Benjamin Winchester is a research fellow at the Center for Community Vitality at the University of Minnesota Extension. Ben has worked in and for small towns across the Midwest since 1997 – with a focus on his home state of Minnesota. As Research Fellow for the center, Ben manages evaluation studies that monitor the effectiveness and outcomes of leadership, civic engagement and community economics programs for all of Extension. Ben also conducts research on topics relevant to community vitality. Currently, he is documenting a rural “brain gain” – the trend of 30-49 year-olds moving to rural areas – to identify the social and economic opportunities of this migration.