Roles
Notable Achievements
City Economic Growth
The city has experienced continued growth since the economic depths following the Great Recession. That growth has continued through the COVID-19 Pandemic to today.
This represents a significant reversal from the trend of the waning decades of the 20th century. We’ve been able to build a marketing and sales apparatus that has challenged external perceptions, expanded internal pride, and laid a foundation for continued growth.
Income Tax: The primary source of funding for general services has grown each of the last 10 years with a total of 44% growth over last decade.
Private Investment: In just the past 5 years, we’ve seen over $250 million in private investment in the downtown area alone.
Small Businesses: Over 100 net new small businesses opened over the last decade.
Service Quality
After six consecutive quarters of declining or flat growth in Net Promoter Score (NPS) with the City’s service request system, we conducted an interdepartmental audit in Q2 of 2022.
With only partial implementation of the recommendations from the audit report, we have achieved >20% improvement to our NPS. It has continuously risen since our improvement process started.
Presenting in Paris, France
I was invited by faculty of Paris-East Créteil University to present at an international symposium on urban revitalization strategies in 2018 at the Palais du Luxembourg in Paris, France.
I was the only American on the panel which included individuals from Dresden, Germany; Lisbon, Portugal; Ukraine; and the Louvre.
17 Strong Neighborhoods
The pride of my career has been the development and growth of the 17 Strong movement. This altruistic movement among Hamilton’s 17 neighborhoods is led by an advisory board of residents who are tasked by City Council to build engagement and pride in Hamilton neighborhoods.
I have played the lead role on the staff-side of this initiative, regardless of my position with the City, since its inception. We have effectively built a bigger table for residents to get involved in making a better future for their corner of our City.
This is the only advisory board or committee of Council that receives annual funding where the resident-led board has designed administered a microgrant program to help provide seed funding to support resident-led projects and ideas. This funding has amounted to $400,000 in funding to support engagement and pride in our neighborhoods since 2016.
We have started to look at engagement as a marketing funnel, from passive to active engagement along the following steps: 1.) Awareness of Place; 2.) Read & Stay Informed; 3.) Communicate Issues & Concerns; 4.) Attend Meetings & Events; 5.) Volunteer; and 6.) Lead.
Employers
City of Hamilton, Oh
Ohio’s 10th Largest City is on a comeback streak
Over the last dozen years, I have had the opportunity to work for one of the most entrepreneurial local governments in the Midwest in my hometown of Hamilton, Ohio. Hamilton, the 10th largest city in Ohio, was like many midwestern towns… struggling to reclaim its glory as the once proclaimed “greatest manufacturing city of its size in the world.”
With the hiring of a new city manager, the city’s apolitical CEO, in late-2010, the growth has been undeniable. I met him on a pub crawl through the local young professionals network shortly after he was hired. By the end of that night, he’d offered me a job in his soon-to-be rebuilt economic development department. I can assure you, getting a job in local government was the furthest thing from my mind. In fact, I was preparing to apply to an MFA program in my quest to work as an art director. However, the chance to be able to work in a sales/marketing function for my favorite city on the planet was too good to pass up.
The ensuing 12+ years of my career have been, and will forever be, among the things I am most proud of in my life. The comeback story we continue to write is nothing short of incredible.
Hamilton is unique in that it owns and operates all major utilities, including electric and natural gas. This makes us a much larger and more complex organization than other city governments in cities of a similar size. In fact, by revenue (>$300 mm), we are around 80% utility company and 20% local government.
I have been rewarded with increasing responsibilities throughout my time with Hamilton. I have reported directly to our CEO for the majority of my time and have been a member of the executive leadership team for the past 8+ years.
Baker Concrete Construction, Inc.
Among the Nation’s largest Concrete contractors
While an undergraduate student at Miami University, I was hired to work in the payroll department of a large international concrete contractor based in Monroe, Ohio.
Shortly before graduating from Miami University, I was given an opportunity to work as a Marketing Coordinator. I played a lead role in designing an award-winning sustainability brochure. The award was from the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS). I worked with Engineering, Estimating, and Business Development on the development of many proposals for large industrial and commercial projects. Additionally, worked closely with HR in the development of some key internal communications.