Dolente Named Putnam’s Leadership Tennessee Representative

Leadership Tennessee recently announced its latest class of leaders who will meet for discussions about the state’s most important issues.

The group includes 45 executives from rural and urban communities. Les Dolente is the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security Deputy Commissioner and now serves as Leadership Tennessee’s Putnam County Representative.

“It’s a true honor, and it’s very humbling,” Dolente said. “I feel like I have a unique privilege in my daily work with the Department of Safety and Homeland Security to continue serving state-wide as I have, but then really get into the communities that maybe are not looked at so often.”

Dolente said the group’s intent is to foster collaborative and non-partisan dialogue across the state. He said the representatives are always seeking opportunities for change.

“This is just simply a collaboration and dialogue, as I mentioned, spanning the three grand divisions,” Dolente said. “We have a diverse representation of participants which is a reflection of the class that was selected.”

Dolente said he is in a great opportunity to create change alongside other individuals across the state. Dolente said the group will seek legislative changes for citizens across the state.

“While we’ve come a long way, today, I still feel like there are issues that do surface across the three grand divisions that are all familiar to us from Memphis to Mountain City,” Dolente said. “This is an opportunity to bring everyone together over the next year and collaborate and see how we can make some significant changes for our communities.”

Dolente said the group is diverse and consists of many different government employees, private citizens, and other professionals. He said he hopes to have conversations centered around the growth of the state.

“As Tennessee continues to grow, our population has grown specifically over the last few years, so we’ve got to have some great leaders in place that will help and direct us and make sure our communities are able to adapt to the growth,” Dolente said.

Dolente said he sees Putnam County as a local leader that people tend to gravitate towards.

“Putnam County is a large county and the city of Cookeville is a rather large city for the Upper Cumberland,” Dolente said. “Putnam is surrounded by rural communities, and all of those counties come to Cookeville to either shop or to eat, so it’s important that Putnam serves as a leader for the Upper Cumberland.”

Dolente said he is very excited to serve the Putnam County community.