Odell Names New Putnam Tourism Director

PUTNAM COUNTY, NY — Putnam County has created a department of tourism and County Executive MaryEllen Odell has named a director. The move comes in the wake of county officials' recent repudiation of the Visitors Bureau, set up in 2017 to deal with the scandals of the previous tourism effort.

Tracey Walsh, a lifelong Carmel resident, will be the new Putnam County Director of Tourism, County Executive MaryEllen Odell announced. The appointment was made a day after the Putnam County Legislature officially established the Department of Tourism at its Tuesday meeting, bringing responsibility for promoting the county in house. The vote was unanimous.

Odell said Walsh was selected from a large pool of applicants. She deep knowledge of the county and a clear vision for its potential, she said.

"Sometimes the perfect person is someone close to home," Odell said. "Tracey Walsh is smart, fast-thinking and goal-oriented. No one knows our communities better. We are looking forward to getting the word out about all the good things there are to see and do in Putnam County."

A Syracuse University graduate, Walsh comes to the county from a job as Senior Community Development Manager for The American Cancer Society.

She named assets she wants to leverage – five Metro-North stops, unique shops and restaurants, active community arts groups – to lure day-trippers and more to Putnam.

“I’m very local and very proud,” Walsh said. “This county is a gem. Tilly Foster Farm is a jewel. The Great Swamp is a birder’s paradise. Cold Spring offers a vibrant Main Street. From hiking to history, there is just so much here.”

During her tenure at The American Cancer Society, where she worked for nearly a decade after starting as a volunteer, Walsh helped organize Relay for Life events in several communities and worked with stakeholders from one end of the county to the other. She retired from the Cancer society to take the tourism director position, county officials said.

“There wasn’t much that could get me to leave the American Cancer Society, but the opportunity to showcase the county I love was too good to pass up,” Walsh said. “This is my dream job.”

Her salary will be $80,000.

The tourism program receives about a quarter-million dollars annually in state and county money and chooses projects and events to support.

The new department will be funded with that combination of county funds and a matching grant from the state’s I Love NY campaign — the same budget amount that had been allotted Putnam’s now defunct non-profit tourism agency. The Legislature transferred the money with a second unanimous vote Tuesday night.

“I’m glad we did this in the nick of time,” said Legislator Amy E. Sayegh, chair of the Economic
Development Committee. “August is the cutoff date to receive the matching grant from the I Love NY Campaign.”

Walsh is already working on a local event. The 40th Reunion of her Carmel High School graduating class will be held in the Barn at Tilly Foster Farm.

“We can do better at tourism and I think we will,” Legislative Chair Joseph Castellano said in a press release. “It will be better to have a Putnam County employee that will be able to attend our meetings and listen to our concerns and hopefully we can point this person in the right direction for the people of Putnam County.”

The saga goes back to at least 2012, when Odell appointed Libby Pataki as Putnam's tourism director. Pataki resigned in 2016 after the state attorney general started looking into the Putnam County Visitors' Bureau and the Putnam Tourism Corp. she had quietly formed. Both were paying her, and neither had a required board of directors.

A new nonprofit Visitor's Bureau was formed to clean up the operation and a new director, Bruce Conklin, was hired in 2017. But within a year, issues of oversight and control reared their heads again.

After some contentious meetings and negotiations, the county began advertising this spring for a new tourism director. That came as a surprise to the Visitors Bureau's board and its director (whose office is down the hall from the county executive). Bureau chairman Kevin Callahan said seeing the ad in the local papers was the first notice they had that county officials were trying to oust Conklin and dissolve the board. The Visitor's Bureau deleted its website, cleaned out the office and decamped.

SEE: New Director Next Step In Putnam Tourism In-Fighting