Kerry Knodle

Kerry Knodle is a retired nonprofit CEO with over 40 years’ experience in community and youth development, nonprofit administration, criminal justice, workforce development and affordable housing. He founded and ran both a nonprofit community development agency as well as a for-profit construction company before retiring in 2018. His experience includes serving as a Senior Juvenile Probation Officer, founder and President of the Illinois YouthBuild Coalition, and a criminal justice faculty member at Southern Illinois University.

His volunteer work has included the National Director’s Council of the YouthBuild USA Affiliated Network, the Rockford Area Affordable Housing Coalition, and the National Youth Employment Coalition. He is also a founder and board member of Youth Bridges International, a transatlantic organization focused on socially excluded youth. He holds a Master of Science in Administration of Justice from SIU and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Sociology from Luther College.

In addition to his professional career, Mr. Knodle is in his 41st year with the Rockford Symphony Orchestra, where he holds the position of Principal Percussionist and is the founder of the Rockford Regional Percussion Ensemble. He performs with the Pegasus Wind Symphony and was Assistant Director and percussion instructor for the Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps (1984-1997). He volunteers at Midway Village Museum and has been an avid amateur genealogist for the past 10 years.

Kerry comes from a family rooted in the printing and publishing business in his hometown of Mt. Morris, IL. One ancestor published the first newspaper there in 1841, and his father and grandparents worked in the printing industry. His father was a journalism major in college and wrote a sports column for the local paper for many years. Kerry has put his inherited skills to work as a grant-writer and consultant, and most recently as a new self-published author/editor/compiler.

As a result of his genealogical research, Kerry is undertaking the publishing of a series of family histories and his work in that arena can be seen at his website – www.knodle.org/genealogy . His other current project is assisting one of his former probationers in publishing the first in a series of books written while serving a life sentence in prison.