DDA STAFF

Anne Gentry
​Executive Director

Anne Gentry has been Executive Director of the Alpena Downtown Development Authority since Spring 2017, where she manages day-to-day operations and leads execution of DDA goals, programs, and strategies. She graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature, with a concentration on English and Italian literature. She has also studied in Bologna, Italy and in Adelaide, South Australia. Previous to working at the DDA, she worked as Visitor Experience Manager at Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena before receiving her teaching certificate in English as a Second Language in Adelaide, South Australia. She also serves as a board member at Thunder Bay Theatre and Art in the Loft in Alpena, as well as at the Michigan Downtown Association.

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Kingsli Kraft
Marketing & Outreach Coordinator

Kingsli Kraft became the Marketing & Outreach Coordinator at the Alpena DDA in May 2018. She is an Alpena native, born and raised. Kingsli graduated from the University of Michigan in 2018 as well with a degree in the Program in the Environment (PitE)--an interdisciplinary program centered around topics of sustainability and environmental science. Her concentration within the program was Urban Planning and Human Ecology which studies how humans interact with the environments—physical, natural, built, social, etc.—around them. She also minored in Food, mainly the economics and systems associated with food from the local to the global scale. In college she worked with twenty other PitE and Art students to build a straw bale house from the ground up in a month at the U of M Biological Station in Pellston, MI. The next year she worked as a Teaching Assistant for the same class. In the past, she was a manager at the State Theater in downtown Alpena for two summers and worked at the Office of Student Conflict Resolution (OSCR) at U of M for three years where she specialized in adaptable conflict resolution, restorative justice, peer-based intervention and taught over fifty workshops centered around conflict management, non-violent communication, and conflict styles. She currently serves as a board member for Thunder Bay Theatre and enjoys volunteering in the local arts community, yoga, reading, writing, drawing, hiking, cooking and all things coffee in her free time. 

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Savannah Peterson
​Parking Ambassador

Savannah Peterson has been the Parking Ambassador for the DDA since February 2019, where she monitors downtown parking. Savannah graduated from Alcona High School and recently completed her Associate's Degree in Law Enforcement from Alpena Community College. In her free time, she enjoys hunting, fishing, and spending time with family.