Kimberly S. Gressley has been appointed director of North Carolina Cooperative Extension’s Forsyth County Center, effective Dec. 4. To the position, she brings three decades of service and leadership as an extension agent.

The appointment was announced this week by Sheri Schwab, NC State Extension’s associate director, and Forsyth County Manager J. Dudley Watts Jr.

Gressley succeeds Mark Tucker, who retired in July after serving as Forsyth’s Extension director for 18 years.

Gressley holds a bachelor’s degree in agricultural extension education, with a minor in horticulture, and a master’s degree in agricultural education from the University of Arizona. She spent two years in the early 1980s as a 4-H youth development in Minnesota, then joined the University of Arizona as a 4-H agent in Casa Grande in 1988, where she served for nearly 30 years.

Extension’s North Central District Director Jim Cowden expressed his confidence in Gressley’s appointment as county Extension director. “Among her many leadership achievements, she served as the president of the National Association of Extension 4-H Agents in 2014-15 and on the Joint Council of Extension Professionals in 2015-16,” Cowden said. “She’s excited to come to Winston-Salem to take on a new challenge. She is ready to move forward and use her leadership experience and knowledge to enhance the Forsyth County Extension program.”

N.C. Cooperative Extension is a strategic partnership of NC State Extension, the Cooperative Extension Program at N.C. A&T State University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and local governments statewide.

Extension professionals in all 100 counties and with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians connect millions of North Carolinians with research-based information and technology from NC State and N.C. A&T. Educational programs specialize in agriculture, food and nutrition, 4-H youth development, community development and the environment.