116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Hollie Trenary joined volunteering with occupation
By Deborah Neyens, correspondent
Mar. 29, 2020 8:00 am
Hollie Trenary said she could be a poster child for all that's good about Iowa.
The Alabama native moved to Iowa 16 years ago. Without knowing a soul in the state, other than her husband, she embraced Iowa and dove right in to her adopted community.
'It's a phenomenally welcoming place,” Trenary said.
After relocating to Eastern Iowa, Trenary pursued a corporate career, holding positions in project management, human resources and operations for various area companies.
In her free time, she volunteered for local not-for-profit organizations.
'I've been volunteering since I was in fifth grade,” she said. 'Community focus has been important my entire life.”
Trenary's volunteer efforts locally have included work with Foundation 2, where she served as board president, and Willis Dady Homeless Services, where she created a rapid response team known as 'Hollie's Mama Tribe” to help expectant mothers facing insecure housing.
In 2013, Trenary was able to combine her interest for community service with her career when she took a position as operations manager for Cedar Rapids Public Library.
'It was a conscious decision to make the transition into a community-driven career,” she said. 'For me, it was a huge accomplishment to marry the thing that I am most passionate about with my career and to transition out of a corporate environment into community leadership.”
In 2018, Trenary became director of the Marion Public Library and quickly made an impact in her new role. Her work, she said, has been integral to reconnecting the Marion community with the library, re-envisioning the space to better serve patrons and reigniting efforts for a new library building.
'A long and winding road led me to this position, and I believe it's exactly where I'm supposed to be,” she said.
A current focus for Trenary in her job is Marion's new library building project. Under Trenary's leadership, the library completed an updated needs assessment in January 2019 and determined that a new building would best meet the community's library requirements over the next several decades.
The project currently is in the design phase, with groundbreaking expected to occur late this year and opening anticipated in spring 2022.
'We're further along than we've ever been,” Trenary said. 'We have a great opportunity, with a great team and a city staff that has been so helpful.
'It's an exciting time to be in this community and working for the community.”
Trenary also continues to serve the broader community through such volunteer roles as board chairwoman of Leadership for Five Seasons, a leadership program offered through the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance, board member of the Marion Cares organization, and PTO co-chairwoman at her daughters' school.
'Iowa has been really great to me, so I'm spending every day in this state being good back,” she said.
Business 380 spotlights HER magazine's Women of Achievement, published by The Gazette. The awards were sponsored by Farmers State Bank.