Staff of the Jefferson Educational Society

Perpetually curious, Ben Speggen is a learner, writer, editor, interviewer, reporter, connector, researcher, educator, traveler, and administrator. A Swiss-Army-knife-kind-of-person, he thrives working at a Swiss-Army-Knife-kind-of-institution – the Jefferson Educational Society.

Ben joined the JES, a nonpartisan think tank headquartered in Erie, Pennsylvania, which focuses on civic engagement and education, in 2015. He’s held various roles, and today serves as the think tank’s Vice President, overseeing and contributing to the JES’s various divisions – from developing the curriculum for the more than 150 annual programs and the more than 180 annual publications.

Ben also directs the think tank’s signature Civic Leadership Academy, which immerses participants in a hands-on learning opportunity to explore the form and function of local government and how it relates to state government, while asking the individuals to come together as a whole to produce meaningful research and clear-eyed recommendations of how to address a critical issue facing the region with national implication.

He is also active in the think tank’s public policy work and various other initiatives – from local-level endeavors, such as the Early Child-Care Policy Initiative, which assembled a team of policy experts to address access barriers to child care while examining the workforce implications of existing child-care policy, to the international scale with the Heartlands Transformational Network, a transatlantic collaborative partnership between think tanks, universities, and policymakers dedicated to closing the geographic economic divides to reconnect residents of rural and former industrial heartland communities to economic opportunity.

Ben also serves as a Contributor Editor to the Erie Reader, an independent, alternative publication he helped launch in 2011 as its founding managing editor, serving in that role through 2015. He played an instrumental role in launching several of the publication’s marquee issues, such as 40 Under 40, Best of Erie, Innovation and Economy, and its Year-in-Review.

Additionally, his writing, research, and storytelling have appeared in the Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal, and with the OECD (Organisation for Economic Collaboration and Development), the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Community Heart & Soul, Craftsmanship Quarterly, and the Our Towns Civic Foundation, and he presents on a variety topics frequently.

Previously, Ben hosted a community affairs program at WQLN Public Media, an NPR-PBS affiliate, as well as several limited-series television programs. He has also taught writing, research, and literature at university level.

The son of a coal miner and direct-care assistant, Ben was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, and grew up in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania in the small town of Carmichaels. He is a first-generation college graduate and studied literature, history, and journalism at Gannon University at the undergraduate and graduate levels.