This week we have a virtual conversation with Stephanie Tyree. Stephanie is Executive Director of The Hub, a community development organization based in Charleston WV.
Learn more about Stephanie and The Hub at http://wvhub.org.
This week we have a virtual conversation with Stephanie Tyree. Stephanie is Executive Director of The Hub, a community development organization based in Charleston WV.
Learn more about Stephanie and The Hub at http://wvhub.org.
This is Change in the Coalfields, a podcast by Coalfield Development, all about change in Appalachia, what change has happened, what change is happening and what change still needs to happen.
Brandon Dennison:I'm your host, Brandon Dennison. I'm the CEO of Coalfield Development. And I'm really thrilled this week to have a colleague and also a friend Stephanie Tyree, who is Executive Director of the West Virginia Community Development hub - a really catalytic organization for our state and for our region, and an organization that Coalfield Development has been blessed to do a lot of work together with. Stephanie, welcome to the show.
Stephanie Tyree:Hey, Brandon, I'm real thrilled to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Brandon Dennison:So I always just like to hear from our guests, sort of how you ended up where you are. So the first question being, were you born and raised in West Virginia?
Stephanie Tyree:Yeah, yeah. I'm a West Virginian. I was born and raised in Charleston. And that's where my parents still are, they're in the house I grew up in and I left after high school and went to college in Pittsburgh, and then law school in New York City. And I stayed in New York for a couple of years and worked, and was really doing everything that I could to try to find a way back to West Virginia. I think I realized maybe, I was gone for 10 years, I think I realized after about seven years that I really wanted to come home. I think like a lot of people, I wanted to raise my kids and have a family in West Virginia. And I felt like if I raised my kids in New York City, they would have such a different life experience than mine growing up in West Virginia. And I really wanted them to grow up in the hills of home. So I came back here in 2009. And I've been pretty much here ever since. I lived for a year in Eastern Kentucky doing some work over there. And then came back in 2012, and started at the hub. And that's where I've been.
Brandon Dennison:back to New York City. What did you have a good experience in? In New York City?
Stephanie Tyree:I wouldn't say that I did.
Brandon Dennison:Not exactly.
Stephanie Tyree:I loved where I worked after law school but I hated law school. I don't...law school was not a good experience for me. Though, it was very enlightening and it's really driven my work since then. Living in New York, it was just bizarre to me, you know, I would go full days and I wouldn't see the sky. And it was just a totally different kind of mental experience than I was used to. And I just didn't, I felt out of place there. And as soon as I got back to Appalachia, I felt like really clear that this was my place and that my people were here. One thing I didn't mention is you know, I'm a sixth generation West Virginian. My family has been in West Virginia for a long time on my dad's side. And my mom is from Western Kentucky. But she came to West Virginia in the 70s. So I grew up around a really big family in Charleston. And I'm black. My family in Charleston is is black. And so that was a really interesting, enriching experience to grow up in that community in West Virginia and come from, I think, like kind of the heart of what West Virginians are like, by ancestors were salt miners and coal miners and preachers. Real traditional kind of industries of West Virginians. Yeah and then I guess the last sort of thing I'll say is that a lot of my dad's generation, almost his entire 12 siblings went to West Virginia State University, which was a historically black college and outside of Charleston and Institute. And so I kind of feel like my academic journey was started from a West Virginia State because both my mom and my dad went there and it sort of launched their professional careers which obviously supported my development.
Brandon Dennison:And where did you do your undergrad studies?
Stephanie Tyree:University of Pittsburgh. I don't speak too much about it because so many WVU fans are...
Brandon Dennison:Yeah, that's touchy. I never knew that. I...you know, we're friends as well as colleagues. But yeah, that's funny that I actually never...I don't think I realized.
Stephanie Tyree:I love Pittsburgh, I thought it was, is a beautiful city. It is actually completely different than it was when I was in college there. I went to college 20 years ago now, but it's really transformed as a city in the last two decades, but I, you know, a part of my heart is definitely in Pittsburgh, so...
Brandon Dennison:Do you consider Pittsburgh part of Appalachia?
Stephanie Tyree:Yeah, I mean, kind of in the same way that you maybe you consider like, Knoxville part of Appalachia. So I don't think that when you're in Pittsburgh, you feel connected to Appalachia. But I think you know, and it's got its own rich, really rich culture and history there. But certainly, right south of Pittsburgh, you know, southwestern Pennsylvania.
Brandon Dennison:You don't have to go too far outside city limits to be in hills and hollers.
Stephanie Tyree:Yeah, yeah. In a very kind of similar place, especially to them to northern West Virginia region.
Brandon Dennison:I'm jumping around a little bit now. But just because we hit on Pittsburgh, you know, today, March 31, we're talking the President is giving a major address about an infrastructure package in Pittsburgh. You know, I wonder, not getting into the politics of that, but just if you've spent time in Pittsburgh, obviously, we're both very connected to community economic development in Appalachia. What's your sense of, of what could come from that proposal? What are your initial reactions?
Stephanie Tyree:Well, I think it's a good thing, that the new administration is focusing on infrastructure development right out of the gate. The biggest thing is really, we need a level of investment far beyond what we've ever seen before at least in my lifetime, and we need federal investment that is going to make real scene change on the ground, you know. So I think that I'm hopeful, but also have a sense of urgency, because it needs to be more than, you know, press releases and media sound bites, it needs to be like a wave of funding that comes to our rural communities. And, and that actually, is dispersed really quickly, so that we can see transformation in in the communities. So I'm a little concerned that the federal government doesn't normally move very quickly, you know. And one thing I didn't say yet about myself is that I am from Charleston, but I don't live in Charleston anymore. And I'm married now and I have two little boys and my husband and I live in Fayette County. And so we chose to leave the city and the big city of Charleston and live in a small town, and we just live on kind of a rural road. And it really is like the heart of West Virginia. It's wonderful living out here.
Brandon Dennison:And your boys have plenty of room to go run around and get muddy.
Stephanie Tyree:Oh yeah, we've got big field and woods right beside our house.
Brandon Dennison:And did you always know you would want that note for your family? Or did it take leaving for a little while to realize that?
Stephanie Tyree:Yeah I think it took leaving, because my experience growing up was that you were really pushed to see the success as being getting out of West Virginia, you know, and so, I think that I had to get some space to be able to define for myself what I wanted, and what my vision of like, a wonderful life was. And there's something really just strange and wonderful about being from West Virginia, because it just is so deep in your heart, you know, even if you try to ignore it, it kind of it's just there, you know, and so I don't know if I always envisioned, like living exactly where we live. But you know, we live right on the edge of the New River Gorge. What could be more beautiful?
Brandon Dennison:The country's newest national park?
Stephanie Tyree:Yes.
Brandon Dennison:Are locals excited? Are you excited about that or are nervous about that?
Stephanie Tyree:Yeah, I think people feel the similar way to how I feel about the infrastructure plan. It's like hopeful but skeptical. You know. So the biggest issue is that people have a very deep connection to the land that goes back generations. The house that my husband I live in, we were the...we bought it from the family that built it back in the 1800s. You know, and so, it this is...a lot of these small towns, you know, it's the generations of families live in the same place. And so, even though it's our National Park, it's local families' hunting grounds, and they're their sort of outdoor recreational grounds and have always been part of their family. And so I think people want to make sure that they're not excluded from their history, even while the, you know, National Park is, is being grown.
Brandon Dennison:You hit on, you know, salt industry, coal industry, but even tourism, it can be extractive, right? Where the point of the economy is, people from outside the area are coming here to get something and then leaving. I hadn't really thought about that way until now. But I mean, if you're not careful, tourism could be the same way. Right? We need to do it in a way that honors local people and builds up local business.
Stephanie Tyree:And isn't seen as like the silver bullet. Right? I think that one of the things that you and I've talked about before is that there's no one thing that's going to be like the magic bullet for solving all the needs of rural West Virginia and tourism is definitely not it. I think it's, it's a benefit, if it is developed in a beneficial way for communities. But you can certainly look around the country and see places where the development of the tourism industry has not benefited the local communities that are around.
Brandon Dennison:I think funders, policymakers, they want to have one good answer to put all the money in and then say our economies developed. And it's a great point. It's a simple point. But it gets overlooked that there's not a silver bullet. I'm glad you hit on that.
Stephanie Tyree:Yeah I mean, the answer is the people, right? Like if you want to put money into something you should put money into developing people and helping them have... helping them grow their leadership and have successful and fulfilling lives. I think that's part of why we both do what we do you know, is it's not about the specific industry, it's about leadership and supporting people.
Brandon Dennison:So when you think about as a person growing up in West Virginia, in your family, what were some key moments that sort of shaped you and developed you into who you
Stephanie Tyree:I think a lot of my leadership was developed are? through watching my dad and learning from him. My dad is was in the Army Reserves. He's retired now. And he was also an attorney for the general counsel for the West Virginia Housing Development Fund. And so he did a lot of rural development projects. And, but also he just as...he was also involved civically a lot in Charleston, so he was a police commissioner. And I think just seeing how hard he worked and the different ways that he kind of layered his work in together from the Army to the development work to the local leadership work that was impactful for me. And maybe this was his Army background, but my dad was really militant about expecting us as kids to follow through on things, and we weren't allowed to quit things. And so we could do anything, we could try out any sports or activities that we wanted to. But once we signed up for them, we couldn't quit. We had to finish out the season or the program, or whatever it was. And there were many years that I got a month into something and I did not want to do it anymore. And I would, I begged and pleaded to get out of it and quit and he would not let us. And I feel like that really, that really kind of built me into who I am because it sort of showed me the importance of once you make a commitment to something following through on it. And even if isn't always fun or easy. And also being thoughtful about what you commit to.
Brandon Dennison:Because once you're in you're not getting out of it. So what a great lesson.
Stephanie Tyree:The other thing I think about is so after high school, I went on a cross-country trip with two friends for the summer. And we visited a bunch of parks and just kind of camped across the country and had a you know, the young person's experience. And there were multiple instances on that trip where things really went awry. And the one specific example I'm thinking of is we were out in the Badlands in South Dakota and we were camping- we were driving in this little VW bug you know, so there was like no ground clearance at all in this thing. It was also weighed down with a bunch of...
Brandon Dennison:Like a very classic road trip. Adventure in a VW Bug.
Stephanie Tyree:Not an old school VW bug like a 1998 one.
Brandon Dennison:Still though, that's pretty classic.
Stephanie Tyree:And there's three of us squeezed in there with all this junk that we were traveling with. And so but anyway, we had like two inches of ground clearance and we drove out into this campsite in the Badlands.And we were really far out we have driven for probably 15 minutes past the entrance of the campground, nobody around the middle of these amazing geographic structures, and we got stuck in a massive expanse, and it did not seem like we were gonna get out of it. And it also was, like, totally unclear how we're going to find someone to help us. And we just figured it out, you know, we ended up like MacGyvering all of this stuff to pull our car out of the mud. It took us forever to probably like three hours, we were completely covered head-to-toe in mud by the time that we got done with it, but the whole time, I just felt like, we will figure this out, because we have to figure this out. Because I have to get out of here. And I will get up here. And and I think that that kind of like obstinate hopefulness is kind of at the core of my personality, you know, where I just really believe that, you know, if you don't give up, if you just try and try and try, you'll find success eventually. But the biggest part is not getting overwhelmed and not giving up.
Brandon Dennison:I love that. I think that's so Appalachian to that just figuring it out, you know, and sometimes our solutions, it's not exactly a clean, glossy, middle class suburban looking target product. But we use what we have and we work with who's around and and make do not where I expected to
Stephanie Tyree:Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't a story, I was go today. really thinking about sharing. But yeah, one of those really transformational experiences for me. Another transformational experience, and this is a different angle for sure, but you know, I have a pretty big family. My dad is from a family of 13 brothers and sisters. And like I said before, most of them
Brandon Dennison:Tell the listener a little bit more about were in Charleston when I was growing up. And yeah, and then I've got a bunch of siblings too, including a number of like half siblings, my older brother passed away a couple of years after I started at The Hub, in a like unexpected and tragic way. The Hub in case they haven't heard, what the organization And I was really new to the organization and to the work does. And then also, I'd love to hear some of your big priorities with my supervisor, the director at the time, you know, when you have a tragedy in your family, like everything stops, you know, and you just have to go. And one of the really, like foundational learning experiences I had, in my own leadership from that time, was seeing how he supported me then - his name is Kent Spellman. And so Kent's approach to supporting me at that time was completely supported me as a whole person, you know, and saying, like, I was the policy coordinator for the organization, I was in the legislature, at like standing outside of a committee meeting where they were voting on my bill, when I got the call about my brother. And I just, I left, I had to go, and we had a partner who's working on it with us and so she just took it over. But he, Kent said, you know, just go, whatever you have to do just go and I just left for two weeks, and you know, was with my family totally checked out from that you're working on as a leader right now. work. And I had never had a boss who was supportive in that way of me before. And really, I mean, I've never had that experience before either, obviously. But it showed me what it looked like to support someone through a moment of shock and grief, and to support them in a way where they were
Stephanie Tyree:The Hub is a statewide nonprofit that works more committed to the organization on the backend of that experience, you know. And so I just always remembered it, when I was working with him of how he had been so generous, didn't care, like if work fell down or if I couldn't get like certain deliverables completed on the timeline - really transformed the way that I worked with other people to, you know, just from my own personal experience with that. And so now, I'm in a leadership role at The Hub now, and I took over from Kent and I really tried to carry that forward. And so the way that I think about it as like, as a leader, supporting people as whole people and recognizing that life isn't always predictable, and there are times when people will have to step back, and you shouldn't give up on them or be critical of them. But if you support them through that they will step forward and often like step deeper into the work because they received that support. And then the other thing is that it was just so generous. And it really made me think deeply about how generosity matters and how you have to practice that, you know, and you really have to train yourself to kind of shut down the voice in your head that says, "Yes, but I need this. And now I have to do this work because you can't do it" or whatever the critical voice might be. Say no, I'm going to be more generous right now than maybe you even expect me to be, because that benefits you. But it also benefits me in the long run, because it builds our trust it, it makes us stronger, as a whole. in community development, mostly with small communities. So what we mean when we say community development is really building strong towns that are grown and the vision that the local communities have for them, right. And so the way that our work looks, it looks like lots of different things in different places, because it's really led by the community members.
Brandon Dennison:And not every community wants the exact same things, right? So that work can't automatically, it can't be a standardized type thing.
Stephanie Tyree:There are some core values that we have that guide our work, you know, so we really prioritize supporting small local businesses and Main Street redevelopment. And we do provide some guidance and expertise to communities to help them think about ways that they can grow their economy and grow their communities in a way to build stronger towns and to draw in more diversified industries. We aren't experts in bringing in like, major industries, or like big box stores or something like that we're really kind of small town development. But, the work starts and ends with leadership, you know, and so the way that we work in the communities that we work with is with local leaders in those communities. And we're really intentional about making sure that they understand that leadership looks like lots of different things for different people in different places. And so, we always want to work with the official leaders, like the elected leaders and the people that traditionally have taken on a leadership role in the community, whether that's elected or volunteer, but we're always trying to find new people to and to help people that haven't necessarily seen themselves as leader before, find their passion and grow their leadership. So we do that through coaching work with individual communities. And we work with, like 15 to 20 communities a year across the state. And that's really kind of in-depth intensive on the ground work with them. Our coaches are expected to be out of their offices and on the road and in the communities meeting in-person with those community leaders they work with on a regular basis. And their goal is to really help them guide ideas towards implementation and real project. The other big piece of the work that the hub does is like systematic work. So we really see that there is an opportunity to grow all of our work together, when organizations are working in partnership together, are aligning their work and are thinking about what are the hurdles that all communities are facing that we can work on together, that we can make more movement on, rather than doing it on a case-by-case basis. And so the first way that I got engaged in working with you, Brandon, was through our abandoned and dilapidated property work. And so long, long time ago, we built this coalition that was really looking at policy change around dilapidated properties. That was because that was an issue that every single community that we worked with, and I would say every community in the whole state, faces and that there are solutions that can be created at a statewide level, to build new tools and help communities address it, that can move them faster than just the kind of community by community or property by property work.
Brandon Dennison:It was a great issue too, because it was a not only a bipartisan like a nonpartisan issue, but it was a big issue. I feel like sometimes when groups try and get a nonpartisan issue, it's like small ball, you know, it's like let's have a flower garden and no one's against that. But this is like a really big pressing issue for communities that there are lots of good ideas from lots of different perspectives.
Stephanie Tyree:Yeah it's been a through line of the hub's work that abandoned and dilapidated property work. And it's where some of our most exciting and innovative partnerships have come from. It's where like some of the most unexpected new relationships have emerged from, it just will surprise you, who really cares about this, people care about buildings, they have a real direct connection to buildings and to the ideas that they have for how to redevelop the buildings in their communities. And it is shockingly complicated to do that. So you know it better than any of us do, you know, it's just so difficult and, and especially as volunteer community teams, when they would take on these projects, it was far beyond a volunteer's ability to manage a building redevelopment project, multistory building redevelopment project, you know, so being able to connect them with groups like Coalfield, that are doing that work, and really taking on those challenges has been really critical. And I think that that, we do work in lots of different areas and like I said, the work of The Hub starts and ends with leadership development. Part of the work that I am most energized about right now is the rural development work. And I think part of what interests me about it is that there is this coalition of really high performing organizations around the state that are committed to working on this - we're working in increasing alignment in the work together. And it's been very interesting, because it has felt, to me at least fairly non-competitive in the work, really groups understanding, being excited and supportive of each other's roles, but also recognizing that there are gaps that need to be worked through in the state. So that's been, you know, from a sort of programmatic perspective, some of the most interesting work to me, over the last year, and I think some of the place, it's a place where I feel like we are on the verge of building the processes to transform a lot of places. A lot of that opportunity, I think, for moving into, like, large scale transformational position is dependent on the people that are at the table, you know, and the relationships that the organizations have with each other. So that's continuing to kind of build those relationships and support each other, you know, being like, support you and support the leaders at the other organizations that are working in rural downtown redevelopment. To me, it feels just as important because our success is connected to each other.
Brandon Dennison:To your point on competition, that like this is just a key moment in Appalachian history and we've got to get this right. And we really need to all be on the same team, right? Like the competition is poverty, the competition is disinvestment, the competition is unfair systems, two nonprofits trying to make things better are not competitors, right? But that's easier said than done.
Stephanie Tyree:It is daunting, the challenges that are facing our state in our region. And it's daunting, the potential that we have to miss the moment, you know, in the opportunity. It does feel right now like we're in a moment where failing to act and failing to work together can mean that we miss an opportunity to make some big difference. And I don't know if every moment feels like that. It feels, it feels particular.
Brandon Dennison:It feels high stakes, doesn't it?
Stephanie Tyree:It does. Yeah. It's scary. It's exciting. But it's also daunting. We need more people doing this work, we really do. I see through The Hub's work, all kinds of people that are really passionate about community development, many of them don't know what that term community development, they're passionate about their towns, they're passionate about the people in their towns or the young people in their towns or in the state, but it's really that passion. You know, that's the crux of it all. Right now it feels like we have an amazing group of leaders that are working together. And I think that you we can show some real transformation that's happening in communities around the state, but it's only sort of scraping the surface. There's a lot more that we could do. But we need to like quintuple the number of people that are with us. You know, so finding the resources to grow the field is always a challenge. And one of the things that we haven't mentioned yet is, you know, West Virginia, is it is resource rich and funding poor, I would say. You know, and so when you compare us to other places, we're really scraping together our work with a few key funding partners, but not nearly as many as other states have. And so that's one of the just the key challenges. And one of my hopes for this moment is that we can get our federal partners to understand you know, that we have the capacity to do a lot of work in the state. And if we had the investment to match that capacity, we could make some transformational change. They have to go up with that investment, though. And that's what is really needed in this moment.
Brandon Dennison:But also that the solutions don't have to be invented in D.C., the solutions are here on the ground in the communities, in the hills and hollers and just need invested in.
Stephanie Tyree:Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I think is really interesting, and I always have difficulty, really making this clear to people who aren't here in West Virginia is that there's just a real kind of schism between the national narrative about what's happening in West Virginia, and what people want and what people need, and what's happening on the ground, and what people care about and what they're working on and what they need. And so things are much more hopeful. And there's a lot more movement happening in communities in West Virginia that gets acknowledged. And part of what we're fighting against is a multi generational narrative about our state.
Brandon Dennison:Or digging below what color our state is on a map on election night.
Stephanie Tyree:Yeah, people are more than how they vote one day, it's sometimes feels like two totally separate conversations are happening. And the kind of larger scale conversation about West Virginia, it just often feels completely disconnected from what's happening day-to-day here and the reality of what we're working on and and the challenges we're facing and the things that are opportunities. But I think generally, I feel really lucky to be from West Virginia, completely blessed to get to do this type of work. And what, how lucky to get to work on the ground with communities.
Brandon Dennison:Keep telling ourselves that on the hard days, don't we?
Stephanie Tyree:Yeah.
Brandon Dennison:We're one of the lucky ones. Yeah, to get to be - have a seat at the table and be a part of this critical moment in Appalachian history.
Stephanie Tyree:And to live in such a beautiful place that has such an important role in this country. Of course, there are all kinds of challenges and all kinds of things that we need to improve. Yeah, I think like you said, we have everything here that we need. We have the solutions here that we need and the people to do the things that we want to do to improve our state. It's really about just putting the pieces together and removing the hurdles.
Brandon Dennison:Stephanie, you I mean, you say it's all about leadership and just genuinely from from my heart, you are an amazing leader in our state and for our region. And I really enjoy working with you and I've really, really enjoyed our conversation today. And I hope we get out more because it went by quick.
Stephanie Tyree:My first time being on a podcast so thank you for having me. And yeah, I always love talking about this stuff. And we are lucky to, to do this and I feel lucky to be in the work with you, Brandon. So thanks for what you're doing.
Brandon Dennison:Thank you so much for joining and the work goes on. Change in the Coalfields is a podcast created by Coalfield Development at the West Edge Factory in Huntington, West Virginia. This episode was hosted by Brandon Dennison, and produced and edited by JJN Multimedia. Become a part of our mission to rebuild the Appalachian economy by going to our website Coalfield-Development.org to make a donation. You can email us anytime at info@Coalfield-Development.org and subscribe to our newsletter for up to date information on the podcast. You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn by searching for Coalfield Development. Check back soon for more episodes.