kate_smith

P.O. Box 4, Flinton, PA 16640 Phone: (814) 687-4937, Fax: (814) 687-4127, E-mail: smith@kdc.coop

Cathy is presently the Executive Officer for an 8 year-old nonprofit organization that provides technical assistance and seed money to emerging and nascent groups in the process of forming cooperatives. Her responsibilities include providing technical assistance on feasibility analysis and business plan development along with other organizational development support. Duties include the administration of the Keystone Development Center (KDC) and the Keystone Development Center Foundation. The Executive Director is responsible for obtaining center funding.

In addition to her work at KDC, Cathy provides both qualitative and quantitative research services to a variety of clients. This includes researching, writing, editing, and producing the Licensing Economics Review, a bi-monthly journal of global intellectual property transactions. Quantitative services include intellectual property valuation. Dr. Smith’s primary data collection skills include an extensive background in survey design, implementation, and analysis. Qualitative services include focus group moderation and analysis. Cathy is a skilled focus group moderator with many years of experience in leading groups across a variety of sectors.

Dr. Smith spent 11 years on the faculty of the Pennsylvania State University in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology. (She has a Ph.D. in Economics from the Iowa State University). While at Penn State she researched marketing strategy impact on net-farm income and regional approaches to sustaining agriculture. Her academic career includes—authoring 15 journal articles, 2 book chapters, 4 monographs, and many popular press articles; creating and teaching a Ph.D. marketing course; updating and teaching a graduate and undergraduate course in Agricultural Marketing along with an undergraduate course in Agricultural Finance; advising through graduation 4 Master of Science and 3 Ph.D. students; conceptualizing and offering educational-outreach programs for Directors of rural-based cooperatives; and creating and obtaining funding for research projects—including $1,000,000 from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to sustain agriculture in Pennsylvania (with several collaborators).