Tracy Verrier never thought she would stay put in one place for a long time. Calling back to her days in undergrad and graduate school, the economic developer by trade said that she never expected to find a community or region that sparked her passion quite like Central New York.
Tracy VerrierShe serves as executive director for both the Cayuga County Chamber of Commerce, as well as Cayuga Economic Development Agency. Verrier has been in that capacity since 2018, and can now add navigating a pandemic to the list of experiences she’s gained in that time. But choosing the Finger Lakes and Central New York to plant roots wasn’t as much an intentional choice, as it was something that simply happened.
Like so many of the innovators and change-makers in this region it all started with a chance encounter. A friend brought her to Cayuga County for dinner and a show at the Auburn Public Theater. “I went to school in Syracuse, had lived in Virginia, and New Jersey — I was a bit of a nomad — moved every two or three years from the time I was 16,” Verrier recalled. She accepted a job in June 2013 as an economic development specialist for CEDA.
This article posted in partnership with Locate Finger Lakes, a Finger Lakes economic development initiative designed to assist and foster collaboration among the established Finger Lakes economic development efforts with targeted, proactive, marketing communications and networking.
Josh is the president and publisher of FingerLakes1.com. Have a question? Send them to [email protected].