Who are we really? Becky McCray and Deb Brown, co-founders of SaveYour.Town

I’m Becky McCray from Oklahoma. I co-founded SaveYour.Town with Deb Brown.

Deb used to live in Iowa, but just moved to Mississippi. That meant I had to update our SaveYour.Town “about us” page. Now seems like a good time to share more about who we are, really.

We are part of our communities, just like you are.

We’ve both served on community boards and committees.
 
From local groups to state and national boards and organizations, we’ve met and planned and worked and volunteered. We’ve been part of arts and history groups, educational and workforce advisory boards, entrepreneur events, professional associations, local and rural initiatives.

Our work helped us find ways to work inside and outside of formal groups. 

We understand traditional economic, workforce and organization development.

Deb holds an Institute for Organizational Management certification, graduated from Leadership Iowa and the Ag-Urban Institute in Iowa.

I completed the Governing Officials Institute in Oklahoma and earned certificates in Facilitating for Results and Quality Leadership.

Sometimes you have to understand the system in order to find a better way. 

We joined forces in May 2015 to help small towns and rural communities thrive.

We’ve listened to over 1700 rural people in our Survey of Rural Challenges. We understand small town realities.

Our own personal experiences working in business, agriculture, services, media, nonprofits and associations drive us to keep things simple and practical.

We’re not biased toward any specific program or solution. We give honest advice.

Why are we called Save Your Town? Because that is what you are going to do, save your town. No one is coming to do it for you.

Keep shaping a better future for your town,

Becky 

PS – You can see a little photo history of us on our LearnTo.SaveYour.Town site.