Adam Keck

Adam Keck grew up in rural North Jackson, Ohio, but his family’s history is deeply ingrained in the boom and bust of the Mahoning Valley’s industrial economy: his great-grandfather was a coal miner, his grandfather worked at and then owned Reliable Source of Metalworks on Hogue Street in Youngstown, and his father saved for college by working summers at Republic Steel and his dad’s shop. Adam considers any advantage that he has had in life a result of the hard work his family put into the rich industrial history of the Valley and envisions a future in which it will return to economic stability and prosperity.

A graduate of Jackson-Milton High School, Adam attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he graduated with a concentration in Literatures and Cultures of English and a focus in Multicultural Studies. While at Brown, Adam became deeply interested in political and urban studies, which led him to volunteer on the 2008 Presidential Campaign for Barack Obama through the Organizing Fellows program. He worked out of the Youngstown headquarters, registering voters, knocking on doors in neighborhoods throughout the city, and building the leadership that the campaign would rely on. His experience in the disinvested neighborhoods of Youngstown led him to seek the opportunity to organize around issues of importance for Valley residents.

Adam joined MVOC in June 2009 and has been organizing in Warren and Trumbull County since. He is currently building capacity among existing and nascent community groups, local religious institutions, and social service agencies in order to effectively combat problems of neighborhood destabilization, crime, and hopelessness that stem from the rapid economic and social changes in once-stable communities. He also serves as MVOC’s technical liaison. He maintains the organization’s website and is currently developing a 21st century database capable of organizing the massive amounts of data associated with a grassroots movement.