Bob Leighty

Third career totally improv, being a longtime Columbus community activist, working with local entrepreneurs and urban farmers. Have worked on multiple projects funded by The Ohio State University and City of Columbus.

Second career was job with nonprofit Economic and Community Development Institute, helping people startup small companies in Central and Southwest Ohio. Trained several hundred entrepreneurs. Was volunteer on ECDI's board for a couple years, joined the staff in 2009.

Before that, worked in corporate for 26 years at AT&T, in metro New York/Jersey and here in Columbus, working with software designers and researchers to write and design documentation, training, and websites. At AT&T, after layoffs of dear friends all around me for 8 years, I finally got laid off too in late 2008, but saw it coming for several years and tried to prepare, left with a severance thank goodness, making less money now but doing much more meaningful work.

Mom died on April 1 in 2010 (she died on April Fool's Day... she always did have a sense of humor.) We made her comfortable and were with her at the end, hospice was a big help.

I'm very lucky, I have a wonderful wife, son, family and friends. Nice home, cool neighborhood. Dee has just earned her third masters, she is an intervention specialist (special needs) teacher, working with kids and families primarily from Western Africa. Dee and I have a wonderful little dog, Luna, she is a lot of fun.

I've really enjoyed doing community work since 1992. Involved with several nonprofits and community organizations. We've provided day care and social services for at-risk families, built parks, shut down crack houses, moved houses, restored historic buildings. Not all projects have succeeded, but we've gotten some good stuff done in our little corner of the world.

I worked at the Hollidaysburg YMCA when the Village People song "YMCA" came out. Now everytime I hear that song at some wedding or on an oldies radio station, I smile and think about nice memories of Hollidaysburg. I enjoyed seeing Hollidaysburg again in April 2010 at mom's funeral, the old town looked good, we were lucky to have beautiful Spring weather at an otherwise dark time.