Staff

Evelyn Brown, Senior Vice-President for LISC National (ebrown-at-lisc-dot-org)

Evelyn Brown, Senior Vice President for LISC, has nearly 40 years of experience in community and economic development through various positions she has held at the national and local levels. Under her management, in less than three years, the Gulf Region program she leads has made over $170 million in grant, loans and equity investments in the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf region. Brown is also responsible for providing program oversight and guidance for the LISC MetroEdge, LISC Chicago and the MidSouth Delta LISC programs. Prior to her present position, Brown served as LISC’s Senior Program Vice President overseeing a portfolio of nine local programs. Previously, she served as Vice President for the National Rural Program and as the founding Program Director for the Detroit LISC program. Brown is a member of LISC’s Senior Program Management, Operations and Credit (Loan) Committees.  She is also a fund manager for the Louisiana Loan Fund, a $22.5 million public/private acquisition loan fund.

Prior to returning to LISC, Brown served as Executive Assistant to Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer where she managed Detroit’s successful Empowerment Zone process that generated over $1 billion in private sector commitments and later, as Deputy Director for the City of Detroit’s Planning and Development Department. At the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, Brown served as Director of the Commercial Area Stabilization Program, a public/private partnership to revitalize Detroit’s neighborhood commercial areas and later as the Vice President for Public Affairs.  For nearly a decade, Brown held many positions in Washington, D.C. including Assistant Director for Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation’s Commercial Reinvestment Task Force, Staff Associate for the Council on Urban Economic Development; Research Associate for the American Institute of Planners and Assistant Project Director for the national League of Cities/U.S. Conference of Mayors.  Brown is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta. Georgia.

Jake Cowan, Business Manager (jcowan-at-lisc-dot-org)

Jake Cowan is the Business Manager for LISC MetroEdge.  He manages client projects, marketing, communications and operations for the program.

Prior to coming to MetroEdge in April 2007, Jake was an Independent Consultant working on community indicator projects.  He worked with the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center to develop new methods for estimating population using United States Postal Service databases.  In addition, Jake provided research assistance to community based organizations working on recovery issues in New Orleans.  Jake also worked as an Adviser to the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership, a collaborative effort by the Urban Institute and local partners to further the development and use of neighborhood-level information systems in local policymaking and community building.

From 2001 to 2006 Mr. Cowan worked at the Urban Institute as a Research Associate.  His projects included directing community outreach for NeighborhoodInfo DC, a program that makes neighborhood-level data on social and economic indicators and related research easily accessible to nonprofit organizations, government officials, and citizens in Washington, DC