Your Collective Team Partners

Dr. Forbes Gaughan is experienced in all of the service areas Community Economic Partners delivers, making her the ideal leader of the collective team. Decades of work with a wide span of communities has set the stage for working with the professionals of Community Economic Partners to excel in comprehending the scope of challenges that any community is facing and how they can be overcome to increase economic prosperity and quality of life.

Deb has decades of experience with engagement in communities across the United States. As a former Chamber of Commerce Director, she has firsthand experience bringing economic prosperity back to a community where half of the adult workers lost their jobs. She is also one of the best “on the ground” community engagers ever, able to communicate effectively across the spectrum with officials, residents, students, small businesses, farmers, and more.

Mary’s role as a Chamber of Commerce Director did not just involve small businesses. She was integral to the development of childcare resources, workforce development and other critical services areas that make a community thrive. Working in a town of less than 15,000 residents provided a comprehensive perspective of the vast landscape of economic development needed to make a town attractive to new residents and businesses alike and demonstrate the resilience necessary to keep moving ahead.

Erik Reader has spent his career helping communities rediscover what makes them special by connecting people, places, and ideas to spark lasting change. With a background that blends small business development, downtown revitalization, place-based marketing, and nonprofit leadership, Erik brings both strategy and storytelling to the table. His work is rooted in helping communities turn vision into momentum and transform overlooked assets into engines of local pride and prosperity.

Diann has over 30 years’ experience creating economic development and growth through tourism including as President of Visit Tyler and Vice President of Discover San Angelo Texas. She managed staff and significant budgets, directed public relations, organized stakeholder alliances and secured multiple destination designations to support comprehensive marketing programs.

A Certified Economic Development Professional, Jim has held a series of positions that give him a broad perspective of the vast field of economic development including city management and administration, and work with Councils of Government, plus as the economic development director of a small city that has been transformed through work with the Municipal Development District.

As a Certified Economic Development professional, Kaycee has worked in a variety of community situations including as a community agribusiness coordinator, economic development coordinator for a Chamber of Commerce, a resiliency planner, and a senior economic development consultant in workforce development planning, strategic planning, small business ecosystem development, and rural development. Additionally, Kaycee holds a Masters degree in applied community development.

Jamie is a natural at economic development, constantly searching for new ways to help communities improve their economic success. Having grown up in a rural area, she is keenly aware of the issues and challenges these people face every day. In addition, as the founder of the Honest Economic Developer newsletter and Econ Dev Ops, she has devised ways for economic development organizations in small communities to be more effective and efficient in their own work and face challenges head on.

Ethan is both a historic preservation specialist and experienced in hospitality and tourism. He has a clear understanding that preservation of historic buildings can serve as a significant economic driver and delivery of heritage tourism generates the economic development that visitors deliver to a community, while at the same time, celebrating its unique heritage and identification.

After many years of traveling the world for CNN, producing stories for a diverse portfolio of clients including the Food Network, Discovery, T-Mobile and Publicism, Greg has come home to America. He has refocused his work on communities in the United States and what makes them livable, interesting and unique.