PPD Welcomes Renee Ruchotzke to the Board of Commissioners

Portage Park District has a new Board Commissioner, Renee Ruchotzke (ruh-HUT-skee), sworn in on February 28, 2023. Renee lives in Kent and currently serves on the boards of the Kent Environmental Council (president), Kelly's Working Well Farm, the Kent League of Women Voters, and the Portage County NAACP. She formerly served as president of Kent Natural Foods Co-op (helping them transform their governance) and chair of the City of Kent's Sustainability Commission.

She and her husband Randy practice sustainable living with solar panels, two electric cars, a backyard permaculture food forest, and a front yard pollinator garden on their city lot. They are both avid hikers and tent campers. (Renee names Shaw Woods as her favorite PPD park.) 

Renee works for the Unitarian Universalist Association as a congregational consultant and a developer of online courses and other resources for leadership development, organizational development, governance (including Sociocracy), growth, fundraising, and conflict transformation. She is a graduate of Kent State University (BA in History) and Meadville Lombard Theological School (MDiv). She is an affiliated community minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent where she teaches Sunday School for teenagers. Before being called to ministry, she spent 20 years as a mechanical design engineer and project manager and was awarded a patent (#4963071) for one of her designs.