HAY RIVER - Tracy Therrien describes herself as an organized person.

Tracy Therrien of Hay River runs her own business and is chair of NWT Tourism. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

She has turned that knack for organizing into Your Planner, a home-based business which co-ordinates events for various groups and organizations.

"I've always been organized," Therrien said. "I might procrastinate on occasion, but I am organized, and I work better under time constraints."

The work gets easier all the time, she said.

"Everything is in the preparation."

She started Your Planner about two years ago when she moved back to Hay River from Yellowknife to get married.

"I needed to create a job," she explained.

Therrien, 49, likes working in her own business.

"I really enjoy the independence," she said, adding her workday can go from four hours to 12 hours.

Her business's name evolved from the fact she has a common first name in Hay River. v"There are so many other Tracys in Hay River," she said, adding her husband and her friends would introduce her to other people as Tracy the planner.

Eventually, the business name became Your Planner.

Therrien's initial project with Your Planner was to co-ordinate the first Start Your Engines, a transportation and oil and gas show in Hay River.

"I still co-ordinate it. It's personally my favourite project," Therrien said, adding the next Start Your Engines is set for 2010.

Your Planner also organizes meetings and special events, such as last year's stop in Hay River by planes in an air rally.

Therrien also occasionally guides large groups visiting Hay River and conducts tourism training workshops.

Aside from running her own business, Therrien is chair of NWT Tourism, elected in November to a one-year term. She has been involved in NWT Tourism, which helps market all communities in the NWT, on and off for about 10 years.

"I take it very seriously," she said of her role with the association.

As the chair, she works to give NWT Tourism a view of the tourism industry from outside Yellowknife, she said.

"It's always good to bring that outside perspective."

In addition, Therrien is secretary with the Hay River Chamber of Commerce.

In the past, she has worked in several tourism-related businesses.

From the late 1990s to 2002, she was a travel agent with Mack Travel, first in Hay River and then in Yellowknife.

In that job, she became the exclusive marketing agent for The Norweta, a vessel that carried tourists up the Mackenzie River.

"That's what got me into tourism," she said, explaining she had to learn what was available in the North for tourists to see and experience.

It was a struggle to find that information before many tourism businesses had their own Internet sites, she said.

"It's so easy now with websites."

Afterwards she worked for several years at Yellowknife's Outcrop Communications, where she learned about marketing and conference planning.

At Outcrop, she co-ordinated conferences, trade shows and annual general meetings.

In all, Therrien has about 20 years of experience in tourism, travel and event planning.

Born in Saskatchewan and raised in Edmonton, she first came to Hay River in 1988 to work as a waitress to raise money for a trip to Greece.

She said that, like a lot of other Northerners, she ended up staying much longer than she originally anticipated, adding, "I haven't yet been to Greece."