Staff
Rural Strategies has a small core of full-time employees and an extensive network of collaborators. This structure, an allies model, using affiliated individuals and organizations, has served us well with its flexibility, allowing the organization to take advantage of opportunities while maintaining a small core staff.
Dee Davis, President
Dee Davis is president of the Center for Rural Strategies. Dee has helped design and lead national public information campaigns on topics as diverse as commercial television programming and federal banking policy. Dee began his media career in 1973 as a trainee at Appalshop, an arts and cultural center devoted to exploring Appalachian life and social issues in Whitesburg, Kentucky. As Appalshop's executive producer, the organization created more than 50 public TV documentaries, established a media training program for Appalachian youth, and launched initiatives that use media as a strategic tool in organization and development. He is the chair of the Rural Assembly steering committee; a member of the Rural Advisory Committee of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Fund for Innovative Television, and Feral Arts of Brisbane, Australia. He is also a member of the Institute for Rural Journalism’s national advisory board. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Institute for Work and the Economy. Dee is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship. Dee is also the former Chair of the board of directors of Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. Dee received an English degree from the University of Kentucky. He lives in Whitesburg, Kentucky.
Xandr Brown, Multimedia Producer
Xandr focuses on multimedia reporting and building her environmental reporting beat. In 2018, she graduated undergrad from the University of Rochester in upstate New York in History and Communications with a minor in Environmental Humanities. She is currently based in Michigan’s Flint-area where she previously reported with hyperlocal newsrooms, Flintside.com and Flintbeat.com. Her talents include singing/songwriting and a pretty convincing Obama impersonation. When she’s not falling down a Youtube rabbit hole, she likes to read and write stories that she hopes to get published one day.
Caroline Carlson, Digital Editor
Caroline hails from the rolling hills of southwest Wisconsin’s “Driftless” region where she grew up in a town of 4,500. Her writing about food, agriculture and sustainable farming has appeared in publications such as Heavy Table, The Growler magazine and Organic Valley’s Rootstock blog. She’s had stints in politics, writing for Wisconsin State Senator Lena Taylor, in advertising, writing and strategizing for companies like General Mills and Marzetti, and was a part of The Growler’s editorial team before the magazine ceased publication in August 2020. Caroline holds a degree in English and Cello Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to her work as an editor and journalist, she performs actively as a cellist.
Whitney Kimball Coe, Vice President of National Programs
Whitney Kimball Coe serves as coordinator of the Rural Assembly, a rural movement made up of activities and partnerships geared toward building better policy and more opportunity across the country. In 2017, she was a featured speaker at the inaugural summit of the Obama Foundation and a guest on the radio program On Being with Krista Tippett. In 2018, she spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Her focus on building civic courage in communities is directly tied to a practice of participation in her hometown of Athens, Tennessee, where she lives with her husband Matt and daughters, Lucy and Susannah. Coe has a MA in Appalachian studies from Appalachian State University in North Carolina and an undergraduate degree in religion and philosophy from Queens University of Charlotte.
Teresa Collins, Operations Coordinator
Teresa comes from Carcassonne, Kentucky where several generations of her family maintain a vibrant community life that practices the traditions of quilting and square dancing. Teresa worked as a community organizer for Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) for more than six years. She organized members working on strip mining, excessive logging, abuses of oil and gas drilling on private surface property where the mineral underneath is held by companies, and reforming the state’s welfare system. Teresa has worked as the administrator and fundraiser for Mountain Montessori Preschool in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Teresa lives in Whitesburg, Kentucky.
Adam Giorgi, Director of Digital Strategy
Adam Giorgi is a recent Master in Public Policy graduate from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. While at the Kennedy school, Adam worked at the intersections of democracy and journalism, studying civic literacy and political communication as a student and research assistant, completing an internship in political reporting at NBC News and authoring a playbook on local news for his master’s thesis project. Prior to graduate school, he served as Deputy Communications Director at the Minnesota Department of Administration, where he managed digital communications projects, government websites, and various other strategic initiatives for the state of Minnesota. Previously, he worked as a communications professional in the office of Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, for public relations firm PadillaCRT, and at the corporate headquarters of electronics retailer Best Buy. He is assisting Rural Strategies in our efforts to create a news and culture platform building on common interests and shared aspirations across America.
Tim Marema, Vice President
Tim Marema is editor of the Daily Yonder, a news site published by the Center for Rural Strategies that covers rural economics, politics and culture using professional journalists, community correspondants, scholars, and a wide range of policy advocates. The result is a news publication that is read "from the county courthouse to the White House," Tim says. Tim began his journalism career at a weekly newspaper in Berea, Kentucky, while a student at Berea College. He holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He edited a daily newspaper for Chapel Hill for several years before returning to Kentucky to serve as development direction of Appalshop, Inc., an Appalachian media arts center. He is vice president and a founding staff member of the Center for Rural Strategies. He is married, has two college-aged children, and lives in Norris, Tennessee, a town of 1,500 residents near Knoxville.
Marty Newell, Chief Operating Officer
Marty Newell is the chief operating officer of the Center for Rural Strategies. Before helping start Rural Strategies, Marty served as an executive director of the Kentucky Arts Council, general manager of Austin (Texas) Community Television, development director for the Connecticut Food Bank, and as a private consultant to such organizations as the Rural School and Community Trust, National Endowment for the Arts, Appalachian Regional Commission, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, numerous private foundations, and many nonprofit organizations. As a 17-year-old, Marty was a founding member of Appalshop, the award-winning media and cultural organization based in his hometown of Whitesburg, Kentucky. He served in a variety of production and administrative rolls for nearly 20 years at Appalshop including creating the Headwaters television series and as general manager of WMMT-FM. Marty received his bachelor's degree in film and Appalachian studies from the Union Institute.
Tyler Owens, Rural Assembly Program Associate
Tyler Owens (she/her) is from the Gila River Indian Community in Southern Arizona where she was born and raised. Prior to joining the Rural Assembly, Owens worked with the National Congress of American Indians where she took on various roles, such as: Membership Coordinator, Youth Program Associate, and Administrative Assistance. These formative roles in her early career have equipped Owens to service the Rural Assembly and serve communities similar to hers.
Jan Pytalski, Daily Yonder Associate Editor
Jan Pytalski is the Associate Editor of the Daily Yonder, a news site published by the Center for Rural Strategies covering rural economics, politics and culture. Jan is originally from Poland, where he started working as a reporter for the Reuters News Wire service. He’s a graduate of the University of Warsaw and University of Rochester. Prior to joining the Daily Yonder, Jan worked with 100 Days in Appalachia, covering federal policy from Washington, DC. and freelanced for Reuters Washington bureau, helping with the coverage of the White House.