RIDGWAY – The North Central Pennsylvania Regional Planning and Development Commission (North Central) is pleased to announce that Elise Grovanz is now a graduate of Leadership Elk & Cameron.

Grovanz graduated on June 12 from the personal and professional development program. She has been employed as community capacity coordinator at North Central for the last two years. In her role, she works hand-in-hand with local municipalities and nonprofit organizations across the six-county region on various grant projects.

“We are extremely proud of Elise for graduating from this program,” North Central Executive Director Jim Chorney said. “She has been a tremendous asset to the organization through her dedicated work with our local governments and nonprofit businesses in helping them achieve their goals.”

For Grovanz, the leadership program opened doors for meeting new people and learning about various aspects and businesses in the Elk and Cameron County areas.

“I feel the biggest positive outcome of the leadership program was the networking opportunity,” the Emporium native said, “and, also realizing how many resources are here that I didn’t even know as a local. We toured Emporium Hardwoods, which I live in Cameron County, and I didn’t realize how big it is or what they are capable of, and some of the active projects in the area, too, that I wasn’t aware of until I built connections through the program.”

Grovanz said the leadership program gave her the opportunity to learn a great deal about many businesses in the area, including Domtar and its fish hatchery, the Brick Block project in Johnsonburg, Embassy Powdered Metals, and Calypso in St. Marys, who offers retail space for vendors, and all the people she has met along the way.

“I really think it did open up a lot of networking opportunities,” Grovanz said.

Amy Kessler, who serves as Community Development/Regional Planning Director at North Central, praised Grovanz for completing the course.

“We knew when we hired Elise that the sky was the limit,” Kessler said. “Elise has played a key role in extending our community capacity programs to local communities and nonprofits alike. We see a bright future for Elise.”

The class, Grovanz said, shared a wealth of information that will be beneficial throughout her career.

“It’s hard to encompass how much we learned through the class,” she said. “I think along with the networking it showed me who I can collaborate with professionally as well as help our clients/audience by showing who they can collaborate with as well.”

Leadership Elk & Cameron, Grovanz said, focuses on economic development, the environment, and tourism, while also discussing communications, arts and education, health and human services, local government, and history and preservation. The group also visited the capital in Harrisburg to see first-hand how government operates.

A 2019 graduate of the Pennsylvania State University with a bachelor’s degree in Rehabilitation and Human Services, Grovanz is an accomplished trumpet player. She performed in the prestigious Blue Band for four years at halftime of home football games, the Big 10 Championships, the Rose Bowl and the Rose Bowl Parade, along with performing at the Fiesta and Citrus bowls. She also served as treasurer of the Penn State Altoona Lions Ambassadors and currently serves as a board member at Guy and Mary Felt Manor.

When not at work, you can find Grovanz spending time with her family and her cat while also enjoying the many outdoors activities the region offers.

Leadership Elk & Cameron is designed to educate participants on their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and assets in communities, along with increasing community awareness and understanding through collaborative leadership and relationship building while fostering civic readiness.