The Comisión Delegada

I am from Chicago USA and after retiring, my wife Julie and I moved to Spain in September 2019. I am a licensed architect and a large part of my career focused on project management for governmental and higher education projects, where I managed the work of other architects. In the last decade of my career, I worked for the University of Chicago in various roles including Director of Design & Project Management and briefly as University Architect. My last assignment was Executive Project Director for building a new campus for University of Chicago in Hong Kong, where an important historical site was transformed into a modern university campus with a small museum that interprets the site’s history. I am a strong advocate for responsible architecture, environmental sustainability, and heritage preservation. In personal life, I have learned to appreciate the diversity of our world, and the need to respect and live harmoniously with nature.

I enjoy photography, gardening, travel, and learning about different cultures. I am not a sports fan, but I was on the university rowing team and hiking club. I want to learn to play tennis and petanque one day. I was born in Rangoon, Burma and I currently serve on the Board of Directors of an organization whose mission is to help preserve the traditional music and dance of Burma. As an amateur musician and blues music fan, I learned to play the blues in Chicago, the city known as the “home of the Blues”.

Julie and I chose Alfa-Mar as our home in 2015 because of the tranquility, beauty, and the friendliness of neighbors. Our two dogs sadly passed away in Chicago before we moved to Spain. We plan to welcome a dog into our family again one day, after completing our travels to far away destinations.

Hello. Allow me to introduce myself. Born in 1963 in Belgium, married later on to Wim Swaan, we had three kids together, a son and two daughters. In the meantime we also became the grandparents of 2 little girls.

After working several years as a secretary to a Managing Director in the automotive branch, I started teaching kids, for which I had obtained a license. Later on I advised teachers on how to practice inclusive teaching. Since my husband retired this year, I decided to join him and come more often to Alfa-Mar where we own a house for 4 years now. Knowing the neighborhood better each time, I got interested in wanting to participate into keeping Alfa-Mar a wonderful place to live. Hence my decision to join the Comisión Delegada.

In my spare time, I love to explore Andalusia, read and do some knitting. Of course, enjoying the nice sunny days here is on top of this list.

I have been an Alfa-Mar Homeowner since 2009, and I have been successfully self employed as a company director for over 30 years. I am the owner and director of 3 diverse and expanding companies; I also own several properties in the USA, UK and Spain. My background is construction-based and I have extensive experience in communication, management and support.

I have lived in a planned development community with a Home Owners’ Association (HOA) for many years and am currently the President of the Santo Tomas HOA in Rancho Mirage, California, USA. I have held this position for 3 years and served on the board of directors for 8 years, 3 of these as treasurer.

My reasons to volunteer for the Comisión Delegada of Urbanización Alfa-Mar are that I want to make a positive impact on the future of the community and on the values of our homes and investments. I also want to better understand the process of running the community and contribute to our beautiful development to improve the community as a whole for everybody, both full-time and part-time owners.

My name is Julie Dent and I was born in Keighley, West Yorkshire in England where I went to school until the age of 18 (one of my favorite subjects was Spanish).

Having graduated from Thames Valley University in West London with a degree in Business Studies with a focus on tourism, I spent the next few years working as a tour rep in Mallorca. I loved that job and I can definitely tell you some interesting stories!

Before retirement I gained almost 40 years of amazing experiences in the travel industry working in travel agency management, IT, consultancy, airline product management and marketing and program management. I worked with globally dispersed teams and was lucky enough to visit many countries visiting my customers and always taking a little extra time to take in the culture and sights of those locations.

While living in Chicago, I met my husband Gavin in 2002 and we got married in 2004! We had the opportunity to travel to some amazing destinations, which allowed us to find the perfect place to retire, which is Alfa-Mar. We almost came to Alfa-Mar with another family member, Morgan, our handsome Welsh Springer Spaniel, but sadly he passed away shortly before the trip.

We will be dog parents again in the future but not until we have ticked off some more destinations from our travel bucket list.

I am Louise Yourstone Tegborg from Stockholm, Sweden. I am married to Magnus Tegborg, and we bought our home (number 77) in Alfa-Mar five years ago. We have four daughters Mikaela, Johanna, Sara and Jenna who also like to spend time in our house in Alfa-Mar.

I run my own consulting business since I have many years of experience focusing on marketing, helping clients with digital communication. I have always enjoyed traveling but now we tend to travel mostly to Salobreña to enjoy the climate and beautiful Alfa-Mar, and visit our friends here. In the summer, we tend to stay in Sweden to spend time on our boat in the Stockholm archipelago.

Our household also consists of a cat, a dog and a horse. The horse and activities with and around the horse is a big interest of mine and takes up a large part of my free time, apart from spending time with family and friends, many times over a good glass of wine and a home cooked meal.

I am Carola Wittig and I am from Stuttgart. I am a widow, but together with Walter for more than 12 years, since 2015 we have shared house number 76 in Alfa-Mar. My two children Lena and Paul like to come here, as does Walter’s son Dominik, his daughters Michaela and Franziska, couples and now 4 grandchildren.

After studying law, I first worked as a lawyer and then entered the public service, first as a prosecutor and since 1999 as a judge. I handle civil and commercial cases.

Privately, I really enjoy spending time with my family and friends, and I am very happy for the many good friends we have made at Alfa-Mar. I am also passionate about road biking, I love the rides in our area and it is always a challenge to end up climbing the Alfa-Mar hill (sometimes I have to push the bike).

I still have a few years to work but I would like to spend as much time as possible in Alfa-Mar and hopefully improve my Spanish language skills.