The Empire Center for Public Policy, a non-partisan think tank based in Albany, has added two staff members, the Center’s president, Edmund J. McMahon, today announced.

Kimberlee Peabody will join the Empire Center as development manager, overseeing and implementing the organization’s fund-raising plans.

David Lombardo will be the Empire Center’s communications manager, working on special research projects and providing general editorial support as well as handling media relations.

The Empire Center, founded in 2005 as a project of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, recently became a fully independent non-profit group. It has been granted 501c3 tax-exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service.

“We’re delighted to have Kim and David on the Empire Center’s team as we continue build our organizational capacity,” McMahon said. “We anticipate that they will play an important role in our efforts to promote public policy reforms grounded in free-market principles and the ideals of effective and accountable government.”

Peabody is a native New Yorker and a graduate from the State University of New York at Potsdam, where she majored in English and Communications.

She previously served as director of annual giving and donor relations at Hudson Valley Community College and advancement officer with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Peabody also has experience in the fields of financial advising, marketing and law.

Lombardo, also a New York State native, is a State University of New York at Geneseo graduate who most recently covered state and local government as a reporter for the Schenectady Daily Gazette, where his political coverage won a New York State Associated Press Association first-place award for blogging. He previously covered the state for the Legislative Gazette and New York StateWatch.

Learn more about the Empire Center and its efforts to make New York a better place to live and work by visiting www.empirecenter.org.