Alum dedicated to strengthening the future of Eastern Kentucky
Colby Kirk’s roots run deep in his Eastern Kentucky home of Inez.
After graduating from the University of Kentucky Gatton College of Business and Economics in 2015 with a degree in finance, he set his sights on returning to the place he and his ancestors have called home for around 170 years.
With a proven record of academic excellence and leadership, Kirk, who also was an Honors program student, could have explored career opportunities anywhere. But it’s apparent; Eastern Kentucky is in his blood.
Kirk’s profound love and respect for the beauty of the landscape, culture and people spills over into everything he says and does. Returning to his community and sharing with others outside the area what makes Eastern Kentucky such a special place to live and work was a natural fit.
“It’s where my family has been forever, it seems, and my wife’s family as well,” Kirk said. “It’s where we both wanted to raise our family. We like the slower pace of life and the tight knit community that a town like Inez can offer. When you live in a town of about 600 people and everyone knows everyone, you take care of each other.”
Living in a small, tight-knit community has prepared Kirk well for his position as president and CEO of One East Kentucky — a nine-county regional organization and partnership of private businesses, communities and chambers of commerce, that recruit industry and jobs to Eastern Kentucky. In his position, he travels extensively to trade shows and events centered around large-scale manufacturing.
“One East Kentucky supports the work of our counties and cities, and having an intimate understanding of how they operate, has helped me transition smoothly into this role,” Kirk said.
An internship, a mentor and a desire to better his community
Kirk was not only a good student in school, but he also absorbed the history of the area and the people throughout his life. He took advantage of opportunities, such as the internship with Inez Deposit Bank throughout his high school years. The bank was owned at the time by Mike Duncan. He would select students from area high schools to work in his bank for the summer.
“Mike always encouraged us to think bigger, and he encouraged me to apply to the Governor’s Scholars program when I was a junior in high school,” Kirk said. “He was really the driving force behind my interest in finance and he gave me the confidence to see the world was a bigger place and I needed to go and see more of it, learn more about it and see how I could bring that back to our community and make it a better place.”
Kirk received scholarships to attend UK and admits it was eye opening going from a high school of about 500 students to a classroom of about the same number of students.
“It was kind of tough for me to navigate, but I think UK did a great job of helping make that experience more intimate through the honors program that I participated in,” Kirk said. “I was a global scholar in the business college that focused on international business. There was a cohort of about 30 of us and we took several courses together, so it helped make the campus feel a little bit smaller.”
UK also gave Kirk the opportunity to travel internationally.
“In my junior year, I did a full semester abroad in south Korea,” he said. “It really added a lot of value to my education. I learned as much academically as I did personally.”
After graduating from UK, Kirk quickly built a strong record of leadership in economic development and community growth across Eastern Kentucky.
As the founding executive director of One Harlan County from 2018 to ’21, he worked to expand Harlan County’s economic base by developing small businesses, supporting downtown redevelopment and attracting new industries.
Kirk served in local government and made history in 2019 when he became one of Martin County’s youngest-ever judge executives at the age of 29. His efforts while in office led to placing Martin County in a stronger economic position by securing a $150,000 Product Development Initiative investment to improve an industrial building and attract new job opportunities to the region.
Though he made major strides while serving in politics, his true passion lay in securing a better future for families across the area. The door of opportunity opened in 2022 when he was hired to lead One East Kentucky.
Kirk is going into his fourth year at the organization. He says the region is a wealth of untapped opportunity, and he pours his heart into demonstrating how local businesses can not only survive but thrive.
“We have a lot of timber in Eastern Kentucky that’s shipped away before it’s turned into products, and that’s a big opportunity for us,” Kirk said. “We focus on industries that fit the region’s strengths, especially metalworking. Many workers developed those skills in mining, and now companies like Dajcor Aluminum, Logan Corp. and a tanker trailer manufacturer in Pikeville are building products right here in Eastern Kentucky.”
Kirk likes to tell a story that best explains why economic development is so important. Last year, One East Kentucky announced a skilled plumbing and welding company in Floyd County that created about 35 jobs. The company hired a young man who was a high school graduate, and he had completed a fast-track welding program at a tech center. It was the young man’s first real job, and he was doing good work, never missing a day. The owner of the company discovered that his employee was homeless, and he called Kirk for assistance.
“We called some of our partners at the community action program and they helped get him an apartment,” Kirk said. “That young man is still there today. His life has been radically transformed by this opportunity to go into a good paying job and take advantage of a skill that he had credentials in. That’s a story we need to repeat 10,000 times over in southeastern Kentucky. That’s why we do what we do at One East Kentucky. He could have been homeless and forced to move out of the region to find opportunities elsewhere. We’re happy he had a chance to make a better life and still be home.”
Kirk said Eastern Kentucky has lost more than 30,000 jobs during the decline of the coal industry, and since One East Kentucky has been open, they’ve recruited nearly 1,500 jobs.
But he admits, there’s still a lot of work to do.
“I think our region is so much more capable than what it has produced,” he said. “I think a lot of people that I grew up with felt like if we were to be successful, we had to move away because opportunity wasn’t here for us. When I leave my role at One East Kentucky, I would love it if young people were proud to grow up in this region and have an opportunity to stay here if they want it and that they don’t measure success by moving to a larger city.”
The Kentucky Association for Economic Development (KAED) named Kirk the 2024 Young Professional of the Year and selected him as the winner of the 2024 GIS (Geographic Information System) WebTech/KAED Award for Technology Leadership.
What you may not know about Colby Kirk
Kirk has taken piano lessons since he was in the first grade through high school. While at UK, he would go home on weekends to play at his mother’s church in Inez or his future wife’s family church in Martin County. He still loves to play all kinds of music and has a Story and Clark upright grand piano in his home he plays every day.
Kirk saw potential in the tree covered hillside of his family’s farm. He got the idea to start a maple syrup operation from programming that the UK Extension office promoted while he was working in Harlan County. He, his father and his grandfather started tapping the trees and producing maple syrup as a hobby and a way to preserve agricultural activity on the property.
“I hope it will become a tradition I can pass along to my kids and they will keep it and pass it on.”