Every week we will throw the spotlight on several nominees for Hometown Heroes 2020. Be sure to nominate your heroes before 3pm PT, Monday, November 23, 2020. NOMINATE

Nominee: Creedence Shaw

Creedence Shaw has been a volunteer for the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's office Search & Rescue for over 8 years. He has helped find a countless number of individuals who have gotten lost in the woods, often searching overnight and into the wee hours. Creedence's experience came in handy during the recent wildfires. He helped create evacuation plans and maps for the Sheriff to make it accessible to teams during the wildfires. He volunteered for successive days, working long hours and going home to rest only when too tired to continue.  In his "normal life" Creedence serves as Chief Credit Officer of Santa Cruz County Bank.  Creedence was instrumental in leading the Bank's effort and quickly building a team to help process loans and ultimately saving 36,000 jobs through Paycheck Protection Program loans - again, working night and day until the Government funds ran out. Creedence worked on the front end to proactively ensure applications could be received through the Bank's website. This required a weekend of work to start and Creedence's positivity and commitment remained 100% throughout the course of a long and winding road of unclear information and uncertainty that remains to this day (on the loan forgiveness side).  Creedence also somehow found the time to connect with others for the benefit of the entire community - working with the SBDC, City of Santa Cruz, County Economic Development, Community Foundation and other financial institutions who were interested in gaining knowledge to help local businesses through the CARES ACT PPP Loans. 

Smith Grade Bald Mountain Fire Crew, Bonny Doon

This group of brave men and women, ages 17 to 78, saved every home on Smith Grade and kept the CZU Complex fire from burning to the ocean. Using heavy equipment and sometimes just shovels, they fought for two weeks and saved our neighborhood and multiple others nearby. Everyone, from the people who brought in supplies to the World Central Kitchen and several local women who cooked for the crew to the other local brigades who defended fire lines nearby, made a huge community difference to fight the fire and prove that working together with a common goal for the good of everyone, paired with weather luck, made all the difference in saving our slice of heaven. A short list of heroes include: John Lingemann, Aaron Lingemann, Justin Robinson, Joshua Hoag, Tom Robinson, Karl Bareis, and Frans Lanting.