Erin Tiesman

563-262-0525    erin.tiesman@muscatinejournal.com

Editor’s note: Every Monday, the Muscatine Journal profiles a local figure who responds to questions provided by one of our reporters.

MUSCATINE, Iowa – As an anthropology doctoral student and soon-to-be Black Hawk College teacher, Rachel Horner Brackett, 30, is relying on her fact-gathering and communication skills to help breathe new life into downtown Muscatine.

Personal:

Name: Rachel Horner Brackett

Age: 30

Family: Husband, Kelcey; stepchildren, Arys, 10 and Dell, 8.

Hometown: Shannon, Ill.

Position: Part-time downtown manager for the city of Muscatine

Q&A

What do you like about Muscatine, particularly downtown?

I grew up in a small town, only 900 people. As I’ve traveled all over, it’s really become clear to me that while it’s really fun to live in London for a while, that’s not where my heart is.

My heart is in a smaller town and really knowing so many other people.

What do you like about your downtown manager job?

My interest in the Downtown Action Alliance is twofold. One is I’m trying to write a dissertation right now so its really hard for me to have a full-time job. It’s important to pick up the kids from school. It works with the skills I already have, which is talking to people and gathering information and all of these things. More importantly it’s this community development idea.

You’ve lived all over the world  and spent a year in Italy for your dissertation. What was that like?

I was living in a really tiny village south of Sienna in Tuscany. I was in the country and working on an organic farm, raising heritage breeds of animals, pretty much close to extinction but been brought back for food. I ended up butchering pigs, which I didn’t know I’d be getting into at the time. Really, really cool animals. The people that are butchering the meat and working with the meat are doing it in a traditional way. There’s no giant farm houses. They use every part of it. It was just totally amazing.

What impression did that experience leave with you? Has it affected you now?

A lot of my work has been on identity, like with food, there’s a lot of other avenues to look at that. One way is the retailers, one way is government and community groups.

It’s been a more natural fit than it may seem to the outside. It has been a really good fit. Kelcey and I are pretty dedicated to staying in Muscatine. There’s a brain drain where once you get your education and all these ideas, you move away and leave. We don’t want to do that.

What has the job experience been like for you so far?

It was an interesting way to meet a lot of people and get to know the climate of Muscatine and what people are ready for.

I bring friends here from other cities and they’re always really charmed by Muscatine.When you have outsiders come in, there are ways of presenting it to make it so cool. If all my 30-year-old friends find it charming, then there’s something there and I would hate to see that go away.

Communication is your biggest foundation for this position. Is there an effort of problem solving to the downtown issues?

That’s our hope, and I’ll be doing more with that later in the spring; talking to businesses, seeing what they need. What are some things that we can help you with? There’s just little things that people might not know where to go for answers, or its time to learn a new system. That’s one of the goals for my position; really getting a sense of what people need and how we can help.