Candace has over 20 years of experience in community and economic development work with cities and counties spending over 10 years with the Meramec Regional Planning Commission working in the areas of grant writing and administration, transportation planning, solid waste management planning, and business loan programs. During her time with MRPC, she also facilitated several community planning efforts including strategic and comprehensive plans for cities. She has six plus years’ experience with the City of St. James where she held the title of Director of Community Development. During her time with the City of St. James, she gained experience in public infrastructure management, planning, development, construction and public financing, capital improvement planning and human resource management. She oversaw over $12 million of public infrastructure improvements from conceptual planning, through financing and funding, including grant writing, design, bidding and completed construction. Projects included sidewalk and trail improvements, street and stormwater upgrades, a new water storage tank and well, a new aquatic center, wastewater collection and treatment system improvements, parks projects, street lighting improvements, upgrades to infrastructure in industrial park for new and expanding industry, and electrical line distribution and electrical substation improvements.
Candace was born and raised on a dairy farm in Iowa, the oldest of seven children and lived the first 30 years of her life in the Pella, Iowa area. Her life experiences include soybean and corn farming, assisting in managing a cow-calf beef cattle operation, and a farrow-to-finish and large-scale confinement pork production operation, in addition to the dairy cattle business of her youth. Candace worked for 13 years in the banking industry along with her time on the farm before moving to Missouri in 1990.
Candace and her husband David, have four adult children, one of whom is married. All four children are currently attending or have recently graduated from a Missouri-based university and are off on their own. David and Candace spend their time visiting their children in Columbia, Missouri and Lincoln, Nebraska and their extended family scattered around the country from Alaska, Iowa, Illinois, Texas and Tennessee.
Candace has a strong attachment to preservation of rural life and of rural communities, due in large part to her life experiences. Her past work in community and economic development, and the work she now does with the clients of Archer-Elgin, is guided by her personal belief in the importance and value of rural cities, communities and people.