Mark Pearson is a Community Facilitator for Communities Unlimited and is proud to serve alongside community leaders as they build the futures of our hometowns. Since 2004 Mark has assisted rural Texas communities with drinking water and wastewater infrastructure finance and compliance, participates in the Texas Water Infrastructure Coordinating Committee (TWICC), and previously worked for the Texas Water Development Board; for Mission Waco as Finance and Operations Director; and taught undergrad Economics courses at Baylor University. Mark has B.A. University Scholars/Liberal Arts, M.S. Economics from Baylor University.

Session One:
Track: TAP Skills:
Title: RCAP Regions and Community Economic Development: Connecting the Dots
Day/Time: Tuesday, 8/16 | 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Description: Connecting the dots between environmental work and community economic development – what does this mean in our daily work? How does this translate into positive change for our communities? How can we meet our mission to build resiliency in rural America? This participatory session will allow space for discussion, challenging assumptions, and creative thinking as we identify how we do this now – and what needs to happen to re-wire our approach for even greater impact.  Be prepared to share, inspire and leave with new strategies to elevate our collective impact in meeting our mission. 

Session Two:
Track: TAP Skills: CED
Title: CED Practice in Action
Day/Time: Tuesday, 8/16 | 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Description: Although community and economic development has been an important part of RCAP’s work building thriving rural communities, it remains an area of practice that not all TAPs are familiar with, or know how to integrate into their environmental and water work. In this session TAPs will have the opportunity to hear from a panel of their peers who have made the pivot to community and economic development work and discuss practical strategies for integrating CED into their existing training and technical assistance work with communities for greater impact.