NACo announces new director of strategic relations

Langston will manage NACo partnerships, outreach, membership

Former NACo President Linda Langston will join NACo as its director of strategic relations, the association announced March 31. After serving as a Linn County, Iowa supervisor for more than 13 years, Langston plans to resign and will begin her new role at NACo on April 18.

“We are excited that Linda will leverage her vast experience in county government to strengthen NACo’s membership development and strategic outreach,” said Matt Chase, NACo executive director.  “As a former NACo president, she brings unique perspectives on NACo’s value to counties across the country and our leadership position at the national level.  We look forward to continuing to work with Linda in this new capacity.”

As director of strategic relations, Langston will focus on membership development, external partnerships and other outreach activities.  She will help to build on NACo’s successful membership recruitment and retention efforts.  Seventy-five percent of the nation’s counties are NACo members, with a 98-percent membership retention rate. 

Langston has held many leadership positions in NACo, including serving as its president from 2013–2014, when she created NACo’s Resilient Counties Initiative.  She played a key role in enhancing counties’ capacity to anticipate and adapt to change — from natural and man-made disasters to social and economic uncertainties. 

She has served as NACo’s Health Steering Committee chair, Healthy Counties Advisory Board chair, Finance Standing Committee chair and Arts and Culture Commission chair.  She is a member of the Resilient America Roundtable for the National Academy of Sciences and the Federal Emergency Management Agency National Advisory Council.

Langston serves as a supervisor in Linn County, Iowa, where she was first elected in 2002.  Prior to entering public service, she was a museum director, psychotherapist and small business owner.  She is a 2007 graduate of Harvard Kennedy School’s Senior Executives in State and Local Government program and holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Knox College in Galesburg, Ill.

 “As I leave service as an elected official in Linn County,” Langston said, “I am happy that, in my role at the National Association of Counties, I will continue to be of service to counties across America.”