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MASTER Tracy Allen From Barista Roots to Industry Leadership Interview by Sarah Allen IN A 2011 CENSUS REPORT, the sleepy farming town of Lexington, Mo. counted fewer than 5,000 residents, so you can imagine how tiny and tranquil it seemed when Tracy Allen grew up there in the early 1970s. Tire swings and small-town sports, a local drive in and clandestine gatherings with friends around a bonfre—these were the haunts and activities that wove the fabric of Tracy's early years. Back then, the boy didn't hint at the man who would travel the world in search of its highest-quality cofee, not to mention the best cofee crafspeople. One thing young Tracy knew: Farming was a chore, not a career choice, and he went away to the University of Missouri to study economics, to move away from that rural life. It's fascinating, then, that Tracy has made a career out of cofee, and travels ofen to producing countries and regions so remote they would make Lexington look like New York City. But plenty of people in our wild world of cofee never predicted a career here. Tat's part of what makes Tracy's story—which started and continues marching forward in cofee—remarkable. He's been about cofee, in one way or another, all along. Recruited right out of college by Procter & Gamble, Tracy's frst professional job was as a beverage specialist in the company's Folgers and Millstone division. Not specialty, that's for sure, but it was cofee afer all. Intriguingly, Tracy says he had his frst run-in with cofee greatness during the time he held that job—it just didn't happen at that job. Te P&G; gig required a lot of traveling, and, as Tracy recalls, "we would at times stumble upon diner-type cofee shops, and occasionally fnd a true cof- www.baristamagazine.com 91