Community Leadership Development

Rural Fellows giving a boardroom presentation to community leaders

Your community has leaders. Your community has resources. Our Community Leadership Development team has the knowhow to harness the potential in both to make your community thrive.

By working with local leaders, we help you envision, develop and implement plans that kickstart self-sustaining growth and establish economic development programs that lead to greater prosperity. We’re the drop in the bucket—your community is the ripple expanding ever outward.

How Communities Benefit

Each community grows at the pace of its leaders. But leaders can’t simply be swapped in and out like batteries. Effective leaders are unique in their ability to embrace a community’s cultural heritage while welcoming the future. Communities benefit from our programs by not only discovering what it takes to thrive in this fast-paced world, but also by helping its citizens become the leaders who will bring their community’s cultural uniqueness into the future with them.

combine harvesting at dusk

Community Development Leadership Team Members

Headshot of Maria Cantu Hines.
Maria Cantu Hines
RPN Extension Educator East Central Region
Headshot of Brandi Hilton-Hagemann.
Brandi Hilton-Hagemann
RPN Extension Educator Southwest Region
Ted Hibbeler
Tribal Education & Engagement Coordinator
Cindy Houlden
Cooperative Development
Doris Elifritz-Lux
Business Coach Greater Columbus Region
Jamie Bright
RPN Extension Educator West Region
Jenny Nixon
RPN Extension Educator Northwest Region
Shawn Kaskie
RPN Extension Educator Central Region
Jason Tuller
RPN Extension Educator South Central Region
Marilyn Schlake
RPN Extension Educator Statewide
Jordan Grummert Rassmussen Portrait
Jordan Grummert Rasmussen
RPN Extension Educator North Central Region