Ken Poole
Executive Director, Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER)
Dr. Poole directs a national nonprofit membership organization (C2ER) serving economic and community development researchers in communities, states, academia, and the private sector. In his capacity of Executive Director, Dr. Poole oversees all program development activities of the organization including the production of the organization’s newsletter, annual conference, web site, and publications.
Dr. Poole has managed economic development research, analysis, and technical assistance efforts for 21 years. Before joining C2ER, he served as the Director of Domestic Economic Development for National Association of State Development Agencies, where he provided technical assistance and research support to state and local economic development professionals. He developed new project opportunities in technology-based economic development, economic and policy research, and the organization of state-based economic development initiatives. One project involved a study of evaluation activities being implemented by state and local economic development programs for the US Economic Development Administration.
On behalf of C2ER, Dr. Poole supervises an on-going national data collection effort, the ACCRA Cost of Living Index and training programs for economic development practitioners, including a national training institute at George Mason University. Dr. Poole also teaches and coordinates training offerings related to impact analysis, research design methods, cluster analysis, benchmarking, targeting, and other regional economic analyses targeted to economic developers. Dr. Poole holds a Ph.D. in Regional Development Policy from George Mason University, a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from The American University, and a B.A. in Political Science and Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
