Connie Lawrence has been named the new General Manager and CEO of the Brandon Keystone Centre.  The announcement was made last week at Manitoba Ag Days by Keystone Centre Board President, Bruce Luebke.

Lawrence has been a member of the administration team at the Keystone for more than 8 years, and most recently held the position of the Assistant GM, and so transitioning into her new role is somewhat easier because she is very familiar with the building and its operations.

Lawrence has a passion to make the Keystone Centre more of a common name when it comes to the province, but also well beyond Manitoba's borders!

"I really want to bring awareness to the Keystone Centre," shares Lawrence. "People see the Keystone Centre as hockey, they see it as Ag, but they don't actually realize that we do have 11 convention rooms, and there's 8 sheets of curling ice.  So, I want to bring community, I want to bring awareness. I just really want to make sure that people understand the importance of the Keystone Centre, not just for Brandon but for the Westman area."

"This is a very special hub here," she adds. "We have a gold mine here!"

Bringing in more community, breaking the Winnipeg perimeter to draw more folks this way to our Westman Region is what Lawrence is looking at.

"Pulling more things into Brandon, may that be Ag, may that be conventions," explains Lawrence. "Brandon is a great place for conventions!  We have hotels, we have restaurants, we have 5,041 square feet under one roof!"

Lawrence says members of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities enjoy coming to the Keystone Centre for a variety of reasons; ease of travelling in and out of the building, travelling in and around the city of Brandon, and parking is free and there's lots of it!

She adds partnering with organizations like Brandon First is part of her strategy to bringing more to Brandon and to the Keystone.

Please listen to more with Connie Lawrence below as she shares her vision to bring greater awareness for the Keystone Centre below!