Cody Makela, newly elected president of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation (SBTHP), has made family history. Cody and his father Craig Makela are the first father-son duo to both serve as president of the organization.
Cody Makela has been serving the SBTHP as a volunteer for the past decade and joined the Board of Directors in 2018. Throughout his tenure, he has chaired the audit, and development committees, as well as served as secretary and first vice president for the Board of Directors.
Cody has recently been elected as president of the Board of Directors, where he hopes to continue his family legacy in preserving Santa Barbara culture and history.
“It’s a real honor to serve as president of the trust, especially following in my dad’s footsteps,” Cody said.
“With deep family roots in Santa Barbara, I feel a strong responsibility to help preserve the places and stories that make this community so special, and to ensure they can be shared with future generations,” he said.
Professionally, Cody is a partner at Arlington Financial Advisors and Certified Financial Planner. He is an investment advisor for the Santa Barbara Trust Company.
He also serves as the board secretary with the Santa Barbara Trust Company, a newly formed local trust company.
Cody lives in Santa Barbara with his wife Patty and two daughters.
Craig Makela, who founded the Santa Barbara Olive Co. with his wife Cindy in 1982, has been an active member in the SBTHP since 2002.
He was named a lifetime director of the organization in 2022, and both Craig and Cindy have been honored as Los Distinguidos. They also founded Oleavicin, a botanical medicine company, in 2013.
The family has a long history in Santa Barbara. Craig and Cody are the eighth and ninth generations of their family to have connections to Santa Barbara.
Their ancestor Luis Quintero was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, but traveled to Santa Barbara with his family in the 1700s. Quintero worked as a tailor and was buried at the Santa Barbara Mission in 1810.
SBTHP is a nonprofit organization that protects and supports historic places in Santa Barbara, ensuring those spaces and their stories can be shared with generations to come.
The trust hosts the Presidio Research Center, as well as programs throughout the year that celebrate and honor Santa Barbara’s diverse heritage and history.
For more, visit sbthp.org, or call 805-965-0093.