Bart Russell

Bart Russell has spent more than 30 years serving as the nation’s most prominent spokesman and advocate for America’s 34,000 small towns and their local governments. He was the founding CEO of the National Association of Towns and Townships, a Washington, DC-based organization representing more than 12,000 municipalities. Bart served as President of NATaT’s National Center for Small Communities from 1985 until 1994, and Executive Director of the Council of Small Towns from 1994 until 2012. In this capacity, he led efforts to establish the $250 million Small Town Economic Assistance Program, an infrastructure grant program to help revitalize communities.

Bart was retained as a “Resident Expert” providing advisory services on the America’s Best Communities contest, a $10 million grant program launched by Frontier Communications. Bart is also the cofounder of a web-based travel program called the DiscoverSmallTownAmerica.com Tour and creator of Everything Small Town, an online “community of communities” providing people, businesses, municipalities, states, the federal government, the media and organizations a place to connect and collaborate on promising and powerful small town initiatives. One US President called him “the voice of small town America”.