Ben Strand has lived in Winona since 2012 when he started his freshman year at Winona State University studying Journalism and English Writing. While in school he worked at the Winona Daily News for three years covering arts and culture and education. He also spent a year working at the Pump House Regional Arts Center in La Crosse, WI. He started getting involved in Winona’s arts and culture community by hosting monthly open-mic poetry events in 2014 and volunteering for various music and arts festivals in the region. During his last year of school he co-founded Treedome Productions, a multi-media entertainment production company presently located in Rochester, MN. Ben is a cohort of the 2018 Blandin Community Leadership Program and 2019 Leadership Winona program.

Prior to starting with CEDA in June, Ben spent three years at the Winona Area Chamber of Commerce as the Main Street Program Manager working with the city’s downtown district and aiding in its economic development and revitalization.

Ben is extremely passionate about rural community development and rural downtowns. He looks forward to contributing to the growth and development of Lake City and Wabasha in the coming years, as a lot of important projects are in progress that will have drastic and positive impacts on the community.