Pictured is Mark with the National Association of Regional Council’s Executive Award. Photo courtesy the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments.
Mark Policinski, CEO of the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments, has won the National Association of Regional Council’s (NARC) Executive Award.
Policinski was presented the 2023 Walter Scheiber Award during a recent ceremony at NARC’s National Conference & Exhibition held in Detroit, Mich.
The award recognizes the “significant impacts an executive director has made at the local, state and national levels.” Walter Scheiber was a national pioneer in the field of regionalism and an expert on inter-governmental relations.
Policinski, who won the honor in 2014, is the first two-time Walter Scheiber Award recipient.
The Montgomery, Ohio, resident was nominated by OKI staff and OKI Board President Gary Moore, who is Boone County Judge/Executive.
“Under Mark’s leadership, OKI has become a perennial national model of what a metropolitan planning organization can become to a region,” Moore wrote in his nomination letter. “Mark has changed the culture of the entire OKI organization, top to bottom, to the benefit of the 2.1 million residents who live and work in the OKI region.”
Moore also mentioned the OKI CEO’s “remarkable talent to lead others” through consensus and collaboration. OKI’s Board comprises 120 members from eight counties in three states. It annually approves $400 million and invests $40 million to $70 million in infrastructure projects.
“Remarkably, Mark’s leadership has ignited the collaborative capabilities at OKI to the extent that it does all of this approving and investing by consensus,” Moore wrote. “These are members representing all hues of political persuasion, all acting in unison. OKI has a single “no” vote once every decade.”
Mark Policinski is celebrating his 30th year as a CEO, a position he has held at OKI since 2003. For nearly wo decades, he has been named as one of the 100 Most Powerful Leaders in the Tri-State by Cincy Magazine.
The National Association of Regional Councils serves as the national voice for regions. It advocates for regional cooperation as the most effective way to address many community planning and development opportunities and issues. OKI is a council of local governments, business organizations and community groups committed to developing collaborative strategies, plans and programs to improve the quality of life and economic development potential of the Tri-State.