On Wednesday, June 17 Powder River Basin Resource Council will kick-off its webinar series, Reclaiming & Growing Wyoming’s Future, providing education, tools, and resources available for a planned transition to a new, diversified Wyoming economy. Each session will feature panelists with specific areas of expertise in transitioning resource-dependent communities.
In this first webinar, Wyoming’s Reality & Future Opportunities, Rob Godby, Associate Dean of the Haub School of Environment & Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming; Sharon Fain, Rocky Mountain Power’s Vice President for Wyoming, and Kirk Keysor, Economic Development Representative with the US Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration will discuss Wyoming’s current economic situation and identify opportunities and possible solutions for moving forward. Retired natural resources/energy attorney Larry Wolfe will moderate the panel.
The webinar is free but requires advance registration, and attendance is capped at 150. Registration is available at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8649928751671373835. This June 17 session will begin at 1 pm and features a panel discussion plus a question-and-answer period.
Anyone with an interest in understanding how Wyoming’s communities can transition from dependency on resource extraction to a healthy, diverse economy is encouraged to attend any or all of the webinars. The second session, Tools to Diversify Wyoming’s Economy, is scheduled for June 25 at 10 am. Two more webinars are planned for later in the summer.
For more information on the webinar series, visit www.powderriverbasin.org, email mirwin@powderriverbasin.org or call 307-672-5809.
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June 17 Webinar Speaker Bios:
Robert Godby currently serves as the Associate Dean of the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming. He is also the Deputy Director of the Center for Energy Regulation and Policy Analysis (CERPA) and an associate professor in the Economics Department at UW. Additionally, he also serves as a Daniel’s Fund Ethics Initiative Faculty Fellow, and as an adjunct faculty member with the MBA program at Pforzheim University in Germany. In addition to his academic duties, he was appointed to serve on the State of Wyoming’s Consensus Revenue Estimating Group in 2019. His research areas include natural resource, energy and environmental economics, industrial organization and macroeconomic policy, and he is often interviewed by the national and international media on energy and macroeconomic issues.
Sharon Fain was named Rocky Mountain Power’s Vice President for Wyoming July 1, 2019. Before joining Rocky Mountain Power, Sharon owned a consulting firm and led the utility’s successful Energy Vision 2020 community outreach initiative in Wyoming. Her background includes a decade of energy industry experience in external and government affairs, economic development and strategic communications. Before relocating to Wyoming, she spent 20 years as a national journalist. Sharon is actively involved in economic development organizations as a member of the International Economic Development Council and holds board leadership positions with the Wyoming Economic Development Association and the Southeast Wyoming Economic Development District.
Kirk Keysor is the Economic Development Representative with the US Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration for Montana and Wyoming. He started this position in March of 2015 after being a credit union examiner with the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) and prior to that as a Community Programs Specialist with USDA-Rural Development in Montana. He also was a commercial lender with a couple of community banks in Montana as well as working for a rural telephone cooperative in Eastern Montana.
