MEET DEANNA

Cleveland Heights residents know Deanna best as the former executive director of FutureHeights. Serving both Cleveland Heights and University Heights, this community development corporation brought you the award-winning Heights Observer community newspaper, the annual Heights Music Hop festival, the FutureHomes renovation program, plus a community leadership program that provides grants to neighborhood initiatives.

In addition, under Deanna’s leadership, FutureHeights hosted public forums on a host of important topics, including Severance and the transition to a directly elected mayor, and increased the city’s focus on distressed neighborhoods, such as the Noble and North Coventry neighborhoods.

Deanna also worked to support local businesses in many ways, including producing the annual Best of the Heights Awards.

For almost three years she has been a key policy advisor and chief of staff to the mayor of University Heights.

Next door in UH, Deanna has led civic engagement and community development initiatives, including working with a citizens advisory group on a climate action planning process, obtained several grants to bring a composting pilot program and a new recycling program to the city, secured additional funding for arts programming at community events, and led the city’s adoption of the Heights Regional Active Transportation Plan.

Previously, Deanna was director of marketing and development for the Cleveland Restoration Society, a nonprofit historic preservation organization that renovates homes through the Heritage Home Program.

She began her career in product management for Matrix Essentials and American Greetings. Deanna has volunteered with the Heights Chapter of the League of Women Voters and Heights Arts and has served on the board of several nonprofits, including Coventry PEACE Campus and Heights Parent Center.

Deanna has earned an MBA from the University of Michigan and a BA in History from Oberlin College. She and her husband Hugh are long-time residents of Cleveland Heights’ Euclid Golf Neighborhood, which they nominated for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and about which they wrote a book. They are the proud parents of a Cleveland Heights High School graduate.