Frank's Bio

edited May 7, 2010

Frank is the co-owner of a consulting company called Global Horizons. From his home, Frank's passionate specialty is developing leadership skills for individual, business, community, and church development. He leads workshops, strategic planning sessions, and is a motivational speaker for communities and organizations about how to develop leaders and attitudes that will determine their future. Frank motivates communities and businesses to create entrepreneurs and growing environments.

During 22 years dedicated with rural communities and areas, he has worked with groups and organizational partnerships that birth and sustain rural development efforts which succeed through collaborations between public and private rural development interests.

Through part of their business, Frank and his wife, Kim, are the retained consultants for the Progressive Rural Iowa Development Enterprise, (P.R.I.D.E.). This enthusiastic, progressive economic development group in Cass County / southwest Iowa has the membership of five of eight towns, plus many individual members in the county. P.R.I.D.E. works hard to develop wealth in the area, accomplishing this through, among other methods, a process called Community Builders (see link on the Global Horizons home page). This process, led by the Spillers, teaches leadership development and techniques how individuals in communities can work together to progress and solve problems through public deliberation and collaboration. The Spillers and P.R.I.D.E. encourage and help people create businesses through entrepreneurial activity, and work to develop, expand, and welcome new businesses to southwest Iowa.

The couple is also developing a pilot process in the Coon Rapids-Bayard School District called Coaching in the Classroom, to link student success between classroom relevance to post-graduation work and career development.

Frank and Kimberlee have served as partners in the work of the Kettering Foundation of Dayton, Ohio, the Iowa Partners in Learning, have been co-writers for local and national issue books on economic development, the achievement gap, and immigration, and Frank is a fellow for the RUPRI Center for Entrepreneurship in Lincoln, NE.

Previous leadership positions

With his position as Iowa rural development coordinator, Frank served as the primary advisor to the state rural development director concerning rural development issues within Iowa. Through collaborations and partnerships, he coordinated with federal, state, local, nonprofit, and private sources to develop statewide and national rural development strategies to create and implement comprehensive rural development initiatives.

As the former executive director of Positively Iowa, a private, nonprofit organization, Frank was responsible for developing grassroots efforts to create rural policy recommendations in Iowa through a process that informed federal, state and local policy makers of policy that inhibits rural growth. Frank has also been:

  • Former owner of the Atlantic Maid-Rite Sandwich Shoppe. During its existence, 2007-2010, Frank and Kim creatively developed the only mobile Maid-Rite unit in the United States that served 10 communities in southwest Iowa during the summer of 2009;
  • Instructor for Beyond Business Basics, Childcare Resource and Referral;
  • The economic development director of Cass/Atlantic Development Corporation;
  • Lead staff for a 2006 congressional campaign;
  • The director of the Office of Community Development for USDA Rural Development as the statewide economic developer for the state of Iowa;
  • The executive director of the Iowa Rural Development Council;
  • The community development coordinator between the Chamber of Commerce, the city, and the Economic Development Corporation in Gothenburg, Nebraska;
  • The western field representative for the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, working with 130 communities in the 30 counties of western Nebraska;
  • The principal and president/CEO of Temp Pro, Inc., a temporary employee service and technology training and consulting center; and
  • Owner and operator of independent and chain restaurants.

Frank is a graduate of Chadron State College in Chadron, Nebraska, with a degree in secondary business education and psychology, trained in moderating, mediation, total quality management, and facilitation. He has served on many city, county, and chamber boards and has been a leader as the past chair and founder of the Iowa Early Childhood Education Network; past-chair of the Central Iowa Bible Camp; and a board member of the Iowa Assembly of Local Arts Agencies.