Born on opposite coasts and drawn to the Park City area by different paths, two longtime residents were honored this week for their dedication to service and altruism that has made the community a better place to live.
The Park City Rotary Club named National Ability Center Program Manager Tracy Meier and former Park City Planning Commissioner and current Appeal Panel chair Adam Strachan as their 2024 Citizens of the Year during an annual ceremony hosted at the DoubleTree on Tuesday.
The Linda Singer Berrett Professional Citizen of the Year and Jack C. Green Volunteer Citizen of the Year awards are bestowed upon Summit County residents who have made significant contributions to the community and embody the core values of Rotarians.
“It’s truly a who’s who of the last 44 years of Park City and Summit County history; the people who helped fashion the community into what it is today,” said Bob Richer, a past president who oversees the awards.
In the trenches
Born and raised in Virginia, Meier moved to Park City in 2002 after she was selected for a 14-week internship at the National Ability Center — the only place she applied.
The Olympics brought intense excitement for winter sports, but the East Carolina University graduate also found herself drawn to the variety in the mountains. There was great energy and new opportunities for programming, education and advocacy each season. It’s also where Meier met her husband, Monte, a five-time Paralympian.
“I came here and I just fell in love with it. To be honest, I had no idea where Utah was. I drove across the country and there were so many amazing great things happening, so I stayed,” Meier recalled. “I think it was day two when I called my parents and said, ‘Oh my gosh, I just love this place.'”
She found herself drawn to the people involved with the National Ability Center, an organization committed to adaptive sports recreation and accessibility, and the clients the nonprofit serves.
Meier discovered her passion for working with people who have disabilities in middle school. She started volunteering in a special education classroom, finding value and respect in working with those students.
Another pivotal moment was when a family with a child who was deaf and had autism visited the farm where Meier grew up. She remembers the staff were afraid to teach the boy, but Meier felt strongly that she could make a difference. The experience eventually led her to pursue a physical therapy degree before she switched to recreational therapy.
Meier has worked in numerous roles at the National Ability Center after dedicating two decades there, including intern supervisor and chief program and education officer.
Every day is a bit different with Meier working as a liaison between departments to help staff implement their ideas, support marketing efforts, advocate for inclusivity, educate the community or connect with clients.
She can be found in meetings, leading conferences, running around campus and teaching lessons. Meier even developed an exchange program for adaptive skiing with instructors in South Korea.
For Meier, the hard work is rewarded when she sees someone do something they didn’t think was possible. She cherishes the moments when a family who had given up hope of skiing together learned how or when a young athlete with a new injury was inspired by a former National Ability Center participant who’s been on a similar journey.
“Just being able to say yes and provide that hope … to people who think the answer is no is a big reminder to me (for why I do this),” Meier said.
The impact of the National Ability Center is only expected to grow in the future, especially with the return of the 2034 Olympics. Meier wants to stretch the nonprofit’s mission throughout Utah not only in terms of adaptive sports, but also on the adventure side of things such as improving the usability of national parks for people with disabilities.
“I just think it is a community expectation that this is part of who we are and that we celebrate differences,” she said. “If we looked at it that way, of it not being something wrong or that needs to be fixed, but you know, that this is just part of the human experience, then I just think people will be way more welcoming. I still think that what we’re missing is that comfort level.”
Steering local change
The Olympics were also a catalyst for Strachan’s community involvement.
The family moved from Salt Lake City to Park City in the late 1980s when Strachan was about 10. He spent a lot of time skiing in Utah, with childhood aspirations of becoming an Olympian, before his parents sent him to California for high school, where his mother was the dean of the University of San Diego School of Law.
Strachan graduated and went on to earn his bachelor’s degree at the University of Southern California before he came back to Utah for law school. He moved around for a few years for work, completing a clerkship in Washington, D.C., and practicing in San Francisco before he and his wife returned to Park City full time in 2006.
The community still had a small-town feeling then, Strachan recalled, but the 2002 Winter Games changed everything.
“Everybody caught on that Utah was a great place to live, and so the place got a lot bigger,” he said. “After that, it was kind of the same, and then COVID changed everything again.”
More people and more growth inspired Strachan to join the Park City Planning Commission around 2008. He’s an avid cyclist, and voters had just passed a $50 million bond to improve bike-ability and walkability around the city. Strachan served on a committee to help determine how that money should be used, and he was encouraged to become more involved in local government.
Strachan served two terms on the Planning Commission before the massive Treasure Hill development project came to the panel. The plan sought to create a dense, pedestrian-friendly extension of Old Town with hotels and condominiums.
The lawyer, whose practice specializes in defending ski resorts, said the decision on that project was the most important one he made while on the Planning Commission.
“That would have fundamentally transformed the entire town. Park City had never seen anything like it in the past,” he said. “It was massive. It was a big complicated problem that ended up being resolved in what I think was the best possible resolution, which was we bonded to buy that space and make it open.”
Despite raising a family and trying to maintain a practice, Strachan served 10 years on the Planning Commission before retiring. However, he said the hours involved were never a factor in his commitment.
Sometimes it was more work than he thought it would be. Sometimes it was less. But Strachan said he just shrugged his shoulders and did it anyway — stepping in and stepping up is just something everyone in Park City does.
Strachan was known on the Planning Commission for his leadership, knowledge, passion and stewardship of the future. He never wanted to be thanked for his service, but Strachan said the recognition is worth 1,000 compliments.
Like many Parkites, the former Planning Commission chair also worries about what growth will do to the community. But Strachan thinks it’s more palatable when people know each other and interact with their neighbors. One way to do that is through volunteering.
“Growth in and of itself really isn’t evil. It’s when people get isolated and unwilling to interact with each other in a civilized way, and when you keep adding more (of those) people … that really adds fuel to the fire,” he said.
The Park City Rotary Club started in 1980, and the award ceremony started the following year.
The Jack C. Green Award is named after the former Park City mayor instrumental in rallying community volunteerism. He was in office from 1978 to 1986. The Linda Singer Berrett Award is in honor of Park City Rotary’s first female president. Berrett was a strong community leader in her role as a teacher and school principal before she died in 2000.
Meier and Strachan will be featured as grand marshals of the Miners Day parade.