By Hannah Curran, Editor
TRUSSVILLE — Dr. Kristi Bradford was named the new executive director for Leadership Trussville at the beginning of December 2022. Bradford brings her skills, knowledge, and experience to Leadership Trussville after serving as Executive Director of a literacy nonprofit in Central Alabama for the last five and a half years.
Bradford’s position entails keeping in touch with being a liaison for the board of directors. There is a five-member board of directors that serves Leadership Trussville. Leadership Trussville is a non-political, non-governmental, independent 501(c)3 nonprofit governed by a Board of Directors.
“Mayor Buddy Choat is a city liaison for us,” Bradford said. “In fact, this was his vision to have Leadership Trussville. Other cities have it. There’s a Leadership Birmingham, a Leadership Hoover, a Leadership Vestavia Hills, and Leadership St. Clair County.”
Leadership Trussville is modeled after those entities, and the mayor’s vision was to take these highly motivated people from our community and expose them to different parts of Trussville.
“We’re very excited about Kristi and her leadership ability to move our Leadership Trussville class forward,” Choat said. “She was an original board of director member, and after several meetings, we saw how engaged she was in our overall plan. We’re very excited to have her on board, and we look forward to her leadership.”
Mike Ennis, Chair of Leadership Trussville, said Kristi brings a wealth of relationships and experience to the position.
“We’re really privileged to have her lead this initiative that has been so important to the mayor,” Ennis said.
According to the Mission Statement, the purpose of Leadership Trussville is to encourage and educate an annual class of qualified and highly motivated individuals who want to strengthen their leadership skills, deepen their sense of civic involvement, and be more involved with ideas and initiatives to better our community while learning first-hand about the issues and needs in Trussville.
Coming up in January, the class members will be exposed to small businesses and economic development in Trussville, so they’ll hear from business leaders, tour the industrial park, and talk to business owners in the industrial park. The class members will also hear from Danny Garret on Innovate Alabama and how they bring businesses to the state.
“It’s focusing on Trussville, but it’s also looking at how Trussville is part of the bigger picture with the city of Birmingham, with the state of Alabama, with the nation, and sometimes even the world because the businesses we have here in Trussville impacts other places in the world,” Bradford said. “So it’s really amazing what Trussville has, and it’s highlighting those things that make Trussville Trussville and make us such a good city and community.”
Before her nonprofit work, Bradford had a successful twenty-five-year career in Alabama’s public education system. She worked for 18 years in Trussville as a gifted teacher, technology teacher, and assistant principal at the elementary level. Bradford embraced the transition from Jefferson County Schools to Trussville City Schools. She was also integral in Trussville’s expansion from one elementary campus (Paine Primary & Intermediate Schools) to three elementary schools.
“In any organization or business, the greatest resources you have are time, money, and people, and Leadership Trussville focuses on people,” Bradford said. “So it takes leaders in the community, and we want to strengthen their leadership skills, and we want to deepen their sense of civic involvement. We want them to be more involved with the community, so it’s a way to take our leaders, make them shine, and get them involved with our city. In that effort, take our city to a new level and new heights.”
Bradford and her husband reside in Trussville, and their children are all Hewitt Trussville High School graduates. Current leadership activities include chairperson for the Summer Learning Committee of Governor Ivey’s Grade-Level Reading Campaign; president-elect, Trussville Daybreak Rotary Club; Birmingham Business Journal’s Who’s Who in Nonprofits, March 2021; member of United Way of Central Alabama’s Bold Goals Initiative; manager, The World Games, Community-wide Read Aloud event in Bessemer.
This will be Bradford’s first role in which she has worked with adults, and she said this position has made her grow as a person because she has surrounded herself with a variety of people with a vision for success.
“This is all very exciting to me,” Bradford said. “I get to work with the cream of the crop; I get to work with this select group of leaders.”
Leadership Trussville meets one day a month from September through May and exposes them to different parts of the city. In May, the class members of Leadership Trussville will have a graduation where they will present group projects they have been working on throughout the year to help improve the city of Trussville.
“These projects have to improve Trussville in some way,” Bradford said. “It may improve an organization in Trussville, may improve the lives of the citizens in Trussville, but it will improve Trussville in some way, and each group has their own project that has to be sustainable for three to five years.”
If you are interested in participating in the next class of Leadership Trussville, applications will be available in April 2023 and will close in June 2023.