Quick Take
Hired in 2023 to lead the Santa Cruz County Fair, CEO Zeke Fraser announced Friday that he is leaving as of Feb. 2 for medical reasons.
Zeke Fraser, hired in 2023 as the chief executive officer of the Santa Cruz County Fair, has resigned from his position, effective Feb. 2.
Fraser announced in a news release Friday that he is leaving the fair for medical reasons. “I must step down to focus on my health,” he said in the release.
In his short tenure at the fair, Fraser brought a degree of stability to an organization embroiled in controversy that followed the abrupt firing of longtime CEO Dave Kegebein in the fall of 2022. Kegebein’s dismissal led to the resignation of several board members and the installation of two interim CEOs before Fraser was hired in the summer of 2023.
Fraser came to the county fair not as a veteran hand in running similar fairs, but as a longtime local with experience in management, finance and logistics in other fields. According to the resignation announcement, the 2024 fair produced record-breaking attendance and “achieved its most profitable Fair to date.”
The fair’s board of directors will initiate a search for a new CEO in the coming weeks.
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