Beruta takes over as Director of Graham Economic Development

The city of Graham announced Joe Beruta as the new executive director of economic development at the beginning of June and Beruta has hit the ground running with his plans for the position.

Beruta, his wife, Alison, and daughters Bailey, 13, and Blair, 7, are moving from Allen and are not uncommon to Graham, making the trip to the area for the past few years.

“We have been coming out here since we relocated back to Texas, probably for the last five, six years, to Graham and PK (Possum Kingdom),” Beruta said. “We kind of fell back in love with the charm, in particular, I was new to Graham and we fell back in love with the square, the area and something really unique happened as we spent time out here with family and time on the lake. Both of our daughters started to put down their devices and we started to engage and interact more and we really felt like we could have a better quality of life for our family coming back into the area.”

Beruta’s wife was born in Graham, but raised in Flower Mound. He said the town immediately made an impression during his first visit as someone who was not originally from the city.

“My wife’s maternal side of the family is from here and the first thing my mother-in-law did when she brought me into the town, because I came in with her for the first time and her husband, was take me to the square and it was December and so I got to see it lit up in the way that Graham does it so well,” he said. “The second place that she took me was to the drive-in and showed me that iconic drive-in that is so tied to the Graham community. She had fond memories of that facility and fond memories of her childhood.”

Beruta said his family has lived in big cities across the country and been a part of the urban and suburban environment, but believed the small-town environment to be enriching. He said he has been on the lookout for an opportunity in Graham to open up.

“We’ve looked at two paths; one is doing a business that would provide a set of products or services to the community or (two) coming in and finding an opportunity within Graham with some of the existing businesses,” he said. “So this opportunity came up and I felt it could leverage a lot of my background career-wise, both in real estate and marketing and bring jobs to the community, commerce to the community and also try and fill out the square to provide more services to the people that live here and bring in more activity to the square.”

For the rest of the story, see the Saturday, June 22 edition of The Graham Leader.