Jackie Byers has been appointed director of NACo's Research Division effective Oct. 1. She came to this position from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, where she held the position of assistant director managing the Georgia Research Center. Prior to that she was the chief of the center's City-County Management Section, responsible for providing hands-on technical assistance to Georgia local governments. Some of you may remember her from her days with the Office of Revenue Sharing where she was a state coordinator for nearly 12 years.
Byers graduated from Bloomfield College in Bloomfield, N.J. with a BA in English and political science, and from Catholic University with a JD. She is a member of the District of Columbia Bar. She maintains a consulting firm, Byers & Associates, through which she provides training to local governments, usually in South Carolina, and has developed and conducted numerous courses on financial management and other topics for the University of South Carolina Institute of Public Affairs.
Byers has conducted many training sessions and taught local government issues throughout the country. These include regular classes at the Institute for City and County Clerks at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia and courses taught as a guest lecturer in the MPA program at the University of Georgia.
Her responsibilities at NACo will include conducting surveys of county governments to provide a database of information for NACo's legislative agenda as well as data for and about county governments.
In addition to these responsibilities, she will be continuing some of
the more popular products of the Research Department, including the Issue
Briefs, Achievement and Diversity awards, and technical assistance.