Judi Snow laughs now when she remembers being “a laughingstock” among her peers when she told them she was going to be overseeing tourism in Rio Rancho.

After all, when Snow got the position as a contract employee back in 1994, Rio Rancho didn’t really have a lot of attractions. It still doesn’t, Snow, retiring this month, acknowledges.

In fact, the only true destination for tourists here is the J&R Vintage Auto Museum — and who among you have visited that site? A native of New Brunswick, Canada, Snow said she dreamed of being a schoolteacher.

That came to pass, first in Canada and then in California.

Later married to Gary Snow, her husband of 34 years, the couple was preparing to move from California to Colorado.

“I was going to be a ski bum,” she said. Stopping in Las Vegas, Nev., where Gary Snow’s father worked, the couple was convinced to stay there.

Judi Snow made creative lunchbox purses for the stars on the Strip, until the couple moved to Canada for about seven years. One day, her husband told her, “We’ve got to get back to the Land of Enchantment,” where he’d grown up, and they moved to New Mexico.

Gary Snow was helping a friend start a business in Gallup and Judi found a job there, “supposedly as the tourism manager,” she said, for the chamber of commerce. Apparently impressed with the job she was doing, the mayor and city manager asked if she’d be interested in starting a convention and visitors bureau.

Snow said yes and the rest is history.

Snow worked hard to make her new bureau a success, talking with tour bus guides, area merchants and even doing research for what became a walking tour of Gallup, which packed a lot of history into its Route 66 roots. While there, she founded the Route 66 Association of New Mexico.

Back then, Snow said, Gallup was touted in headlines back East as “Drunk City, USA.”

“I had a lot to overcome,” she said, eventually building the tourism business to rank its collected lodgers tax third in the state, behind only Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Lodgers tax, which is a tax collected by hotel and motel operators, provides the basis for funding a tourism bureau.

“I really took to tourism,” she said.

It was challenging, but not as challenging a task as she found when she took a similar post in Rio Rancho.

After taking a corporate sales job for the late George Maloof’s seven hotels, she grew disenchanted because the amount of time she was on the road. Snow, who also spent time on the road selling her handmade jewelry from coast to coast and at trade shows, was encouraged to apply for the post of tourism director in Rio Rancho.

“I hired Judi. Judi and the Convention and Visitors Bureau started under my administration from 1994-98,” recalled Tom Swisstack, who was mayor then and now. “I was fortunate to hire Judi — she’s been a good will ambassador for the city of Rio Rancho.

“I remember the first time she got me to go out in snow and rain and give out meal and coffee cards to people on NM 528,” he said. “She has done a good job in expanding the Pork ’n’ Brew and she’s been a diplomat in extending the service of the chamber of commerce to companies that took an interest in our city over the years.”

Interviews to find Snow’s successor are ongoing, he said. “It’s going to be hard to replace Judi. Judi has been a mentor to people on how to sell our community.”

Snow was instrumental in bringing three national dog shows to the city, as well as two Jehovah’s Witnesses conventions, an NAACP convention, countless sports events and much more. The number of hotel/motel rooms in the city has grown from 287 to 611; her budget, $79,000 to fund her department in the early nineties, has grown to a projected $375,000 in lodgers’ tax this fiscal year, “equivalent to $7 million in sales for those 611 rooms,” she beamed.

Snow also founded the Sports Advisory Council and, overseeing that group’s monthly meetings, has given talks to other tourism boards on how to start an advisory council like that in their town.

“I’ve done classes on how to start a CVB,” she added, understandably proud of accolades that have come her way since she’s been here, including the Tourism Association of New Mexico’s Tourism Professional of the Year award in 1999.

Tourism is more than showing people on buses the sights of a city: There are small meetings taking place, tour groups passing through, sporting events, special events and the film industry.

“Film is a strange market for us,” she explained. “The major film companies locate in Albuquerque or Santa Fe. We get them (here) because we have so many great locations.”

And while a producer and director may stay at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort at Santa Ana, the cast, extras and crew often stay in Rio Rancho motels. Such was the case during filming of the movies “Thief of Time,” “Coyote Waits,” “Ghosts of Mars,” “Dreamland” and the new TV series “Crash,” she said.

“We get revenue from the hotel rooms and food and gasoline,” she said.

A reception is being held for Snow on Friday from 5-7 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn on NM 528. It’s a good time to come and say goodbye to Snow, who still has a lot on her platter.

“What I want to do is work on a fundraiser for Watermelon Mountain Ranch,” she said. “Gary and I are going to do chairs for Seats & Eats. And I’m going to write a book, which should be fun.”

Naturally, there are mixed emotions for Snow, soon to turn 67.

“I know it’s time for me to go,” she said. “I’ve met so many wonderful people, worked with so many. My staff is the best.”