Joe Szakos was the founding executive director of Virginia Organizing from 1994-2017 and then served as the Lynchburg organizer until the end of 2020. He is now retired. He was the founding coordinator of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth and has also done community organizing in Chicago and Hungary. Joe has a Masters degree from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and is co-author, with his wife, Kristin Layng Szakos, of We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk About What They Do—and Why, published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2007. Joe and Kristin also edited Lessons From the Field: Organizing in Rural Communities, published by the American Institute for Social Justice/Social Policy Magazine in 2008. “Being a community organizer allows me to work with groups of people to make specific, tangible changes in their communities while helping individuals learn important leadership skills. I love having the opportunity—every day with Virginia Organizing —to help people raise their voices about the concerns they have, especially when it leads to major systemic changes.”