The Rural Towns Project Podcast
In the Rural Towns Project Podcast, Dax Jacobson combines his day job as a business professor with his love for the rural American West he grew up in. He talks to the people who are actually trying to make a living in - and to the researchers, artists, and others inspired by - the rural towns of the American West. He hopes to help himself and others understand the past, appreciate the present, and positively impact the future of rural towns and the American West.
The Rural Towns Project Podcast
Talia Hansen is the reason I was in Bluff (UT) recently. We talk about her role as Economic Development Manager for San Juan County and the importance of empathy, curiosity, and “jumping on the truck”
In this episode, I talk to Talia Hansen, Economic Development Manager for San Juan County. Talia shares a little of her traumatic childhood story of escape and survival and how she learned from it to take risks, “jump on the truck”, and to be curious and put people first. Talia also talks about how her work with nonprofits, with design thinking, and with running her own business prepared her for her economic development role. We talk about the San Juan County Basecamp conference and the goal to bring people together who aren’t typically able to come together because of the size of the county (it’s not just rural, it’s frontier rural) and then get them out in their own community through immersive experiences. Talia shares some incredible recent grant awardees (including the county’s first to a native-owned business) and how her work with the Ute and Navajo tribes is an honor that has helped her learn more about her own identity. We end, as always, with the Road Trip Music Question.
Podcast music: “A Happy Day” by codemusic, http://www.jamendo.com, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/