![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Marian-Aldan-Pierce-mug-300x257.jpg\")
Aldan-Pierce pointed out that the MVA board is made up of the tourism industry\u2019s top executives, and that they have the responsibility to ensure that Iakopo\u2019s transition to MVA is smooth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ask the public\u2019s support and indulgence during this time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Iakopo started work as MVA\u2019s managing director last Monday. <\/p>\n
Iakopo said she has many plans ahead and that she will continue to work with the MVA team to promote tourism and embrace what they have to offer.<\/p>\n
As to concerns of some people that she has no tourism business background, Iakopo said she is a driven person.<\/p>\n
Iakopo used to serve as interim chief financial officer at the Commonwealth Health Care Corp. She last served as a director of CHCC\u2019s procurement and supply.<\/p>\n
Iakopo\u2019s predecessor, Christopher Attao Concepcion, will be working with the Torres administration under the planning and development office. Concepcion resigned as managing director last March 12.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Aldan-Pierce shared her observation on Taste of the Marianas, an annual MVA event held every Saturday for the tourism month of May.<\/p>\n
Aldan-Pierce said last Saturday\u2019s rain cooled the Taste of the Marianas venue at the American Memorial Park, which was a welcome change from what she had heard during the first two Saturdays of the event.<\/p>\n
She said a new layout also made it seems bigger this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have broken previous years\u2019 revenues. It\u2019s a great family event,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Aldan-Pierce said Saturday night\u2019s J\u2019s Fried Rice Competition was also amazing.<\/p>\n
She said Sachiyo Masubuchi, the reigning champion from last year\u2019s fried chicken contest, was \u201cawe-inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aldan-Pierce said Masubuchi did not stop moving once the clock started\u2014hand to mouth with rice or water\u2014for 30 minutes and managed to consume over 6 lbs of rice.<\/p>\n
\u201cKudos to the local competitors for joining! The MVA staff and management deserve a huge credit for always putting on such great community events,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While acknowledging that new Marianas Visitors Authority managing director Priscilla Maratita Iakopo lacks experience in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":299826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-299824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-mva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}