Cuba Familiarization (FAM) Visit
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I bring a Cuba FAM visit to you - 20 minutes about myself, the historical context of the US/Cuba relationship from Columbus to present and the current political and economic state of the island as it applies to your interests. Then I can build a proposal to bring you to Cuba on a FAM visit.
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Cuba Familiarization (FAM) Visit
- 1. US/Cuba Familiarization Visit Ryan Stimmel, Owner/Operator at goodtrip, Inc.
- 2. Who am I? What is goodtrip? Why Cuba? Ryan Stimmel, Founder at goodtrip, Inc. HEB and Guatemala City Rotaries and Santiago Relief Fund Founding Partner at Southern Star Travel Cuba Expert
- 3. A brief history of the US/Cuba relationship 1492 to 1902 - Columbus to Roosevelt Columbus visits Cuba and Spain builds settlements and fortresses throughout. In 1868 Céspedes freed his slaves and declared independence from Spain. In 1898 USS Maine sinks in Havana Bay and Roosevelt leads Rough Riders into Santiago. 1902 to 1959 - The American Interest Period Teller and Platt Amendments set course of US/Cuba relationship and establish GTMO. The US grows to dominate the Cuban economy and heavily influence its culture. In 1944 Batista takes control of the government through a US backed military coup. 1953 to 2007 - The Cuban Revolution and US Response
- 4. Cuban Enterprise Familiarization (FAM) Visit Nature abhors a vacuum The entrepreneurial spirit of 11 million people has been bottled up for 50+ years. The wall around Cuba is coming down. An educated, healthy workforce and nascent middle class will join the rest of the world. China and Russia seek to gain influence but Cuba wants to partner with US Asian powers try but fail to court Cuba. Cuba aligns culturally with the Western Hemisphere. Many American business have already made inroads into the Cuban market.
- 5. Thanks and Safe Travels!
- 6. Thanks and Safe Travels!
- 7. Thanks and Safe Travels!
- 8. Thanks and Safe Travels!
- 9. Thanks and Safe Travels!
- 10. Thanks and Safe Travels!
- 11. Thanks and Safe Travels!
- 12. Thanks and Safe Travels!
- 13. Thanks and Safe Travels!
Editor's Notes
- My name is Ryan Stimmel. I’m Bill Stimmel’s son. I grew up here in the HEB area. Attended high school at L.D.Bell then university at Texas A&M. After that my life took an unconventional turn. After graduating college I went to Guatemala to become fluent in Spanish. While I was there I survived the flooding and mudslides that Hurricane Stan caused in late 2005. I stayed in Guate after most of the other tourists left and joined the relief effort. I established the SRF to give the children of Santiago a place to go - a one-room schoolhouse where they could play and learn - when they weren’t in school so they wouldn’t have to spend any more time than necessary in their depressing and dangerous tarp and tin shelters. I stood in front of you over 10 years ago talking about that organization and won a matching grant with this club and the one in Guatemala City to help sustain my efforts there. That organization lasted for 4 years, served 35-50 children for 4 hours a day for 6 days a week. I employed 4 Guatemalans and fed over $26,000 into the local community. We did a little good for a few children for a short time and, when the Guatemalan government finally relocated and rebuilt the affected communities I closed the doors at La Escuelita and folded all the non-consumable materials into a similar project for children’s education called ‘La Puerta Abierta’ children’s library that still operates today. For the last three years I’ve been operating an international travel agency and tourism operator focused almost entirely on bringing groups of Americans to Cuba on educational and cultural exchange trips. I have spent over 150 days in Cuba. I’ve brought over 100 clients there. I personally led several of those groups. I’ve traveled throughout 13 of the 15 Cuban provinces. Hiked through their mountain ranges, dove of their coasts and cycled through their streets. I have figured out the maddeningly difficult and ever changing processes, on both sides of the Gulf, involved in doing business as an American in Cuba. I’ve visited the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC and the US Embassy in Havana. I am connected at high levels with private Cuban enterprise - for example I’ve made connections between my clients and the founders of the most successful restaurant, biggest construction company and an accounting firm that the largest Cuban governmental institutions has come to rely upon. I’m also connected at high levels within Cuban academia - specifically in the colleges of economics, tourism science and ecology at the University of Havana and the Cuban Art Institute. I’m fluent in Spanish and, not just Spanish but Cuban Spanish, which is almost a language of its own. I’m not the best self-promoter. It’s a little embarrassing because my dad taught me humility but he also taught me to work hard and if I’m going to leverage my hard work developing my experience, connections and skills in Cuba then I need to be seen as an expert so that, and to orientate you to the political and economic environments of Cuba, is why I’m here.
- Columbus to Roosevelt Cuba was a stop on Columbus’s 1st voyage in 1492 and by 1511 Spain had established a permanent settlement. Spain continued to establish settlements all over the island and fortified them leaving an architectural legacy of colonial cities and fortresses unparalleled in The Americas. Cuba was key to Spain’s presence in the America’s and almost every Spanish galleon stopped in Cuba coming from or going to The New World The 1st Cuban independence movement began in 1868 and continued when Cespedes freed his slaves and declared independence from Spain. The colonial revolution continued, with a few gaps, until the turn of the century producing folk heroes like Jose Marti, Antonio Maceo and Maximo Gomez. The US stepped into the 30 year old conflict and declared war against Spain in 1898. The Spanish American War began roughly with the sinking of the USS Maine in the Bay of Havana and ended with Roosevelt and his Rough Riders fighting land battles in the areas of Santiago and Guantanamo. The war lasted only 10 weeks. The American Interest Period The Teller and Platt Amendments were added to the US declaration of war against Spain and would act as boundaries for American actions and attitudes towards Cuba. The former disavowed any intention of exercising "sovereignty, jurisdiction or control" over Cuba but the latter would allow the United States to intervene in Cuban affairs, if needed, for the maintenance of good government (and military intervention was needed for those purposes several times during the American Interest Period). The amendments also committed Cuba to lease to the U.S. land for naval bases (Guantanamo Bay). Over half a century the US had generally good relations with Cuban government administrations, though some of those administrators assumed and maintained power in ways from frowned upon to outright illegal as described by American laws and constitutionality. The US grew to dominate the Cuban economy and heavily influence Cuban culture at about the same time that General Fulgencio Batista rose to power in the 1930s. During his legitimate first term (1940-44) he was a populist president, the first ever of mixed ethnicity in Cuba, he did a good deal to advance the cause of civil rights and workers’ rights. Batista returned to power in 1952 by staging a military coupe and cancelling the democratic elections that he was running in but looked to be losing. His regime turned dictatorial and was marked by violent oppression and corruption. The Cuban Revolution and Response 1953 Fidel and Raul lead 165 men on the failed assault at Moncada Barracks in Santiago. Fidel and most of his forces were captured and Castro, trained as an attorney, defended them. His defense was successful in embarrassing the government guilty of torturing their prisoners and he won prison terms for himself and his men instead of death sentences for treason. In 1954 Batista held a presidential election where he won unopposed, was widely criticized by the rest of the world and freed Fidel and his men from prison hoping for positive publicity. The former prisoners quickly resumed their anti-Batista activities and had to flee to Mexico to avoid recapture. 82 men returned to Cuba on the Granma in ‘56 and all but 19 were killed or captured within three days of landing but Fidel and Raúl Castro survived as did Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos. Once The Revolution established itself in the Sierra Maestra Mountains their message of hope and freedom from oppression largely won out over Batista’s style of rule through fear and violence though some key military victories, especially by Guevara were instrumental as was abandonment of Batista by the US who could no longer tolerate his extreme methods of staying in power. Castros forces entered into Havana in January of 1959 and he took over control of the government in February. On December 2nd of 1956 They ran aground in mangrove swamps near the Southeast tip of the island and within 3 days all but 19 were killed or captured. However the Revolution now had a foothold in the Sierra Maestra Mountains where they began to spread their message by radio. Over the next three years the Revolution grew largely through the strength of its message and against the brutality of the Batista Regime until in 1958 when the US, fed up with the violence and illegitimacy of Batista’s hold on power blocked arms shipments to his army. At the very end of that year Batista fled and at the very beginning of the next Castro marched into Havana. Fidel Castro alienates the US by appropriating billions in foreign held property and Eisenhower responds with the Cuban Embargo. In 1961 Kennedy launches the Bay of Pigs Invasion, which fails boosting Fidel’s popularity with the Cuban people and driving Cuba closer to Russia and, setting the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Castro felt used by the Russians during the Crisis and was upset that he was neither included in the negotiating between Kennedy and Khrushchev nor was his main complaint - continued US occupation at GTMO - raised. All the same the USSR both protected Cuba from US invasion and propped up their economy throughout the 60s and 70s, mainly by subsidizing their energy consumption. In 1989 the collapse of the USSR triggered a great depression in Cuba called The Special Period in which their government’s food subsidy dropped from an ample 3000 calories daily to around 1900 a day. Cubans today still tell stories of extreme hardship during the 90s until the trend is reversed by a combination of the rise of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and that state taking the USSR’s place in subsidizing Cuba’s energy needs as well as Fidel Castro opening Cuba up to limited tourism. Thaw and Retrenchment After years of seclusion and poor health Fidel passed power to his brother Raul Castro in 2008. Raul almost immediately begins making changes to 1) allow Cubans to purchase and use computers and cell phones previously banned under Fidel as well as moving some of the agrarian economy away from the state and into the private sector. In 2013 Raul was elected as president for a full 5 year term and on the same day announced that he would step down at the end of said term (2018). In late 2014 both Presidents Castro and Obama made separate announcements that our two nations would begin normalizing relations by opening embassies in each others’ countries. At that time Obama relaxed the US DoT’s OFAC policies on American businesses (specifically telecommunications, information technology and hospitality) to do business with the island nation as well as relaxing travel restrictions. The embassies opened in Havana and Washington DC in July of 2015. In March of 2016 President Obama made the first visit to Cuba by a US president in 88 years. In April the first cruise ship leaving from a US port arrived and in September the first direct commercial flights started running. The last thing Obama did before leaving office was to remove the Wet Feet Dry Feet provision of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966. We are now in a new era of US/Cuba relations marked by the Trump Retrenchment Speech delivered to a group of Cuban exiles in Miami on June 16th, 2017. Two policy revisions are set to result from our current administration’s new direction. Trump’s speech triggered a 30 day countdown to begin a review of OFAC policy. It appears that this review began on July 25th with the release of an updated OFAC Cuba FAQ. The review is expected to last for months, unlikely to finish before September, 2017, and will result in: The suspension of the issuance of individual licenses for people to people travel A list of Cuban entities with which US travel agencies and tourism operators can no longer contract for services Trump gave 4 conditions that Cuba will have to live up to before he acts to loosen the embargo: Hold free and open democratic elections Move more of the Cuban economy into the private sector Enter into an extradition treaty with the US Release political prisoners and allow for greater freedom of political expression by the Cuban people
- The Cuban people and their economy have been kept in a bell jar for over half a century. In the media you’ll see this spelled out in tropes like ‘Cuba as time capsule’ and ‘Visiting Cuba is like going back in time.’ But, while the current US administration has set the process back slightly, the wall around Cuba is coming down and the modern, globalized world is beginning to flood in. Cuba is a nation of 11 million people and, for all the evils and heavy-handed control of their political and economic systems, it cannot be argued that these same systems have produced a highly educated workforce and keep them healthy and, as more Cubans gain access to the tourism sector a middle class with disposable income is beginning to form. Historically Russia and recently China have been trying to make inroads into the Cuban government and economy but the Cuban government does not trust Russia and the Cuban people don’t relate to Chinese culture. Amazingly, there is no animosity from the average Cuban towards Americans. Instead, I’ve heard the sentiment best expressed as the American people and the Cuban people being two children of estranged parents - they don’t completely understand why their parents are fighting, they just want to be reunited with their siblings. And, American businesses are eager to make connections in Cuba. Telecommunications companies like Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile have begun to provide services to their American customers in Cuba. Google is about to break ground on a server farm on the island. Sheraton hotel group is managing two hotels in Havana and Airbnb has been experiencing faster growth in any other market throughout that company’s history (over 4000 rooms in Cuba, 2000 of which are in Havana). Most US based commercial airlines have routes to several cities on the island and several US cruise companies now offer packages to Cuba. Agricultural trade associations, port authorities and governors (especially those from the reliably conservative gulf states) have all been lobbying for greater access to the Cuban market. There is even a bank in Florida that has found a way to make their US debit card work in the Cuban ATMs. One of the services that I provide through goodtrip, Inc. is something called a familiarization visit. In the past I’ve done this with academic partners who send a few faculty and staff to Cuba to get to know the people and places and to scout the organizational environment with the goal of identifying a few potential projects with a few potential partner organizations. What this looks like in practice is a hybrid trip wherein the group splits their time between more touristy feeling (though always in compliance with OFAC regulations for legal travel to Cuba) activities and meetings with representatives of organizations and visits to the sites of any projects that fall in line with my clients’ interests. For example the Grapevine Rotary Club has done one such visit during which a project of providing wheelchairs to the Cuban people was thought up and a partner agency was identified. Grapevine Rotary is now working with a Canadian producer to get those chairs to the people in Cuba who need them.
- I hope you have enjoyed my presentation, that I didn’t go on too long and, that you learned something. Thank you very much for your time and attention and I’ll be glad to answer any and all of your questions as best I can.
- I hope you have enjoyed my presentation, that I didn’t go on too long and, that you learned something. Thank you very much for your time and attention and I’ll be glad to answer any and all of your questions as best I can.
- I hope you have enjoyed my presentation, that I didn’t go on too long and, that you learned something. Thank you very much for your time and attention and I’ll be glad to answer any and all of your questions as best I can.
- I hope you have enjoyed my presentation, that I didn’t go on too long and, that you learned something. Thank you very much for your time and attention and I’ll be glad to answer any and all of your questions as best I can.
- I hope you have enjoyed my presentation, that I didn’t go on too long and, that you learned something. Thank you very much for your time and attention and I’ll be glad to answer any and all of your questions as best I can.
- I hope you have enjoyed my presentation, that I didn’t go on too long and, that you learned something. Thank you very much for your time and attention and I’ll be glad to answer any and all of your questions as best I can.
- I hope you have enjoyed my presentation, that I didn’t go on too long and, that you learned something. Thank you very much for your time and attention and I’ll be glad to answer any and all of your questions as best I can.
- I hope you have enjoyed my presentation, that I didn’t go on too long and, that you learned something. Thank you very much for your time and attention and I’ll be glad to answer any and all of your questions as best I can.
- I hope you have enjoyed my presentation, that I didn’t go on too long and, that you learned something. Thank you very much for your time and attention and I’ll be glad to answer any and all of your questions as best I can.