Hey, I want to be you someday!

Seeing as how I am not placed in my internship anymore, I can't exactly do a winning interview. However, it only took a few days of observing Jim Thompson's office to know that I would really enjoy a career in city management. 

My first introduction to Jim, I won't even try to deny that I was incredibly nervous afterwards about my ability to do anything in a city manager role. Not because he's an intimidating, mean man. Rather, he's brilliant and I wasn't sure I had what it takes. My first time meeting him I was observing a budget meeting and he knew specific numbers that weren't on the print out in front of him. And I mean, to the dollar, in big budgets. He is so knowledgable and has so much experience that he is spectacular at his job. 

Jim Thompson is city manager of Casa Grande, Arizona. He has worked for various cities in Washington, Colorado and Arizona in his career. He received his bachelors from Indiana in the realm of finance and business. He has his masters, as well as his PhD which he received for organizational behavior. He is responsible for overseeing the operations of the City of Casa Grande and is the liaison between the council and Mayor and the cities departments. He works with the financial department to create an operational budget for each of the departments, oversee's the requests of the city needs and works for the citizens and the staff. His job isn't easily wrapped up into a nice, neat job description. His task is to take the resources available to the city and extend them to make Casa Grande the best version of itself. He has been with Casa Grande for a number of years and has a good relationship with the council and staff. 

Like I said previously, I was at first intimidated and briefly thought I would not be able to do the job of a city manager. But there were a few things he said after the budget meeting that quickly brushed away the fear. He stated, in so many words, that the job of the city manager isn't to always be the nice guy. It's to be the person who sometimes says no, but know that you are doing it because you have to. You won't always be favored for your decisions because everyone feels that their department needs something more importantly than another, you can't always give everyone everything. Instead, know your numbers, know what your city needs and work with that in mind. Say no, but work with them to give them everything they need to succeed. When they succeed, so do you.

I don't need to have a photographic memory to be a city manager, I have different skills that will benefit me and any agency I work for. But I do have to have the drive and the service state of mind. If I retain that, I can do well with whatever I decide to do. 

RECon 2013

RECon is a large scale conference for retailers and municipalities held in Las Vegas. Thousands attend to meet with brokers, retailers both large and small and municipal governments in an effort to bring together businesses and communities. It is no small feat to get prepared for this conference and it was another of my large assignments while being at the city.

Week 5: 

This week had me working on economic development, looking at vacant properties that could be filled with business we were hoping to meet at RECon 2013. RECon is an annual convention that is held in Las Vegas occupying the country’s largest businesses and Cities from across the country, trying to build connections to bring the businesses to the various cities. Alex, the other intern, and I were compiling a list from the 420+ pages of attendees that we felt would benefit the City of Casa Grande by meeting with, and discussing the options of bringing their business to the Sun Corridor of Arizona. Another piece of this puzzle required a COSTAR report of all of the vacant retail, office, industrial and restaurant space in the city limits. The hope and expectation is that at RECon, the City of Casa Grande will be able to bring new businesses and greater opportunities to the city by presenting the vacant property and establishing the need for their business here. And there are plenty!

Week 7: 

I am now fully juggling both the RECon assignment, the TTF assignment, and picking up little things in the office for learning experience. This week I was able to read 10 proposals we received after an RFP (Request for Proposal) was sent out for a new road construction project off of the Interstate 10.

In addition to reading through the proposals and ranking them, I also assisted in designing a new logo for the Sun Corridor to take to RECon this year. Instead of Casa Grande going as a single city, this year they opted to get a bigger booth and go as a region. The Sun Corridor Arizona is built up of Casa Grande, Coolidge, Eloy, Florence, and CAREDF (Central Arizona Regional Economic Development Foundation). In doing so, we wanted a uniform appearance to be presented at the conference. My supervisor and I updated the logo to be used this year and we created a new polo as well as other material that will be going along to RECon. 

Week 9: 

Monday started with a 6 hour long budget meeting. It was the study session taking the entire city budget to council for clarification and to ask any questions. Each agency director sat in front of council as piece-by-piece of the budget was gone through. It went by more quickly than one would expect from a day-long session talking about every dollar the city has. There was another RECon meeting as well as time spent in Scottsdale working on the project.

A list had been compiled with all of the contacts we wished to reach in regards to meetings at RECon. The final list was 87 contacts of retailers, restaurants, and hospitality organizations. Everything from Toys’R’Us to Dunkin’ Donuts were included. Between Alex and I, we contacted all of the 87 businesses, sometimes multiple people at each organization, to request an appointment. Cold calls and emails took up the majority of a day and we left many a messages requesting contacts. It was interesting to see how many businesses simply were not expanding into Arizona at this time, despite the growth that Arizona is seeing once again. The Sun Corridor is experiencing 22.4% growth annually!  

Week 10:  

It is supreme crunch time for RECon. Everything must be ordered to get to the City in time to take with. Shirts, printed material, the furniture, as well as securing meetings with businesses, and building site criteria. The majority of the contacts we were in touch with have responded, however there were a few that we simply weren’t getting a response from. Of those 87, we had set 5 meetings. That is a huge success considering they were the businesses we were most interested in getting to come to the City of Casa Grande!

In addition to the materials needed for RECon, I officially finished all of the necessary documents for TTF for review by the consultant. Everything was put into a binder that John will be able to take with him on his trip this upcoming week. In two weeks, John and I will meet to make sure nothing else needs to be done and then we will take our information to the airport manager at the end of the month for presentation. It was a relief to snap the binder rings shut and see all of the work accomplished over the last few weeks.

Week 11: 

This has been the final leg in the home stretch to RECon. This week consisted of putting the finishing touches on site criteria packets for the businesses we were interested in, packing up the vehicles for the trip up to Las Vegas, and meetings discussing the final pieces of the large puzzle.

In order to get the site criteria packets to be most presentable, we first looked up the site criteria that many businesses post for the public. For instance, if you are interested in a Dunkin’ Donuts, you can google their criteria and come up with a list of the things they desire when considering opening a new location. We then set to seek out the perfect locations in our city that met the desired criteria. Utilizing ArcGIS, we were able to export maps into the documents that included the sites/PADS as well as coinciding criteria like traffic counts for the intersections they would be near to, the zoning, and nearby businesses or other tenants in the plaza. Population demographics can make or break a site selection seeing as how many businesses require a minimum number of people to consider it as an option. I chose to make the site criteria packets match the company’s existing logo and customize them further, matching fonts and colors while adding their logo at the top of the page. I’m hoping the personal touch will catch their eye at RECon and allow my supervisors to proceed with explaining why the spot is perfect for their business.

It’s been a long process to get to this point but I believe everyone feels good about where we are at in regards to progress. We have a great listing of appointments set up with the business we were most interested in bringing to Casa Grande. We have built packets to give to those businesses and we are hopefully going to be able to show that we do meet all of their needs and we will offer them room to grow with our always expanding city. As big of a relief as it is to be done, I’m anxious to see what comes of the actual conference this upcoming week.