By Brook Stockberger/ Sun-News Business Editor

LAS CRUCES — Louise LeClaire has been in town since December and she loves talking about the reason she came to southern New Mexico: the Las Cruces Convention Center.
Still, she is amazed and happy at the excitement level she encounters.

"I attend events and people constantly come up and say, 'Tell me about the center,'" said LeClaire, who is director of sales and marketing for the facility. "I'm trying to eat and my food is getting cold. But that's OK, I like talking about it."

LeClaire works for Philadelphia-based Global Spectrum, the company that has been hired to operate the convention center. She worked for the company for the past eight years in Clearwater, Fla., only to see the event center there close. So in October she flew to southern New Mexico to get a feel for Las Cruces and she made the move a couple of months later.

The change in scenery from a Florida beach town to the Chihuahuan Desert was stark, but as a native and resident of the Appalachian climes of southwest Pennsylvania and also West Virginia, she felt a connection to the mountains, something she missed in the Sunshine State.

"I love the mountains," she said. And, as so many newcomers have said through the years, the people of southern New Mexico made a positive impression as well.
"People are so excited and happy we're here," she said.

LeClaire said she works closely with the Convention and Visitors Bureau and New Mexico State University as the groups attempt to lure conventions and conferences and similar events to the center.

"I talk to people all over the nation," she said. "I tell them about horse riding and the Organ Mountains and the golf courses and weather and the culture in the region. I try to raise the level of excitement."

LeClaire loves a good book and a good glass of wine. Since she moved to town she has joined a wine club and has gotten bit by the Stieg Larsson bug. She said she has plowed through Larsson's first two novels, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Girl Who Played with Fire."

"I read through them in two weeks," she said. LeClaire has a copy of the third and final book in the late-author's trilogy — "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" — on reserve at Branigan Memorial Library. She can hardly wait until the next copy is returned and she can check it out herself, but in the meantime she has discovered COAS: My Bookstore where she recently purchased three other books.

Brook Stockberger can be reached at (575) 541-5457

Sunday, August 01, 2010