Megan Forbes is familiar with Seward.
The new director of administrative operations at the Seward County Chamber and Development Partnership grew up in town and graduated from Seward High in 2002. She earned a bachelor’s degree in social services with a minor in music from Doane University in 2006.
But Forbes’s roots run deep. Her mom, Cathy Zabrocki, grew up here and her grandparents, Ralph and Bernice Grummert, are also from Seward. Her dad, Daryl Zabrocki, is a county commissioner.
“I’m the third generation to graduate from Seward,” Forbes said.
She and her husband Brian, who hails from Waverly, got married in 2007. They have two children – Jacquelyn who is a junior and Jakeb who is a third grader. Brian is a motor grader operator for the Seward County Roads Department and loves to cook, Megan said.
Megan is excited to be with the SCCDP.
“I’m excited to be a part of growing business in the community,” she said. “I love the thought of doing that kind of work and interacting with community members.”
As the director of administrative operations, Megan is primarily involved with the chamber of commerce aspect of the SCCDP.
“How can we best help chamber members,” she said.
She plans to have more of a presence at village board meetings to see what the SCCDP can do to help the smaller towns in the county as a resource.
She described her strongest trait as “peopleing” and said she’s looking forward to doing more in the communities. Her job is similar to her position at Doane University, where she worked with donors.
Although she’s new to the position, she has already set some goals – updating and streamlining processes in the office and getting everything into the same program.
“Get organized. Make sure we all know how to do things,” she said with a smile.
Because she’s used different client relations manager programs, she’s working to optimize the tools available at the SCCDP. Her work background includes three years at Doane in donor relations and stewardships, eight years at Concordia University in prospect research where she connected potential donors with campus projects, and five years at RG Investments. The majority of those jobs was working on computers.
“I wanted to get back to peopleing,” she said.
Megan said she is able to make good connections with people and is able to write and communicate clearly. She’s looking forward to working on the festivals like Fourth of July and Christmas and said she was Miss Independence in 1994.
“Memories drew me back,” she said. “We (her family) have close family relationships, and that’s what the Seward community is about.”
