As the new city/county grant writer, Jessica Mills hopes her varied background in sales and a broad work experience will be an asset that will help gather financial resources for various projects and efforts in Garnett and Anderson County. Mills has worked in timeshare sales in Las Vegas, Marketing Director in an assisted living facility in Florida and office management for reconstructive surgeon in California. It’s a background Mills says is diverse enough to lend to a wide variety of interests when seeking funding for projects that may run the scale from civic projects to infrastructure projects. Mills says a good grant writer is like a project manager who happens to write; keeping all the tasks going at once while effectively communicating with the many parties involved in different projects.
Mills’ position is the outgrowth of a change in direction for the Anderson County Development Agency, a jointly-funded economic development organization which, prior to now, had staffed a full-time director who pursued generalized development activities. A personnel issue with the last director brought decision makers to determine a more constricted role focused on accessing public and private funds that might be brought to bear on local projects.
