Photo courtesy of Louisa Development Group Facebook page

A Mount Pleasant High School graduate is settling into his new role at Louisa County Development Group. 

Cole Smith was brought on as the executive director for the group back in mid-May. Born and raised in Mount Pleasant, Smith was a former intern at the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce and has a passion for wanting to help people in his community. Smith gives his thoughts on being able to give back to a community that has given much to him, “It’s incredibly rewarding. I would say it’s given me a new perspective on how our communities operate. The position I’m in, I get to really see a lot of the moving pieces, a lot of behind the scenes things that you either really take for granted or don’t see just as a resident. So that’s been something very new for me and overall I’ve really enjoyed the work so far.” 

Smith adds that he loves working on a wide variety of projects from small business technical assistance and community development to teaching citizenship classes in Columbus Junction. A current project Smith is working on is a water project to install a new pipeline from Muscatine to Louisa County to help improve water quality in the county and possibly bring down the cost of water.  Residents can get to know Smith more during his “Coffee with Cole” event on the first Friday of the month at 8 a.m. The next one will be held September 3rd at Letts City Hall.