Gene Detherage Jr., a native of Knox County, KY, is a lifelong resident of Appalachian Kentucky. He began long-term recovery from substance use disorder in July 2014 and has dedicated his professional career to alleviating the region's devastation from the social and economic consequences of the substance use disorder crisis and graduated from Morehead State University with a master’s in public administration in May 2020. In June of 2021, he was appointed by Governor Andy Beshear to the Advisory Board for Recovery Ready Communities after helping start the initiative during his participation in Leadership Kentucky's BRIGHT Class of 2020. Gene worked for former Governor Ernie Fletcher from 2019 to 2022 helping to expand access and quality of recovery housing in Kentucky's rural communities as part of the HRSA Rural Center of Excellence in Recovery Housing. He served on the Board of Directors for Frontier Housing, a FAHE member and affordable housing non-profit serving a 22-county region in Northeastern Kentucky where he helped start a home loan program specifically for individuals in long-term recovery that was recently funded by the US Department of the Treasury through their CDFI program. In October 2022 he was elected President of Kentucky Recovery Housing Network's Advisory Board, a statewide initiative to provide oversight and quality standards for recovery housing in Kentucky and through this role, he provided expertise to Representative Samara Heavrin and the Kentucky League of Cities on HB 248 which passed the General Assembly in 2023 and was signed into law by Governor Andy Beshear on March 24th, 2023. He then worked on HB 462 to further strengthen the recovery housing legislation with Representative Steven Bratcher in 2024 which also passed and was signed into law. In December 2024 he was named NARR Advocacy Chair for 2025. Gene currently works at Bluegrass Area Development District as an Economic Development Specialist helping to expand research on recovery and technological continuity of care solutions to the recovery support services field. He resides in Morehead, KY with his wife Kiara and their two sons, Caleb and William.