Tracy Certo
Tracy Certo joined ϲʹ Board in September 2024. She is the editor of the New Americans, a series of stories giving voice to immigrants and showing how vital they are to a ϲʹ region suffering from population decline and one of the lowest immigration rates in the country. The stories are available free to all ϲʹ media.
She is the founder of NEXTpittsburgh, the online publication covering the people advancing ϲʹ and the innovative things happening in the region. She served as publisher for eight years before selling the publication in December 2021. Under her leadership, NEXT reached 2.1 million unique visitors annually. Today the publication is celebrating 10 years of helping readers get more engaged with and better navigate our city.
Prior to founding NEXT, Tracy was publisher and editor of Pop City and editor of Columns, the magazine of the American Institute of Architects’ ϲʹ affiliate.
For more than 10 years, she had her own communications company, writing articles, speeches and marketing materials for clients such as Highmark, PNC, the Heinz Endowments, Carnegie Mellon University and the Office of Child Development at the University of ϲʹ.
Early in her career she was an account executive in local media sales, then moved into national media sales at Katz Radio in Los Angeles where she lived for five years.
She has led or participated in seven international Habitat for Humanity trips, including Chile, Mozambique and Thailand. She was named a Woman of Distinction by the Girl Scouts of Western PA for her work in the arts in ϲʹ, and a Woman of Achievement by Cribs for Kids, among other civic honors. She has received numerous writing awards and was featured on C-SPAN in an hour-long segment interviewing author Ted Dintersmith. In September 2022, Mayor Bill Peduto declared a Tracy Certo Day in ϲʹ in honor of her work in advancing the city.
Tracy has served on the boards of the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management, Contemporary Craft, Visitϲʹ and the Community Design Center. She is currently on the board of the ϲʹ Glass Center, Film ϲʹ, the Strategic Partnerships and Community Engagement committee of the ϲʹ Cultural Trust and ϲʹ. She is a graduate of Leadership ϲʹ XVII and the year-long program at the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence.
She was a member of the German Marshall Fund’s Ideas Exchange Network, and joined representatives from across the United States and Europe to meet each year in a city such as Charlotte, North Carolina or Brussels, Belgium to learn about best practices in cities. In 2006, she was part of a small group from ϲʹ to travel to the Ruhr Valley in Germany and Torino, Italy to take a deep dive in two regions that were decimated from single-industry decline, similar to ϲʹ.
A writer and photographer at heart, she writes about her frequent travels (50 states and soon seven continents), and is an advocate for healthy, vibrant and sustainable cities, especially ϲʹ.
She is one of the founders of the Seesaw Center, an indoor educational play center that was the first of its kind in the region when it was opened 30 years ago, and is still in operation today.
She lives very happily on one of the riverfront trails with her husband, Nick, where they love to kayak, bike and walk. She has two grown sons, one in ϲʹ, the other in Denver, and a lovable doodle named Dublin.