Welcome to Executive Director Sarah Brown!
The TwispWorks Board and Staff are thrilled to announce that we have hired longtime local Sarah Brown as our new permanent Executive Director! Sarah has a lifelong passion for creating positive change and brings deep knowledge and boundless enthusiasm to the executive director position. Her clear communication, transparent leadership style, and eternal curiosity are a great fit for TwispWorks and will be put to great use in Sarah’s work with the community and on TwispWorks campus.
Sarah’s experience in the Methow is highly varied. She comes to TwispWorks with a broad range of experience including owning and operating a farm, Brightside Organics, in Carlton for 10 years and working on community issues with organizations like Resilient Methow, Room One, Methow Housing Trust, and most recently, as Interim Executive Director of TwispWorks.
Sarah is intrinsically driven to create positive change, and in 2014 the Carlton Complex wildfire burned her farm, destroying fencing and melting irrigation. In Sarah’s words, the fire “ignited a fire within me to redouble my effort to address the complex issues of climate change and economic development in Washington State.”
In 2017, following her desire to learn from examples of thriving rural communities outside the Pacific Northwest, she accepted a Fulbright Scholarship to Hungary to research rural social innovation. Directly following her Fulbright year in rural Hungary, Sarah started her Master’s in Public Administration at Cornell University, graduating in May 2020. Sarah’s ability to make connections across sectors and communities have resulted in opportunities for her to consult on economic, social, and environmental development projects in Ecuador, Italy, Finland, and Tanzania further honing her communication and leadership skills.
When not working to increase economic and cultural vitality in the Methow Valley, you’re likely to find Sarah outside almost anywhere in the valley hiking, swimming, skiing, or enjoying a picnic with her husband, Brian, or children, Gannet and Cora.
Founding Board Chair Ray Johnston has frequently noted that TwispWorks attracts just the right person at the right time for the needs of the organization. It appears that Ray is right again! We look forward to all Sarah will bring to TwispWorks and our Methow community. She is, indeed, just the right person for the role.