“A downtown is a heart beat,” she said. “It’s a snapshot of everything a community was built on.”

And, she said, downtown is here to stay.

“You can’t tear down Main Street like you can an obsolete mall,” she said.

Stroh’s belief in the enduring strength and potential of downtown led her to the position of executive director of Main Street Fort Dodge. She started on the job Oct. 3.

Stroh replaced Kris Patrick, who resigned May 27, 2022.

Main Street Fort Dodge is part of the statewide Main Street program, which works to improve downtown areas through a combination of economic development and historic preservation.

Stroh came to Fort Dodge from Ottumwa, where she was the economic development director for Greater Ottumwa Partners in Progress.

Early in her career, she did marketing for a fiber optic system in Indiana. She also started a non-profit community foundation in Angola, Indiana.

Stroh is a native of Omaha, Nebraska. She earned a bachelor’s degree in organizational communications from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

She serves on the state’s Empower Rural Iowa Task Force, which seeks to support communities of 20,000 people or fewer by focusing on broadband communications, housing and leadership development.

Developing strategies to fill vacant spaces in downtown buildings will be one of her priorities as Main Street Fort Dodge director, Stroh said.

“I think the district is really attractive,” she said.

She noted that at 33 blocks, the Main Street Fort Dodge district is the biggest of its kind in the state.