Kate Maddigan, EDO of The Cortes Community Economic Development Association

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA) recently hired Kate Maddigan as its new Economic Development Officer (EDO). 

Colin Funk, the President of CCEDA, explained, “I have known Kate pretty much the entire time I've been on Cortes, I think I'm coming up to my 10th summer here. I've been on a few boards with her when I was active with Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI). We live pretty close together in the south end of the island. So like many, we bump into each other at the store or on the trails and such.”

Cortes Currents asked Maddigan about some of the work she has done in the community.

“I'm working for the ambulance station, but that will be my daytime job.”

“I did work for DFO for quite a few years up in the Yukon, and through that I came to understand government culture better than anywhere. So when I'm writing a grant or something, I understand the brain of a bureaucrat. It really helps because you need to be able to speak their language and not everybody can do that.”

“I have written a lot of grants, and then it turns into a project management position because I know the project so well”.

“The Cortes Community Forest Cooperative approached me to write a grant with their value added project, and then I became the project manager when the grant was successful. I've also done some work for the partnership with the skills training of forestry workers a year and a half ago, I wrote the grant, the grant was successful and I became the project manager.”

“I did some work writing grants for the Streamkeepers and help them with their fundraising strategy.”

“I've done a lot of work for FOCI just being on the board of directors for 10 years, and felt that my time there was done, and CCEDA was looking for a grant writer. So I jumped in and I've done some project management for CCEDA along with all the grant writing.”

CF: “She's got a deep sense of Cortes, having been a resident for many years. She's been in the nonprofit/ social profit sector for a huge amount of time and, I think more than anybody on Cortes, has a really good understanding of the groups - whether it's groups that are dealing with the environment, economic or social education. That's really important because many of us sometimes just have a singular focus and she's very much pan-Island, so that's super important.”

“The other thing too is she just has some remarkable skills in terms of being a real strategic thinker, and a visionary and then the ability to get things done. That's unique because most of us are either big thinkers, dreamers, but we couldn't tie our shoes effectively. Others can get lots of things done, but aren't necessarily working on the right thing or the appropriate context. She's got this whole brain approach. Kate can go from big picture and then very quickly understand what's needed to put that forward.”

“She's got a wonderful personality and is really responsive to listening to people and following up on, helping us achieve our aspirations, our dreams. When you're working in the type of work we do in the nonprofit sector and volunteer sector, it's all about relationship. We're doing stuff that sometimes is a surprise, or unexpected, or a challenge and quite often with limited resources. So the relationship side of things is really, really important. LIke many others, I just so enjoy being around her.”