Connecting People, Resources and Communities: Meet Deb Marshall

When Deb Marshall was asked to join the TEDC Creative Capital board, her first reaction was straightforward: Why me?

She is not a banker. She does not come from a traditional lending background. Her career has followed a much less predictable path, spanning healthcare, retail, manufacturing, software, small business ownership, chamber leadership, economic development and more than seven years living and working in Tanzania.

That range of experience is part of what makes Marshall’s perspective distinctive.

Her career has been built less around following a prescribed path and more around recognizing opportunities, learning quickly and finding ways to connect people with the resources they need.

“I like the learning curve,” Marshall said. “I’m pretty good about walking through doors that open.”

A Career Built on Transferable Experience

Marshall’s resume does not fit neatly into one category.

She has worked in healthcare and pharmacy, retail and manufacturing. She trained software users, worked in sales and owned small businesses. At one manufacturing company, she moved from reception to the warehouse and eventually into plant accounting when the controller left, despite having no formal accounting background.

That experience later became useful when she worked for a software development company serving rural electric cooperatives.

For Marshall, that is how careers often work.

“Everything leads into something else,” she said.

Her move into community and economic development began around 2000, when she took a part-time job with the Bixby Chamber of Commerce. When the chamber’s leader left, Marshall put her name in for the position.

She had not planned a career in economic development, but the work fit.

She spent about seven years in Bixby during a period of significant change for the community. She later joined the Broken Arrow Economic Development Corporation as one of its early staff members after CEO Mickey Thompson recruited her to the organization.

Her focus there included business retention and expansion, particularly with manufacturers that were not always closely connected to traditional chamber or community activities.

Marshall found that relationship-building came naturally. It also became one of the recurring threads in her career.

A Different Kind of Education

In 2011, Marshall made another major change.

She sold her belongings, left her job and traveled to Tanzania for what was supposed to be a three-month volunteer commitment. She stayed for more than seven years.

The experience changed the way she thought about service and community development.

Marshall said people from Western countries can arrive in developing communities believing that education or professional experience gives them the answers. Her time in Tanzania challenged that assumption.

“They know what to do. They know they’re the experts,” she said of the people living in the communities she worked with. “They just don’t have the resources and access to resources.”

It was a lesson in listening before prescribing solutions.

That principle still shows up in Marshall’s work today: understand what already exists, identify what is missing and help make useful connections.

Finding Her Way Back to Economic Development

When Marshall returned to the United States, she did not expect to return to economic development.

She eventually did, thanks to a former colleague from Broken Arrow who was working with the Okmulgee Area Development Corporation, or OADC.

In 2019, Marshall accepted a temporary, part-time position in Okmulgee. The role eventually became full time, and after her predecessor retired in December 2023, Marshall became the organization’s sole staff member.

The community proved to be a good fit.

Okmulgee gives Marshall the mix she values professionally: economic development, manufacturing, relationship-building, creative marketing, infrastructure and community engagement.

The area is home to roughly 15 manufacturing companies ranging from startups to longstanding businesses. Anchor Glass, with more than 300 employees, is the community’s largest private employer. Several local manufacturers also serve national and international markets.

Marshall has worked to make more people aware of that side of Okmulgee.

She helped develop manufacturing-focused videos and other marketing efforts designed to highlight the companies operating there and the products they send beyond the community.

The goal is not simply promotion. It is helping people understand what already exists.

Building a Front Door to Okmulgee

That same thinking led to one of Marshall’s newest projects: This Is Okmulgee.

The portal grew out of a familiar economic development challenge.

When a business, prospective employee, resident, student, healthcare professional or visitor researched Okmulgee online, the information they found could be fragmented across many organizations and websites. Someone who already knew what to search for could often find it. Someone unfamiliar with the community might not know where to begin.

Marshall wanted to create a better starting point.

She describes This Is Okmulgee as a “front door to our community.”

The portal is not intended to replace existing organizations or resources. Instead, it brings information together and helps users find their way to the organizations, institutions and services that can take them further.

The project was made possible through grant funding from the Sam Viersen Family Foundation. Marshall worked closely with Ramond Walker of Clarion Insight in Tulsa on the concept, structure, content and design.

The site was also built with a deliberate SEO strategy, with the goal of helping a broader picture of Okmulgee appear prominently in online search results.

For Marshall, the project reflects a basic truth about economic development.

“You’re not just selling a site,” she said. “You’re selling a community.”

The same principle applies whether Okmulgee is recruiting a company, employee, student, resident or visitor. Eventually, the conversation extends beyond a job or a building and into the community surrounding it.

Work That Needs to Matter

Across all of Marshall’s professional experiences, one idea has stayed consistent.

She needs to feel that the work matters.

“I need to be in roles that provide value and service,” she said.

That does not mean every role has looked the same. In fact, the opposite is true.

Marshall said she once viewed her tendency to move between industries and opportunities as a weakness. Over time, she came to see it differently.

She is motivated by learning, creativity and the chance to contribute. When those things disappear, she starts looking for the next challenge.

“What you learn here transfers to the next level,” she said, “and then you learn something else.”

Bringing a New Perspective to TEDC

Marshall is still learning the organization, its lending programs and the details of her role as a board member. She is candid about the fact that finance is not her primary professional language.

What she does bring is experience from another side of economic development: working with businesses, manufacturers, local organizations, workforce partners and communities trying to connect people with opportunity.

For TEDC, Marshall adds a perspective shaped by years of moving between different industries, places and types of work, then finding the connections between them.