Heather Ranck

Heather Ranck, Executive Secretary of the North Dakota District Export Council was recently chosen for The Executive Secretary of the Year award during the 2022 Annual Export Conference in Washington D.C.

At the 2022 National Association of District Export
Councils (NADEC) Annual Export Conference in
Washington, DC, Heather Ranck, Executive Secretary of
the North Dakota District Export Council (ND DEC) and
Director of the Commercial Service office in North Dakota,
was presented with the honor of National DEC Executive Secretary of the Year! Since 2005, Heather has worked collaboratively with the ND DEC – with a board of 23 exporters – to provide the tools its members need to be effective, including trade expertise and programming as well as support at the DEC’s quarterly meetings.
Over a 10-year period, Heather worked closely with the ND DEC officers and members to create a powerful new program – the Rural Export Program – that ramped up to national stature in May 2020 to help expand exports from rural America, a geographic sector historically underserved. This national program began with the support of the ND DEC along with Congressional stakeholders Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
As Heather was doing regular export outreach and working with the ExporTech program (sponsored by the national MEP program, ND Trade Office, and ND DEC), she identified key factors most companies were missing to become more pro-active exporters. Over the last 10-year period, Heather and the ND DEC spearheaded the development of a step-by-
step program called RAISE (Rural America’s Intelligence Service for Exporters), where customized in-depth market research filled the knowledge and strategy gaps to help potential exporters identify and focus on their best potential export markets based on data- driven analysis.