Capax works with local governments, utilities, and partner organizations to strengthen the capacity of public institutions to solve complex problems, implement critical projects, and build more resilient communities.
Many communities already know what they need to do — adopt policies, improve infrastructure, secure funding, update ordinances, build partnerships, or implement resilience strategies. The challenge is rarely a lack of ideas or plans. The challenge is capacity: time, staffing, technical knowledge, organizational structure, and coordination across agencies.
Capax focuses on closing this gap between knowing what needs to be done and actually getting it done.
We do this through research, implementation programs, leadership development, and cross-sector collaboration that help organizations identify barriers, build internal capacity, and create clear implementation pathways.
Our Approach
Capax is built around a simple idea:
Most communities are not failing because they lack plans.
They struggle because they lack the capacity to implement the regutlory requirements, plans, and best practices.
Our work focuses on identifying barriers and capacity gaps, then building practical pathways to implementation. Capax does not create a plan left on the shelf, but engages staff through implementation and builds resources to tackle challenges in the future.
The Capax approach includes three core components:
Research
We conduct applied research focused on local government capacity, resilience, infrastructure systems, and public sector leadership. Our research is designed to identify common barriers, organizational challenges, and policy gaps that prevent communities from implementing known solutions.
This research informs our programs, tools, and policy recommendations.
Cross-Sector Collaboration
Many community challenges sit between sectors — local government, utilities, public health, nonprofits, economic development organizations, and state agencies. Capax helps build partnerships and working relationships across these sectors so projects and initiatives can move forward more effectively.
We often serve as a bridge between organizations that need to work together but may not traditionally collaborate.
Leadership Development
Strong communities require strong public sector leadership. Capax works with managers, directors, supervisors, and emerging leaders to strengthen leadership skills, organizational management, decision-making, and policy implementation. Leadership development is embedded in all Capax programs rather than treated as a separate activity.
Last Mile Implementation
The Capax programs are designed to help organizations move from planning to implementation.
Many communities already know they need to:
- Update ordinances
- Improve financial policies
- Develop capital improvement plans
- Apply for funding
- Improve asset management
- Strengthen emergency planning
- Improve utility management
- Adopt resilience policies
- Improve organizational structure and processes
However, these things often remain unfinished due to capacity constraints.
Capax cohort programs identify the barriers preventing these actions from happening and create a structured pathway to complete them. Participants leave the program not just with knowledge, but with completed policies, plans, ordinances, and implementation tools.
This is what we call last smile implementation — helping organizations finish the work that everyone agrees needs to be done, but often lacks the support and resources necessary to make it happen.
What Makes Capax Different
Capax is not primarily a planning firm, an engineering firm, or a training organization.
We focus on organizational capacity and implementation.
We help organizations:
- Identify capacity gaps
- Build internal systems
- Develop policies and procedures
- Strengthen leadership and management practices
- Improve coordination across departments and agencies
- Move projects from concept to implementation
- Turn plans into action
Our goal is simple:
Stronger organizations lead to stronger communities.
Owner & Principal
Jessica Trotman is a local government executive and founder of Capax, where she focuses on helping public institutions build capacity, implement critical projects, and strengthen community resilience. The idea for Capax emerged in the days following Tropical Storm Helene, when Jessica was helping lead response and recovery efforts in Black Mountain, North Carolina. She began documenting the challenges the town faced, with the goal of identifying solutions to prevent a similar level of devastation by building better systems and resilience into the recovery process. She realized many of these barriers existed long before the storm and affected communities across the state. Capax was created to find an upstream solution and move local governments and utilities from planning to implementation needed for stable systems, increased capacity and level of service, and to be able to bend, but not break, during a disaster.
Jessica is originally from Greensboro, North Carolina. She has lived in WNC for more than 13 years. She currently serves as the town manager of Columbus, North Carolina, and is pursuing a doctorate in leadership with a focus on disaster preparedness and emergency management.
The Capax Group 