Appalachian Ohio State of the Region Conference

Matt Abbott serves as the Executive Director for the Zanesville-Muskingum County Port Authority (ZMCPA). He is a graduate of John Glenn High School, Muskingum University, BA and Salem University, M.Ed. In 2019, he received certification as an Ohio Certified Economic Developer through the Ohio Economic Development Institute. Matt has been selected in 2022, 2023 and 2024 by Ohio Business Magazine as one of the 500 Most Powerful and Influential Ohioans. He currently serves as a Past Board Member for the Ohio Economic Development Association, Past Chairman of the Eastern Ohio Development Alliance, Vice Chairman of the Genesis Healthcare System Board of Directors, and Member of the East Muskingum Local School Board. Matt and his wife Lindsay reside in New Concord, and have three young children, Hadley, Blake and Cade.

Ian Beniston, AICP, HDFP is the Executive Director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC) and has been a part of the organization since the idea of YNDC was conceived in 2008. He is responsible for YNDC’s consistent achievement of its mission and day to day operations. He has twenty years of neighborhood planning, development, and finance experience in the private, non-profit, and public sectors. He has guided more than $85 million in direct neighborhood investment in Youngstown's neighborhoods. Ian holds a Master of City and Regional Planning from The Ohio State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Youngstown State University. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and a Grow America Housing Development Finance Professional. He resides in the City of Youngstown with his wife and daughter. 

An experienced lawmaker, John Carey served nine years in the Ohio House of Representatives and eight years in the Ohio Senate. He is one of the few legislators in history to serve as chairman of both the House Finance and Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance and Financial Institutions Committee. Prior to his work as a legislator, Carey was mayor of the City of Wellston and was an aide to former Congressman Clarence Miller of Lancaster. As a legislator, Carey’s focus on education and job creation led to numerous awards and accolades from organizations such as the Ohio Development Association, the Ohio Bankers League, the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the Ohio University School of Osteopathic Medicine. Chancellor Carey is a graduate of Ohio University with a degree in political science, and is a first-generation college graduate.

Misty Crosby joined Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service as a Senior Executive in Residence for Local Government Services in September 2022. In this role, she will assist in supporting local governments, most notably those members of the Mayors Partnership for Progress; work to strengthen relationships with key partners and organizations, and intentionally seek ways the Voinovich School can support the efforts of key partners and organizations.

Crosby previously served with the Buckeye Hills Regional Council and retired as Executive Director in August of 2022. In this role, Crosby led a 65-member team in their efforts to bring resources and affect positive change in state and federal policies and programs important to local governments and communities in rural Southeastern Ohio. Under her leadership, Buckeye Hills Regional Council facilitated the investment of more than $625 million in its eight-county region from 2007-2021.

Representing the Midwest Region of the country, Crosby serves as President of the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) Board of Directors and as President of the NADO Research Foundation. Crosby has served as President of The Development District Association of Appalachia and also served as Chair of the Training Committee. Crosby also was appointed to Ohio University’s Board of Trustees as its first Regional Trustee. She was appointed by Governor Mike DeWine to the Ohio Advisory Council on Aging and she currently serves on The Hippodrome/Colony Historical Theatre Association Board of Directors and is also a member of The Executive Order of the Ohio Commodore.

Crosby holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Organizational Management from Ohio Valley University and earned Executive Women in Leadership Certification from Cornell University. She also holds an Associate’s Degree in Accounting from Washington State Community College.

She resides in Belpre, Ohio with her husband Dave.

Bio coming soon!

G. Jason Jolley, Ph.D. serves as Interim Associate Vice President for Research and Creative Activity at Ohio University where he coordinates economic development activities across the university. In his faculty role, he serves as Professor of Rural Economic Development and MPA Director at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service. He also directs the Center for Economic Development and Community Resilience. Prior to joining Ohio University in 2013, Dr. Jolley spent seven years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Kenan Institute/Kenan-Flagler Business School where he co-led the largest state sponsored study of the effectiveness of economic development incentives for the North Carolina General Assembly.

Dr. Jolley has served as principal investigator on over $10 million in sponsored research funding and co-led efforts to secure an additional $2 million in federal funding and $1 million in state funding for regional economic development partners. His portfolio includes funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, Appalachian Regional Commission, Small Business Administration, Ohio Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation, Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and JobsOhio, among others. Dr. Jolley also leads Ohio University portion of the Ohio Economic Development Institute (OEDI), in partnership with the Ohio Economic Development Association (OEDA) and JobsOhio. OEDI provides state level certification to Ohio economic developers.

Dr. Jolley serves as Executive Director of the Mid-Continent Regional Science Association and is a former board member of the University Economic Development Association. In 2022, he served as an advisor to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia on their Anchor Economy Initiative to better understand the role of higher education institutions and hospitals (eds and meds) on regional economies. In 2016, Governor John Kasich, and the leadership of the Ohio Senate and Ohio House of Representatives appointed Dr. Jolley as the state’s Nonpartisan Census Liaison. In this role, he led Voinovich School staff in building the redistricting database used to draw legislative districts for the U.S. House of Representatives, Ohio House of Representatives, and Ohio Senate districts.

Dr. Jolley maintains an active service portfolio. As the father of daughters with developmental disabilities, he is a passionate advocate for people with developmental disabilities. He serves as Vice-President of the Athens County Board of Developmental Disabilities; on the Board of Trustees and as Treasurer of the Ohio Association of County Boards of Developmental Disabilities; and on the Board of Trustees and Vice-Chair of the Arc of Ohio. Dr. Jolley is a leader in the multi-stakeholder public, private, and nonprofit Ohio Developmental Disability Crisis partnership that promotes long-term financial sustainability of Ohio’s developmental disabilities system.

Bio coming soon!

Kerry Pigman serves as the Executive Director for the Athens County Foundation, and is passionate about creating, cultivating, and sustaining opportunities for Appalachian Ohioans. Kerry is a former entrepreneur, having co-founded and led a venture backed education services company based in Nelsonville, OH for 18 years.  Kerry has also served as Executive in Residence with the Ohio University Voinovich School’s Social Enterprise Ecosystem Project where she worked as a business advisor to social enterprises and was a founding member of the Impact Innovation Group (IIG)- a collaborative focused on creating funding opportunities to help launch, grow, and sustain businesses in Appalachian OH and WV. Kerry serves on the Invest Appalachia Board of Directors and Community Advisory Council and the Appalachia Funders Network Steering Committee where she is Co-Chair of the Place-Based Foundation group.  

As Dean of the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service, Tracy Plouck oversees two academic programs (public administration and environmental studies) and more than $16 million in funding focused on addressing the unmet needs of Ohio and its 32 Appalachian counties. Prior to this, Plouck served as Assistant Clinical Professor with OHIO’s College of Health Sciences and Professions. In this role, she worked to support the Ohio Alliance for Population Health, a network of more than fifty organizations that partner to address various population health challenges across the state. As a part of this effort, Plouck assisted local communities to build capacity through grant writing, training, workforce development planning, and project management.

From 2011 to 2018, Tracy Plouck was Director of the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.  During that time, she also served as President of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors and as Vice Chair of the Council of State Governments’ Justice Center.  For more than 20 years, Plouck held a variety of leadership roles for the State of Ohio, having served twice as the state’s Medicaid Director and as deputy director of both the Ohio Office of Budget and Management and the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities. Plouck has served as a member of the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) National Board of Directors. She earned a BA from Kent State University and an MPA from Ohio State. 

Dr. Jan Ramer is the Senior Vice President of Animal Care and Conservation for the Columbus Zoo and The Wilds.  Jan has worked in the field of zoological conservation for her whole career.  She was a primate keeper at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago for 10 years before she made a mid-life career change, receiving her DVM from the University of Wisconsin in 1995. Jan was a veterinarian at the Indianapolis Zoo for 14 years.  She then found her passion in conservation medicine as Regional Manager for the Gorilla Doctors, where she led a team of African veterinarians in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo for 3 ½ years.  Jan returned to the United States to start her work at The Wilds in 2015, first as the Director of Conservation Medicine, and later as Vice President for The Wilds.  In early 2021 Jan moved into her current position.  Jan has had the honor and privilege to work alongside many hard working, talented, and dedicated colleagues throughout her career.  Jan loves spending time with her family, especially her 4 grandchildren! 

Matt Wiederhold has been involved in community development and revitalization for 20+ years, and is a graduate of the National Main Street Institute. He is the executive director of Heritage Ohio, the official State-wide preservation and downtown revitalization non-profit organization, which oversees the Ohio Main Street Program. Previously, he served as the executive director of Main Street Medina, in Medina Ohio; project manager for the Gordon Square Arts District on the West Side of Cleveland, and an urban Main Street initiative in Toledo, OH. A 1992 graduate of the University of Toledo with a degree in art history, focused on American art and architecture from 1860-1930, his passions for history, design, and revitalization run deep. His hobbies include gardening, thrifting, collecting American pottery, and studying old buildings and local history. He is currently restoring his twelfth historic home with his husband, Joshua, in Toledo.