber of Commerce Chamber announced today that Nina Marino of Nina A. Marino, Your Texas Realtor/Keller Williams, has been named Chairman of The Chamber’s Board of Directors for the chamber's 2010-2011 fiscal year, which begins September 1st! She is currently The Chamber’s Vice President of Committed Volunteers.

Nina said, “I am very honored to serve the South Montgomery County Woodlands Chamber of Commerce as Chairman of the Board for 2010-2011.  I have been a part of The Chamber for so long that I cannot remember not being involved. This Chamber of Commerce is the best business tool in our Community. Building relationships in business, and in friendship, is a big part of being a Member. Working toward the same goal with other Chamber Members creates bonds that enable The Chamber to become bigger and better--and thereby creating strength in our Business Community. Over the past three years, I have worked closely with the Young Professionals of our Community and it has been very rewarding. My goal will be to move forward with our Young Professionals, bringing them closer to The Chamber Membership for the future.”

Nina is a Residential and Commercial Realtor in The Woodlands. She has her designation with GRI Certification and is a Certified Luxury Home Specialist, affiliated with Keller Williams Realty. She is a recognized and accomplished Business Leader and Business Owner in South Montgomery County. 

As Founder and previous Owner of RDI RateSavers for more than 15 years, Nina built her reputation and business by serving the Community. She is incredibly active in the Community and Leadership by serving on The Chamber’s Board for two 3-year terms, chairing and participating on numerous Chamber Teams over the past 20 years, and receiving Volunteer of the Year 2004-2005. 

She is the Immediate Past Chairman of the Board for Leadership Montgomery County and served five years on that Board; Partner and past Board Member of Economic Development Partnership (EDP); Member and past Board Member of Executive Woman’s Alliance (EWA); Member of the National, Texas and Houston Associations of Realtors; and two-time Past President of The Woodlands Lions Club. She also served as the Lions’ Representative for the Gift of Sight Program in The Woodlands for six years; she received Friend of Education acknowledgement from Conroe ISD’s Vogel Intermediate School. 

Nina’s lifelong passion is helping better the Business and Residential Community. A native Houstonian, she has lived in The Woodlands for more than 25 years, where she and her husband, Michael, raised their three children.

Rob Eisler

With an office in Montgomery, the heart of Montgomery County and a home and family in The Woodlands, Mr. Eisler is best known for his initiatives to change the educational standards and framework in Texas to a higher quality system. He has concluded that the system adopted for programming the system to pass standard tests has not produced the quality he believes is possible and desirable in our system. In fact, the current system has been detrimental to educating our children. He instead seeks an education for our children that goes back to the basics and prepares a child to enter the university system.

Two tiers of education are on his agenda - (1) university readiness and (2) work place readiness. The goal is to provide a ready graduate asset to business enterprise and develop stronger competitiveness for the children when compared to private schools, other states and international standards. School accountability is a means to help achieve his goals. He has sponsored several bills along this line and led a committee to achieve his goals. Rob Eisler, named as one of the top ten legislators in Texas in 2009, is seeking again to occupy his district 15 seat so that he can continue his campaign for our children, along with other programs to produce a better governed Texas. He has worked fervently to achieve his goals. One observer who went to Austin noted that Mr Eisler was supercharged to get things done even when the legislature was ending this past year. He was using every minute of time available to get things done, even at night.

Rob Eisler is also noted for his efforts to help The Woodlands through the conversion from an association directed government to a more formal tax-based township governing structure. This has given residents independence from the city of Houston and enabled total uninterrupted community services to residents. His efforts in the last two legislative sessions have been broad, not just focused on these two focal points of law.

Last year, he had an issue with the ethics committee of Texas. That incident and fine was regrettable. However, if you've seen the complications in reporting your financials to the government, it is easy to see that some things get out of balance in the fray of the workload. In my estimation, he could have done better with that issue, but he chose to stick to the legislative agenda rather than contest the issue at the time. He paid his fine and I am reasonably sure he has changed his methods of accounting. One has to be reasonably tolerant of such things for people so busy. Although fined, I am treating that incident as not a deliberate ethics issue and not very important in the larger picture. I do however believe in being straight forward and telling the public what happened and why. This is my own personal position on that matter.

More details can be found on this Woodlands resident on his legislative web page.
District 15 - Rob Eisler
and a brief profile on State Surge in addition to a list of links to sponsored and co-sponsored bills:
Rob Eisler Profile

His broad interests include his religious affiliation with the United Methodist Church, radio announcer for football games (TWHS), childrens sports, served on the board of CISD, and other activities.

Campaign website