Erika Quesenberry, ex Cecil Co. Aide and Port Administrator, Gets Havre de Grace Job Commissh Broomell Lost
Erika Quesenberry, a former Cecil County economic development official and town administrator for Port Deposit, was appointed Saturday as manager of the Havre de Grace “Main Street” economic and business development program in Harford County. She replaces Cecil County Commissioner Diana Broomell (R-4), who was forced out of the job several months ago.
Posting on Facebook, the Main Street organization announced the selection of the new manager, saying, “Erika comes to us offering vast experience in grant writing, fundraising, historian, economic development, curator and author. We are very excited…”
Quesenberry updated her Facebook page to reflect her new employment Saturday afternoon and posted on the Main Street group’s Facebook wall that she was “thrilled and excited over this tremendous opportunity.” She said she spent Saturday meeting many of the merchants in downtown Havre de Grace, whose businesses she will be promoting in her new position, after she had her final interview for the job. The executive committee of the group formally offered her the job on Saturday.
“I’m really looking forward to this,” she told Cecil Times in an interview Sunday. She said she had researched the Main Street program through conferences of the Maryland Municipal League and believes it is an important initiative to promote local economic development, tourism and history in Havre de Grace.
Those three aspects of the job, which she will begin July 18, bring together Quesenberry’s skills acquired during previous, and ongoing, endeavors. She served for several years as the marketing director for the Cecil County Department of Economic Development, and was involved with efforts to attract military families being transferred to the Aberdeen Proving Ground from New Jersey as part of the federal BRAC military re-organization.
She is also a longtime local historian and previously directed the local museum in Port Deposit. She became the town’s administrator in February but resigned that post, effective Friday. She had previously left the economic development office when it was threatened with major cutbacks as part of this year’s county commissioners’ budget process.
Quesenberry will be working an extended part-time schedule, 32 hours a week, in her new position, which is a homecoming of sorts since she was raised in Fallston and worked at a local radio station in Havre de Grace in the past.
She will assume the Main Street manger position relinquished by Cecil County Commissioner Broomell, who was ousted from the job by the group’s executive committee this spring. (See previous Cecil Times report here:
http://ceciltimes.com/2011/04/cecil-county-commissioner-broomell-forced-out-of-harford-county-job/
(County Commissioners are considered to work a part-time job for the taxpayers and are permitted to have outside, private employment.)
When she is not working in her new Havre de Grace job, Quesenberry said she would pursue some of her historical writing interests with two books she is working on. One is a history of the Town of Port Deposit, which will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2013, and the other is collaboration with a 97-year old New York artist who is the last surviving member of the old Disney studios animation staff who worked on Bambi and other classic productions.
