Connecticut State Rep. Caroline B. Simmons of Stamford, Conn., has been elected to the Board of the Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau (CTCSB). Rep. Simmons represents the 144th District in Stamford and is House Chair of the Connecticut State Legislature’s Commerce Committee. 

 

“We are very fortunate that Rep. Caroline Simmons has joined our Board and look forward to working with her as we move into the future,” says Thomas Madden, Chair of the Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau and the Director of Economic Development for the City of Stamford, Conn. “Her insight and knowledge of legislative business and her relationships with a wide range of residents across our state will enhance the efforts of our Board and our members to generate new and returning conventions, meetings and sports events business for Connecticut.” The Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau is the State’s official meetings and sports event sales and marketing organization; its President is Robert Murdock.

 

Rep. Simmons is Co-Chair of the Connecticut Young Democrats’ Women’s Caucus, and a member of the Stamford League of Women Voters and the Southwest CT Chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. She also serves on the Board of the Women’s Business Development Council (WBDC) in Stamford, where she previously worked, helping to provide entrepreneurial, financial, and professional development training programs for women in Connecticut.

 

Earlier, Rep. Simmons worked at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for over four years. As Director of Special Projects in the Counterterrorism Coordinator’s Office at Homeland Security, she provided support for DHS’s domestic and international counterterrorism programs. Caroline helped support DHS’s programs and budget for its homeland security team in Kabul, Afghanistan. She also worked to enhance the Department’s countering violent extremism and active shooter awareness and response training for state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement officers. Prior to this, she interned at the U.S. Department of State for the Middle East Partnership Initiative within the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, where she assisted with economic empowerment programs in the Middle East.

 

Rep. Simmons received an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a Master of Arts degree in Middle East Studies from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. She also studied at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, and the Arabic Language Institute in Fez, Morocco. She and her husband, Art Linares, live in Stamford and are the proud parents of a son.

 

Working in partnership with the state’s businesses, institutions, nonprofit organizations, and their surrounding communities, the Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau (CTCSB) markets all of the state – convention and meeting venues, hotels and attractions, and sporting venues – as a premier destination for international, national, regional and statewide conferences, conventions and major sports events. The Connecticut Sports Advisory Board, a division of the CTCSB, focuses its efforts on attracting and serving international, national and regional sporting events. Events booked by the CTCSB in the last fiscal year alone are projected to result in: $62,989,859 in spending by convention, meeting and sports events attendees during their visits to the state, generating $4,272,596 in Connecticut taxes. In addition, more than 17,331 Connecticut jobs in the hospitality industry will be supported by these events as a result of these bookings.* For more information about the Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau, visit www.CTmeetings.org or call 860-728-6789. (*Destinations International economic calculator FY 2018-19)