Tracey Clark Jeffries, DBA
Hometown:
Florissant, Missouri
Connect: LinkedIn
Tracey is excited about all the opportunities her host community has – from growing small businesses to housing. She believes the community wants responsible growth and is ready for it! She hopes to achieve a strategic economic development plan that can serve as the blueprint for continued growth improving the quality of life for the people and businesses.
Tracey serves as a municipal advisor to multiple cities throughout the US providing strategic leadership and developing cultural initiative plans for economic development in rural and urban areas. Advising Mayors and Real Estate Developers in their project planning and identifying site opportunities. Served as an (SBA) resource counselor and advisor for technical assistance programming for over 10 years, she has mentored many small business development agencies in the creation of programming from small business initiatives and placed many small businesses in communities. Tracey continues to mentor women entrepreneurs, addressing economic inequity and racial barriers that continue to affect low-income communities.
Tracey served as the Strategic Planner for a regional planning initiative that sparked international highlights on the excessive police force and economic inequity in the region.
Some of her notoriety: Humanitarian Award from Webster University (Alumni), Top 50 Women Entrepreneurs (Inc Magazine ’15-’21), Top 100 St. Louisians, Top 50 Small Businesses, SBA White House of Public Engagement- Small Businesses, PWA, Top CEO.
ERC Project
Project Title:
Mexico Sustainability Project - Regional Economic Stability
Host Community or Region:
Missouri
Host Organization:
Audrain County, MO & Mexico Area Chamber of Commerce
When Mexico, Mo. noticed direct links to family instability, lack of children’s needs being met, and local employers increasingly without a dependable workforce, it became clear that these collective obstacles were rooted in poverty. To combat this, the Mexico Chamber of Commerce established the Mexico Sustainability Project (MSP) and in 2017 became a Bridges Out of Poverty (“Bridges”) community to employ this framework to save their community. The ERC Fellow will lead and support the Mexico Sustainability Project (MSP), a volunteer group that has already had measurable success. The fellow will play a crucial role in addressing economic challenges, contributing to a secure workforce, and collecting long-term data on program effectiveness. The goal is to monitor, evaluate, retain, and scale the program model regionally and beyond.
Interested in supporting this project or learning more? Contact the ERC program team here.
