Geoff Marietta is Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of the Cumberlands and Founder of Invest 606, a business accelerator and pitch contest for Eastern Kentucky in partnership with the University of the Cumberlands, Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, and the James Graham Brown Foundation. Geoff is also the Founder and CEO of Mountain Tech Media, a diversified front-end digital media company based in Eastern Kentucky, and Trillium Ventures, a community development real estate company that invests and restores historic main street buildings in the region. He is the former Executive Director of Pine Mountain Settlement School, an 800-acre National Historic Landmark community nonprofit in Harlan County, Kentucky. Born in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range, Geoff went to the University of Montana where he studied forestry. He then lived on the Navajo Nation in rural New Mexico teaching high school special education and serving as an assistant principal. He went on to earn his MBA from Harvard Business School and a doctorate from Harvard Graduate School of Education. During his time in Cambridge, Geoff co-founded and served as CEO of the software development company, Giant Otter Technologies, acquired by Drift.com. Geoff has written three books—Rural Education in America (in press), Improving Education Together, and Achieving Coherence in District Improvement—and more than 20 case studies, articles, and reports. He currently lives in Williamsburg, Kentucky with his wife, Sky, and their sons, Harlan and Perry.
University of the Cumberlands
Entrepreneur in Residence