Speaker Series – Main Street: A Proven Strategy For Historic Small Towns – Erin Barnes, May 13.

Erin Barnes, President and CEO of Main Street America, will speak on “Main Street: A Proven Strategy for Historic Small Towns” on May 13. This talk, part of the Historic Shepherdstown Speaker Series, will be held at 7 pm at the Robert Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education at Shepherd University, and is cosponsored by the Potomac Valley Audubon Society.

Erin will address the success of the Main Street movement over the past 45 years in demonstrating the effectiveness of a combination of historic preservation, economic development, marketing and business restructuring strategies in strengthening the competitiveness of the downtowns of historic small towns and historic urban neighborhoods. Main Street America, with a network that includes 1,200 towns in 44 states, including West Virginia, continues to adapt to changing economic, demographic and retail trends and pressures facing America’s small historic towns – which Ms. Barnes will address in her talk. Main Street America is a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which created the initiative in the early 1980s in response to historic small town downtowns throughout the country where historic buildings were decaying and business competitiveness was not being adequately addressed. In 2024, the network had $7.65B of local reinvestment and 10,126 building rehabs.

“As a member of the Historic Shepherdstown Board and as a former staff member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation when the Main Street initiative was launched almost 50 years ago, it is remarkable to consider what has been accomplished in the preservation and revitalization of small historic town downtowns in all parts of the country. The Historic Shepherdstown Speaker Series is fortunate to host someone of Erin Barnes background in small historic town revitalization and environmental issues,” remarked Historic Shepherdstown Board member Greg Coble.

For 15 years, Erin was CEO of ioby, an organization she cofounded, designed to mobilize neighbors who have good ideas to become powerful civic leaders who plan, fund, and make positive change in their own neighborhoods. The Rockefeller Foundation awarded Erin and her co-founders at ioby the Jane Jacobs Medal for New Technology and Innovation. She has also been a freelance writer on climate change and other environmental issues. Earlier in her career, she was a community organizer and public information officer at the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition in Portland, Oregon. Erin holds a B.A. in English and American Studies from the University of Virginia and a Master of Environmental Management from Yale University.