Catherine P. Mitchell, JD
Chief Operations Officer of the River Front Development Group
As COO of the nonprofit River Front Development Group (RFDG), Catherine Mitchell brings an alphabet soup of credentials, along with decades of experience, to the Asheville-based Community Development Corporation that she leads.
RFDG is the lead developer of the Black Cultural Heritage Trail and Heritage Museum at Stephens Lee Recreation Center. The Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority and Explore Asheville Conventions and Visitors Bureau sponsor the project. RFDG operates the Berry Temple Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics STEAM Academy.
Mitchell is a retired attorney, law professor, realtor, consultant, and writer who has fulfilled both public and private professional roles in such far-flung places as Mississippi, New York, New Jersey, and Asheville.
She earned her undergraduate degree at Syracuse University, where she was the 1968 Eleanor Roosevelt Scholar, and her Juris Doctor degree from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, School of Law. In law school, once again, her scholarly achievements earned her the title of Reginald Heber Smith Scholar in 1971. Her legal credentials admitted her to the bar in Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, and to federal courts in all three states—and the US Supreme Court.
Public Service in Three States
Early in her career Mitchell demonstrated her lifelong interest in public service, serving as a staff attorney for the North Mississippi Legal Services Program and as Counsel to the City of Mound Bayou, MS. In the latter job she specialized in Constitutional Litigation and Municipal Corporations Law—the latter an area of expertise she would later repeat as Counsel to the City Council of Paterson, New Jersey.
These decades of legal practice for cities large and small, nonprofit organizations set up to help lower-income people in their dealings with legal issues, and corporations with a wide range of concerns, well prepared Catherine Mitchell for her particular interest in housing and community development.
Among other activities, she took on the role of consultant to the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville (HACA), where her accomplishments were numerous and important: she revised the Family Self-Sufficiency Action Plan; developed HACA’s Housing Choice Voucher Homeownership Plan and Public Housing Homeownership Program; developed its Section 3 Compliance Policy & Procedures and its Community Service Policies, Procedures, and Forms; and wrote the HACA Residents Participation Agreements. She also participated in the Assessment Review and Implementation of Homeownership-Project 19; the development of HACA’s 2005 Strategic Plan; and in the revision of Personnel Policies Manual.
That expertise has been essential as Catherine Mitchell earned qualifications that are invaluable in her current work as the director of a nonprofit housing development corporation: she is a certified Family Self Sufficiency Specialist and a HUD-certified Section 3 Employment & Labor Standards expert. She is also a member of the Asheville-Buncombe African American Heritage Commission.
(Mitchell is also an “International Certified Food Handler” for her work as the general Managing Partner of Mountain Smokehouse Restaurant, though that is less a part of her legal practice and expertise than of simply great culinary delights!)
Unceasing Dedication to Others
Catherine Mitchell’s professional affiliations reflect both her broad range of expertise as well as her personal interests. In addition to membership in the American Bar Association and National Bar Association (the bar association for primarily African American attorneys), she was admitted to the Supreme Court bar and was a member of Asheville’s renowned (and now, sadly, disbanded) Epps-Dailey Law Society, named for two of Asheville’s most prominent Black lawyers, Harold T. Epps, Sr., and Ruben Dailey.
If anyone in Asheville can be considered an accomplished professional woman and a true role model for young women (and men), Catherine P. Mitchell is a paragon of public service, private duty, and community citizenship. We salute her!
