CORTLAND, N.Y. — The Cortland County Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) announced that it has recently hired Meghan Lawton as its new executive director.
The organization is the “official” tourism-promotion agency for Cortland County and operates at 37 Church St. in Cortland.
Lawton is a 2003 graduate of Homer High School and a 2007 graduate of SUNY Cortland.
“We had several candidates for retiring executive director Jim Dempsey’s position,” Mary Coye-Robillard, president of the Cortland County CVB’s board of directors, said in a news release. “Meghan truly was the star applicant! She has a strong tourism background and she knows the market as her roots are Cortland. We are very excited she is on board. Meghan will no doubt be managing and guiding the promotion of Cortland County as a leading destination!” In addition to her role as Cortland County CVB board president, Coye-Robillard is also the assistant VP/branch manager at the Cortland office of Tompkins Trust Company.
Lawton joins the Cortland County CVB after spending the last two years as VP of marketing & public relations for Campground Owners of New York, which is headquartered in the Rochester area. Before that, Lawton spent more than five years as a VP of tourism and a tourist-promotion agent for the Wyoming County Chamber of Commerce & Tourism. Lawton and her husband, Tim, currently live in Warsaw in Wyoming County in Western New York. They plan to relocate to Cortland County.
“I am thrilled to be back in Cortland County, and eager to bring my [New York] tourism expertise to the CVB,” Lawton said in the release. “I am very much looking forward to re-experiencing all the things that made me fall in love with Cortland while I was growing up here, and learn about and explore all the new things that have popped up since I last lived here. I thank the board for its confidence and will work hard as a steward for the CVB, directing my full efforts to the growth, promotion and prosperity of Cortland County.”
Lawton officially started with the Cortland County CVB on July 16 and will be splitting her time between Cortland and her current residence in Warsaw for the summer as her family makes the transition to Cortland County.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
Photo credit: Cortland County Convention & Visitors Bureau
