Fostering Rural Job Creation through Nature-Based Redevelopment
Join Just Communities and Erin Kizer of The Industrial Commons as we explore how rural communities are leading the way in rethinking how resources are used, reducing waste, and transforming abandoned landways into spaces of work, housing, and possibility. This webinar will highlight how transforming an abandoned factory site into The Innovation Campus is creating new possibilities for rural job creation and manufacturing that reuse resources, reduce waste, and retain value in the community.
Webinar Speaker
Erin Kizer, Senior Director of Infrastructure at The Industrial Commons
Erin is the Senior Director of Infrastructure at The Industrial Commons and the General Manager of Material Return. She is overseeing development of a 30-acre brownfield site, to become The Innovation Campus, and 10 acres of cooperative housing. After graduating from Cornell University, Erin taught in Philadelphia public schools as a part of Teach for America, and later did a volunteer year with AmeriCorps VISTA, before pursuing a master’s degree in Urban Planning and Environmental Policy at Tufts University. Following graduate school, she worked at the local, state, and federal government level in positions related to environmental policy and compliance. Erin later turned her attention towards sustainable building issues, working at organizations in Boston, MA that helped homeowners improve the energy efficiency, affordability, and durability of their homes. Erin came to Industrial Commons after a 5 year stint as the Chief Operations Officer of a direct-to-consumer textile company, producing at Opportunity Threads, a cut and sew business in The Industrial Commons’ ecosystem.
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Innovation Campus — The Industrial Commons
Meet the Faculty
Tsedey Betru
Tsedey is the Director of Just Communities at the Partnership for Southern Equity. Originally from Ethiopia, Tsedey’s experiences immigrating to the U.S. and growing up in Memphis, TN, have shaped and informed her 20-year career advancing racial equity in community and economic development.
She started her career as a community organizer for the National Voting Rights Institute and the 7th St. Community Improvement Initiative in Oakland, CA. After completing her graduate studies in urban policy analysis and nonprofit management, Tsedey worked at PolicyLink and at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy in NYC before becoming the Vice President of Community LIFT in Memphis, TN.
More recently, she has moved into economic development and philanthropic advising, working as the Manager of Community Affairs & Strategic Initiatives for Invest Atlanta, as an economic development advisor to Memphis Mayor Wharton, and a philanthropic advisor to the Estee Lauder Charitable Foundation, Waverley Street Foundation, and Gates Foundation.
Tsedey currently serves on the City of Atlanta’s Urban Design Commission, the Atlanta BeltLine Public Arts Advisory, and raises funds for the African Diasporic Arts Museum of Atlanta.