United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development South Dakota Acting State Director Bruce Jones recently announced that Joseph Kirk has joined the South Dakota USDA Rural Development team as a community planning and development specialist and will be stationed in the Rapid City Office.
“Kirk has joined the USDA Rural Development team under the Pathways Recent Graduate Program. I’m excited for the opportunity to bring new faces to the agency and help them to succeed in making South Dakota a better place through the many programs we offer,” said Jones.
Kirk holds a Master Degree in Management which he received in 2015 from Harold Buckingham Graduate School and has a Bachelor of Science degree majoring in Criminal Justice in 2013 from NAU. Joseph lives near Box Elder.
“I look forward to utilizing my education to help the Agency carry out its mission to bring economic opportunity and enhanced quality of life to rural communities and residents in South Dakota, especially in the designated Promise Zone area located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation” said Kirk.
USDA Rural Development in South Dakota has offices in Aberdeen, Huron, Mitchell, Pierre, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Watertown, and Yankton. For more information, visit the USDA Rural Development website at http://www.rd.usda.gov/sd.
Since 2009, USDA Rural Development (@USDARD) has invested nearly $13 billion to start or expand nearly 112,000 rural businesses; and invested $38.2 billion in 1,057 electric projects that have financed more than 198,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines serving 4.6 million rural residents. USDA also helped 1.1 million rural residents buy homes; funded nearly 9,200 community facilities such as schools, public safety and health care facilities; and helped bring high-speed Internet access to nearly 6 million rural residents and businesses. For more information, visit www.usda.gov/results.
To read more about USDA’s investments in rural America and its successful turnaround, visit USDA's entry on Medium.com, Rural America Is Back in Business.