2008 RCC Speaker Biographies
John Allen
Dr. Allen is Director of the Western Rural Development Center (WRDC) at Utah State University. Prior to his appointment to the WRDC, John was Director of the Center for Applied Rural Innovation at the University of Nebraska. He was also Executive Director of the Nebraska Cooperative Development Center, was instrumental in creation of The Nebraska Development Network, The Partnership for Rural Nebraska, and the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI). In 1993, John introduced entrepreneurial training to the University of Nebraska system. This training later became EDGE. His expertise in supporting rural communities as they identify assets and create new entrepreneurial opportunities has been applied extensively in the United States and Australia. http://extension.usu.edu/wrdc/
Craig Schroeder
Craig Schroeder is Senior Associate with the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship, focused on community-based business succession planning, youth entrepreneurship and Home Town Competitiveness. Craig’s recent work includes creation of the Youth Attraction Formula, a tool for Great Plains communities to address persistent population decline largely due to significant youth out-migration. Craig is providing leadership for the Center’s newEYE*DEAS Talent Search, an initiative to identify young entrepreneurs who have started businesses in rural places and the community-based programs that are designed to energize young entrepreneurs across rural America. Craig is a great resource for practitioners and community leaders who are interested in working to engage young people in both leadership and entrepreneurship. http://www.energizingentrepreneurs.org/
Ray Rasker
Ray Rasker is the Executive Director of Headwaters Economics, an independent, nonprofit research group whose mission is to improve community development and land management decisions in the West. Ray has written extensively on rural development, and the interaction between environmental quality and economic prosperity. Ray is well known throughout the U.S. and Canadian West, and in nation-wide policy circles. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the College of Forestry, Oregon State University, a Masters of Agriculture from Colorado State University, and a Bachelors of Science in Wildlife Biology from the University of Washington. Ray also holds an affiliate position at Montana State University in the Department of Ecology. http://www.headwaterseconomics.org
Jim Goodwin
Jim Goodwin is the Senior Program Officer for the Western Rural Development Center (WRDC), located at Utah State University. He joined WRDC in January of 2005. In 2005 and 2006, Jim organized Listening Sessions across the west supporting the National Coalition for Rural Entrepreneurism initiative. In 2007, he is directing the roll out of the Center’s Western EDGE program which is a community-powered entrepreneurism training for rural communities in the west. Prior to WRDC, he was Executive Vice President for IMF Financial Corporation, a capital equipment financing company in Marin County, California. He also sold commercial solar electric generating systems in Northern California. In Logan, as in Northern California for over 30 years, Jim works on sustainable environment, economy and social equity issues with the Utah Bioneers Conference, the Utah State University Sustainability Council, the Cache 2020+ Vision Committee, the Cache Land Trust Alliance and the Benchmark Summit. He graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, IA. He was a captain in the USAF. Jim is married and has three grown children living in California. http://extension.usu.edu/wrdc/
Al Nygard
Al Nygard is the President and CEO of Al Nygard Consulting. Al Nygard Consulting (ANC) is a minority owned Management Consulting firm that specializes in culturally sensitive approaches to management, planning, and development. They have over 26 years experience in management techniques and the study of the art and science of management. Their client base encompasses all types and sizes of entities; government (Tribal, State, Federal), private, for-profit, non-profit, minority-owned, community organizations, to name just a few. Their services include the areas of management, finance, economic development, community development, planning, strategic planning, fund raising strategies, poverty reduction strategies and organizational development primarily targeted toward Native American governments and firms. ANC has also developed its own innovative approach to sustainable community development which has proved successful in tribal communities.
Mr. Nygard has worked extensively with tribes in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Washington, and consulted to organizations working with Indigenous populations in Australia. He has provided presentations on reservation based strategies to reduce poverty and increase Tribal community and economic development in Utah, Minnesota, California, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana.
He is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes. He is a 13 year veteran of the U.S. Army retiring at the rank of Major with service in Desert Storm. He served as the Director of Native American Programs at the ND Department of Commerce (formerly the ND Department of Economic Development & Finance) for 5 years and served as the Special Assistant to the Director for the ND Housing Finance Agency for 4 years before founding ANC. Al is a graduate of the University of Mary. Al lives with his wife LuAnn in Bismarck, ND and they have five children.
Daniel Kemmis
Daniel Kemmis, O'Connor Center Senior Fellow, is the former Mayor of Missoula, and a former Speaker and Minority Leader of the Montana House of Representatives.
Kemmis is the author of Community and The Politics of Place and The Good City and the Good Life. His newest book, This Sovereign Land: A New Vision for Governing the West, was published by Island Press in June of 2001. He has had articles published in national and regional magazines and journals on public policy in the West, democratic theory and practice, community and community building, and regionalism, and he is frequently invited to speak on these and related topics at regional and national conferences. He was recognized by the Utne Reader in 1995 as one of its "100 Visionaries." In 1997, President Clinton awarded Kemmis the Charles Frankel Prize for outstanding contribution to the field of the humanities. Also in 1997, he was the recipient of the Society for Conservation Biology's Distinguished Achievement Award for Social, Economic and Political work. In 1998, the Center of the American West awarded him the Wallace Stegner Prize for sustained contribution to the cultural identity of the West. In the fall of 1998 he was awarded a fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics. In February, 2000, he was invited to Washington, D.C., to deliver the Pinchot Distinguished Lecture. In 2002, his book This Sovereign Land was the top choice for the Interior Department's Executive Forum Speaker Series.
Kemmis is a graduate of Harvard University and The University of Montana School of Law.
http://www.crmw.org/
Patrick L. Scully
Patrick Scully is Executive Vice President of The Paul J. Aicher Foundation (formerly the Topsfield Foundation, Inc.), where he serves as Deputy Director of the Study Circles Resource Center (SCRC).
Before joining the foundation, Scully served for nine years as a program officer and director of research at the Kettering Foundation. During the 1993-94 academic year, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Budapest, Hungary, assisting some of East Central Europe's newly formed civic associations in the development of grassroots public-policy discussion groups. Following his time with Kettering, Scully was a project manager at the Harwood Group, a nonpartisan public-issues research firm.
Scully holds an interdisciplinary doctorate degree in social science (with an emphasis on American studies, U.S. political history, and political science) from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He has authored numerous articles, reports, and discussion guides on topics such as civic engagement and public deliberation, the role of grant-making foundations in strengthening civil society, immigration and community change, citizens' views of the role of money in politics, and health-care reform. http://www.studycircles.org
Jennifer Anderson
After completing her education at Montana State University-Bozeman, Jennifer returned to her hometown of Forsyth, Montana to serve as the Rosebud-Treasure County Extension Agent for the MSU Extension Service in 1997. During this time her focus has primarily been on family and consumer science and youth development programming. However, after watching her hometown experience some community turmoil she turned her focus to the Horizons Project. Hoping to bring some positive change to a community entrenched in its “problems,” the Horizons Project has created an avenue for open dialogue within the community and mobilized community members to take action on it’s tough issues. Jennifer enjoys the pace of the small town life, where she’s able to spend lots of quality time with her husband, son and extended family.
Barb Andreozzi
Barbara Andreozzi is the MSU Community-Economic Development Extension Agent for Anaconda-Deer Lodge County & Adjunct Faculty for MSU, a position she has held since 1988. She was an International Local Economic Renewal consultant and Senior Project Analyst for Worldwide Strategies 1999 – 2006, working in Poland, Macedonia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Croatia, and Serbia. Barbara presented WSI’s program results internationally at the WSI-USAID conference in Budapest, Hungry, 2005. She has been a trainer for many of her successful programs including “How to Live With Major Discounters”, “Community Visioning”, and the new Extension Community Business Matching (CBM) program. Barbara has served on the CBM national team since its formation in 2003 and recently presented the programs successful outcomes at the National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals in Philadelphia, April 18, 2007. Barbara has been honored repeatedly for her community development efforts including: 1997 Best Case Practice for the N. Western U. S. in developing “Your Town” and selected to be in their case book of four examples from across the nation, for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, used in “Your Town” training conferences. She was the Extension Agent selected to present on the first national/international video-teleconference in April 1993 for the “Building Your Community’s Future” program from the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs, Western Illinois University.
“Cornelia Butler Flora
Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Agriculture and Life Sciences Director, North Central Regional Center for Rural Development, Iowa State University. Dr. Cornelia Butler Flora has conducted ground-breaking sociological research on the impacts of human communities and the ecosystem, community processes, and gender and social institutions. Many of her articles have been widely used by nonprofit organizations that work with farmer groups, particularly in sustainable agriculture, to build stronger communities and a stronger economic base.
Flora has held several academic positions and has also been a program officer for the Ford Foundation. In addition to her responsibilities at the Center, Flora also works on international development issues with World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
A number of honorary societies have recognized her work and have elected her to positions of authority. Her doctoral students are employed in liberal arts colleges, major land-grant universities, and international development organizations.
Flora received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California-Berkeley and a master’s degree and doctorate degree from Cornell University, which recognized her with an Outstanding Alumni Award in 1994. She joined the Iowa State University faculty and was named director of the Center in 1994.”
