Tincher joins NACo as director of member engagement

In less than 10 years, Tammy Tincher went from having no involvement in government to becoming NACo’s chief outreach advocate to county officials.

After serving seven years as a Greenbrier County, W.Va. commissioner, Tincher has joined NACo as the director of member engagement, bringing with her the insight she gained over years of increasing involvement in NACo.

Her neighbors recruited her to run for the Greenbrier County Commission after she helped her community recover from a devastating flood in 2016. Her part of the county had historically been under-represented on the Commission, and she sought to change that.

She did more than that, later serving as president of the County Commissioners Association of West Virginia, as a member of NACo’s Board of Directors and then for two years as chair of NACo’s Membership Committee. Along the way, she brought NACo’s Rural Action Caucus symposium to Greenbrier County in 2023. In 2024, she was elected Northeast Region representative, putting her on NACo’s executive committee and in tune with the organization’s governance. 

Although she started in county government by hoping to put Rainelle on the map in her own county, she found fulfillment in the enrichment she received in her state and national roles.

 “It just provided so much information to me to take back to my home and my state and it just helped me be a better representative and a better person and human being all together,” she said.

She saw on the state and national levels how policies in either arena affected her ability to effectively make local policy. And she learned that a county official’s job educating her state and federal representatives was never over.

“Even when we gain ground on an issue, an administration will change, or you’ll have an election with new legislators and you always have to show them and their staff how counties fit in the intergovernmental system,” she said. “You can’t be complacent.” 

Her years chairing the Membership Committee put her in direct contact with some of NACo’s most fervent champions.

“I learned that counties need to be able to tell their stories,” she said. “Every time you speak, it’s an opportunity to help people understand counties better.”

Now, she will be helping county officials and staff alike find resources and involvement in NACo’s advocacy, programs and EDGE financial tools. 

Her experience representing a rural county of 33,000 residents gives her the perspective and credibility to help bring officials like herself into NACo’s networks. She acknowledges that county leaders in those communities often handle many roles and the idea of adding national involvement can be daunting, but ultimately empowering.

“One of the things that we want to be able to do is connect those leaders who may think that their biggest responsibility is being on the ground all the time at home,” she said. “That is true that rural officials have a lot of responsibilities, but traveling or participating in what NACo has to offer can make them much more effective leaders, as they come to understand what resources they could lean on or peer exchanges that put them in touch with someone in another county who has solved the same problem that they’re facing. 

“The strength of NACo is in our members and what they have to offer one another, the insight they can receive from being part of a discussion with their peers or just talking to someone who understands what they’re dealing with in their county. NACo is able to connect the dots for our members and help them make use of resources they may never have heard of. That time and energy they put into NACo pays off for their county.”