Ben Strand
Main Street Program Manager (Winona, Minnesota)
Session: Artists on Main Street: A Model for Creative Community Development (Friday, 3:45 – 5:00pm)
Ben Strand, Main Street Program Manager for Winona, MN, has lived in Winona since 2012 when he started his freshman year at Winona State University studying Journalism and English Writing. While in school he worked at the local paper for three years and also spent a year working at the Pump House Regional Arts Center in La Crosse, WI. He started getting involved in Winona’s arts and culture community by hosting monthly open-mic poetry events in 2014 and volunteering for various music and arts festivals in town. During his last year of school he started a multi-media production company (Treedome Productions) with a group of friends after winning a “Shark Tank” style competition put on by Winona State. Treedome was a recipient of an Artist on Main Street grant in 2018, which led to the birth of “Shut Down Third Street – An Arts and Culture Block Party” in Downtown Winona. Ben is extremely passionate about the Winona community and looks forward to contributing to the growth of the downtown area in the coming years, as a lot of important projects are in progress that will have drastic and positive impacts on the community.