Workin It (Part 1) 2009
President and CEO, RainbowVision
Joy Silver asked the question: “What will happen to us when we age, or are in need of help, and who will provide those services particularly since some of us have alternative family structures?” She answered by founding RainbowVision Santa Fe, an adult community with condos, rentals and assisted living, now in its third year, where the LGBTQI & A population lives in the majority. With a fitness center, salon, restaurant, cabaret, and an event space, RainbowVision has become “the de facto community center for the Santa Fe LGBTQI+A,” according to Silver, hosting a wide range of ages and sexual identification at its many events. “Living through the AIDS crisis taught us that care through the end of life–medical and mental health challenges – may not necessarily be related to becoming elderly. The benefits that RainbowVision provides to our community are that there is now a place, and options for us that have never existed before.” – KW
The first 18 of 2009’s Red Hot Entrepreneurs!
Mariah Hanson
Owner, MT Productions, Inc.
Each year, thousands of lesbians head to the desert to one of Mariah Hanson’s parties. Hanson has been throwing parties since college. “I was an English lit major and took it seriously, but dang if I didn’t have a knack for throwing great campus parties. They were scandalous and of course I broke every rule and got in lots of trouble!” she admits. In 1989, Hanson debuted Club Skirts as a Sunday night dance club for San Francisco/Bay Area women. Since then, Hanson has produced hundreds of events, a cruise, vacations, and The Monterey Women’s Weekend. Her company, MT Productions, Inc. most notably produces The Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend, which she first produced solo in 1991. “Each year, I approach the Dinah thinking, ‘How do I outdo last year and create the most exciting event imaginable for women, and then I do it’,” Hanson said of her strategy for the world’s largest lesbian party. – KW
