Taylre Beaty started as the State Broadband Director at Tennessee Economic and Community Development (TNECD) in September 2021. Through her role at TNECD, Taylre is leading an effort to invest and administer over $1.45B in federally funded broadband projects across the state of Tennessee, with the mission of getting all un and underserved Tennessee households and businesses connected to high-speed internet by 2028. She is also working to ensure all Tennesseans are positioned well to not only adopt to broadband technology, but also have the resources needed to connect to a broadband enabled device. In 2023, Taylre was nominated by Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation to serve on the Federal Communication Commission’s Precision Ag Task Force, where she now serves on the Jobs and Adoption working group. Prior to joining TNECD, she worked for USDA Rural Development, most recently as a Policy Advisor for Rural Utilities Service in Washington, D.C. During her time at USDA, she worked on many of the agency’s broadband priorities including the American Broadband Initiative, ReConnect Program, and critical broadband infrastructure projects during the COVID-19 pandemic. She earned a master’s in Agricultural Economics from Texas A&M University and a bachelor’s in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She is originally from East Tennessee.