By Valerie Milano
Hollywood, CA (The Hollywood Times) 6/8/23 – With an impressive background in Hospitality and Placement Management, President and CEO of the Hollywood Partnership Kathleen Rawson and team work tirelessly to ensure the public of Hollywood remains electric, engaging, safe, and comfortable for its residents.
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Kathleen illustrates, “Our work is designed to supplement base-level city services in terms of cleanliness, hospitality, and safety. In addition, we do economic development, overall public space management, and public space revitalization in the Hollywood area; the Partnership has 80 blocks in the Hollywood Entertainment District.”
A public service aficionado, Rawson has been responsible for promoting and fostering some of the notable communities in the southland. She describes, “When I moved to Los Angeles in 1988, I started working in Santa Monica at different hotels for about 4-5 years, and then I started working for the Convention and Visitors Bureau. I loved that work because it was promoting a community as a whole, versus 1 individual property; that is where the bug got in me about doing work that is of community benefit. The job in downtown Santa Monica came up and at the time leadership said, ‘Well, we have built the Promenade, all we have to do is market it.’ they saw me as a Marketing person, and that’s how I landed that gig. I fostered that downtown area in collaboration with the city, board, and the property owners into a world-renowned destination following the capital infrastructure that the city put in, in 1989.”
Now you can find Rawson and team doing community-driven work in Hollywood, such as creating a 100% free LA Pride event called the Pride Village Street Festival! The CEO recalls, “Historically, the challenge is while the pride parade is free, open to the public, and welcomes everyone, for all the other activities, you have to have a wristband that costs between $20-$50 to get in. One of the things that [The Hollywood Partnership] wanted to do was really make sure that pride was open to everyone, so we created Pride Village. It’s 100% free to anyone that wants to come, there’s no age limit, and there are no barriers to entry- other than being a decent human being. There is just nothing like seeing Hollywood Blvd closed down and 30,000 people dancing in the street; it’s magical!”
While pride is a huge annual event in Hollywood that the partnership is involved in, there are many projects that THP is part of in the Hollywood community. Rawson reveals, “On a day-to-day basis, our organization is out on the streets cleaning and trimming trees. We are very engaged in how to make Hollywood better, and how to force the city to do their part so the work that we do can go further.”
Please visit Thehollywoodpartnership.com for more information on the historical work Kathleen and team are doing for our Hollywood community!
Happy Pride!
