As a farmer, past communications consultant and association manager, Heather Hampton+Knodle is dedicated to developing rural economies through incentivizing investments in telecommunications, innovative workforce development and enabling entrepreneurship.

While serving as the Montgomery County Board Economic Development Committee Chairman, she laid groundwork to leverage $6,000 in public funds for close to $10 Million fiber to the premises private company buildout. Heather was the founding chairman of the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation, the Central Illinois Economic Development Authority and the Montgomery CEO (Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities) program. She currently serves as the appointed Vice Chairman of the Accelerating Broadband Deployment Working Group of the Federal Communications Commission Precision Agriculture Task Force and as a Citizen Member appointee to Illinois Governor Pritzker’s Rural Affairs Council.

Heather farms with her husband Brian in south central Illinois where they have used precision agriculture technologies on their farm since 1996. In addition to raising their four children, they grow corn, soybeans, and wheat with a range of conservation and regenerative agriculture practices and manage a small herd of black Angus. Her bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois College of ACES was in Agriculture Communications News/Editorial with the equivalent of a minor in Russian language and area studies. Her master’s work at the University of Illinois at Springfield focused on public policy, with an interest in post-socialist privatization.