Tracey Quillen Carney

Tracey’s focus as First Lady is to support efforts that, in a foundational way, help give children a chance to succeed. With funding and operational support from Casey Family Programs, she coordinates those efforts under the umbrella of the First Chance Delaware initiative. First Chance has three pillars — ending childhood hunger; promoting early language experiences toward healthy brain development and school readiness; and advancing effective prevention of and early intervention in response to childhood trauma.

Tracey seeks to use the convening and outreach powers of the First Lady’s office to bring organizations together to work collaboratively toward those goals. “When kids and their families face foundational challenges, each adversity deepens all of the others in a geometric – and often generational – erosion of opportunity,” Tracey has said. “So to be effective — and to be efficient — the efforts to alleviate those challenges must also be interconnected and mutually reinforcing.” She also draws on her own experience with trauma recovery to promote awareness of how all adults can have a positive impact on the lives of children.

A month after becoming First Lady of Delaware, Tracey left her job as a senior administrator at Wilmington Friends after 15 years at the school. Previously, she had worked for 15 years on the staff of then-Senator Joe Biden. A proud native Delawarean, Tracey was born at the Dover Air Force Base and grew up in New Castle. She has a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors and received the Ronald J. Caridi Memorial Award for scholarship. Tracey and Governor John Carney are the grateful parents of two grown sons.