Executive Director of Visit Fairmont Stephanie Busiahn sits behind her current desk. Busiahn has accepted a position as Director of CER.
FAIRMONT– Executive Director of Visit Fairmont Stephanie Busiahn has accepted a new position as the director of Fairmont’s Community Education and Research after 15 years as Executive Director of Visit Fairmont.
Busiahn started her position as the Executive Director right after college with little background, experience or knowledge of the Fairmont community. Busiahn said that at the time she had no interest in staying for 15 years and thought it was a three-to-five-year process and that she would build that experience, but noted that life happens.
“This community does a really good job of getting its hooks into you, really wrapping their arms around you and embracing who you are, your strengths and how can better this community,” Busiahn said. “Honestly starting a family, it was like, there was no other place we’d rather be than here. Which made me over the years think, second guess and pass up opportunities, because we’re happy here.”
Some of Busiahn’s favorite memories include memories with former President of the Chamber of Commerce in Bob Wallace and the people she has been able to interact with over the years as well.
Ned Koppen, President of the Chamber of Commerce, said that Busiahn was a good mentor to him when he took over the job 2.5 years ago. Executive Director of the Fairmont Opera House Blake Potthoff said he could never put a value on the partnership he has gotten through Busiahn and Visit Fairmont and felt welcomed by Busiahn as she always greets him with a smile and asks how he is doing.
Jason Subbert, General Manager of TPI Hospitality has lived here his whole career and has worked in the hotel business in nine states including 56 hotels and has met a lot of tourism offices. The one thing he thought Busiahn did a really good job of is making a good presentation for outsiders to come to Fairmont and always leaving people wanting a little bit more.
“I think Stephanie’s ability to be able to collaborate with other groups outside of her own board and outside of her own city, but to use that to be able to overlay is a very uncommon thing,” Subbert said.
Koppen said that Busiahn left a solid framework and organization that’s in place because of all of her work. Koppen hopes that they can find somebody that can step in and learn on the job, pick that up and carry it forward quickly. For Busiahn she reflected on what the last 15 years have been developmental to the city of Fairmont. When she first started there was not a Walmart Supercenter, two ethanol plants and there wasn’t as much focus on the five lakes as there is now.
Potthoff and Subbert had similar thoughts that Busiahn’s framework, network and work has put her successor in a successful spot.
“Compared to when Step got here is also another example of what she;s leaving compared to what she got with and that is the body of work,” Subbert said. “From point a to point z, there’s been a lot of steps along the way, however, she has set the next person to be very successful and not start at point a.”
Busiahn wanted to tell the readers and community that the message shouldn’t be just about her and that it’s about the work that she has been able to do.
“There’s nothing special about me,” Busiahn said. “It’s the community, the people we have in place, our partners and our collaborators that have given me the opportunity to do some pretty cool things over the last 15 years.”
She went on to say that tourism is not dead, people should support tourism and do what they can to continue that growth in tourism that brings money to our community and it makes everyone better.
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May 29, 2021 at 01:03PM
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Busiahn ready to lead CER | News, Sports, Jobs - Fairmont Sentinel
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