Lyman Orton, Orton Family Foundation founder and Board Chair, announced that David Leckey has joined the Foundation as Executive Director. Leckey will help bring the organization’s signature Heart & Soul Community Planning program and other initiatives to wider prominence and use.
Leckey, 57, brings to the Foundation experience in the education, non-profit, government and private sectors, positioning him well to move the organization’s innovative programs from their development and ground testing stages to broader use in small cities and towns across America. Leckey replaces Bill Roper, who left the Foundation last spring.
Leckey comes to Vermont from Minneapolis, MN, where he served as Executive Vice President of Dane Technologies and President of its subsidiary, LEVO USA, a combined $20 million company he helped found in 1997, and where he developed new products and domestic and international distribution channels, and led company growth and sales.
His broad experience spans the fields of community revitalization, rural economic development and citizen engagement in Minnesota as head of the non-profit Southwest Minnesota Initiative Fund and then as Governor Arne Carlson’s principle liaison with Minnesota community stakeholders. He also served Governor Carlson as Deputy Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Trade and Economic Development. His first career was as a public school teacher in Ohio and Brazil.
In his non-profit work in Minnesota, Leckey launched programs for business development, job creation and community revitalization by engaging the wisdom and innovation found within the people and communities where he worked.
“I understand—because I was on the ground with residents—the profound impact that citizen engagement, participation and hope has on the spirit and future of rural small towns,” Leckey said. “I believe in the synergistic power generated by the integration of local businesses, citizens, organizations and government to create thriving communities.”
“I am now excited to be part of an organization that has developed the Heart & Soul approach, a pioneering program that generates powerful, tangible solutions for small communities across the country,” Leckey said.
Through its Heart & Soul Community Planning program, the Orton Family Foundation helps small cities and towns discover the places and qualities that make each community unique, so that they can build on those distinctive strengths in planning toward a vibrant, enduring future. The Foundation partners with communities and organizations across the country to explore new models for citizen engagement, community visioning, implementation and stewardship. We share our experiences on our website and through our programs at COMMUNITYMATTERS®.