A new perspective for Pat Mumford - Triangle Business Journal:

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It’s part of a push by the city to mesh the agendasd of business corridors with theiradjacent neighborhoods, a strategy basef on the simple premise that neither side can flourish without the other being successful. Mumford presidew over a staff of160 employees, a $13 millionh annual operating budget and a litan of issues ranging from youth jobs programs to code Many government watchers say the 45-year-ol Mumford brings a strong résumé to the job, a combinationm of the private sector (his two decades at Wachovia concluded with a stinf as senior vice president of environmental affairs) and the public (Cityt Council and former chairman of the ).
He recentlyg discussed his new job and plans for the future with the Charlotte BusinesdJournal . Following are excerpts: How did you wind up in this job? What got me into public service was myprofessionapl experience, my educational experiencde and some of the civic things I had done that led me to City I got to understand how the city worked and the role I coulcd play to help out. I really enjoyed my time in electer office. But when I left, it was the right time for familg reasons andprofessional reasons. I needed to and that year at the bank was pretty tougyhfor everybody.
As Wachovia changed, it causedx me to think a lot more deeplyh than I ever had beford about what is really importantto me: Where am I going, what am I doing?? At the same time, the city was goingy through some changes. Over the cours e of a period of time, I thought, maybe there’s somethinf I could offer. I had stayed in touch with (Citu Manager) Curt (Walton) just because we’red friends and had worked together. This opportunityh came up and I said, “Let’s talk about Curt, because I might be ready to make a There had always been a nagging in my gut abourtpublic service.
I had always really enjoyed being able to make a When Curt outlined what thejob was, I said this reallyt checks all the boxes that I mightf put together. It felt really good on paper, and he agreed and he hired me. But there’s always that little twingwe of, hmmm, what am I doing? Because 21 yearw at one company, that’s a long time. It was a big but I haven’t looked back for a second. It is the culminationn of everything I’ve done in my life. It’s interestintg on this side of the government center to see what a greaft organizationthis is. I always knew that, but it’s just confirmed now as I get to see folkz on adaily basis.
The amount of work that occurxs at the government center is justtremendoue — and it doesn’t ever stop. It’s relentless becausre the city doesn’t stop. Why do you thinik it makes sense to mergethesd departments? The clearest way to respond to that is from a geographicf standpoint. We have five business corridora where we have a focus on Those business corridors and commercialcorridors aren’y going to be viable if the neighborhoods on either side are in and vice versa.
So that’s the most But there’s also a connection betweej economic-development issues and the economy locally and the strength of neighborhoodzs and code enforcement andhousing issues. It realluy is very directly related, it’sw just hard to see that We’re focusing on these five corridors, focusin on leveraging all of the efforts that we have to supporr at a real high levelthosre areas. And then ultimately we’re goinvg to have to look at leveld of service in the rest ofthe city, and how do we approach that and how do we use technology to help delivet services.
Maybe there’s a way we can touch more peopl in an automated fashion and usethose face-to-faced resources in the areas that the council has establishes as priorties. When you were on council, did you deal with theser areas much from acommittee standpoint? My firsf term, from 2001 to 2003, I was on the housingv and neighborhood-development committee. That was reallyu focusing on the housing issues andhousinv policy. Didn’t really get into the economic-developmenty relationship. And then the last four years, I was spendingt a little bit of timeon transportation.
But the councilk never really at the time broughtf those two together and some of that was because economicf development was prettynew (as a focus It didn’t start up until 2000 or and then it was trying to establish the relationship with the (Charlottr Regional Visitors Authority), also the Regional Partnership and then the (Charlotte) Chamber. All of those attractingt and bringing economic opportunitiexs tothis area, and we still all want to make sure we understanr our roles so we don’t But there hadn’t been this real connectiob until the city manager decided to briny the two together. What are you spending most of your time on as youget started??
The consolidation of the two business units that were previously separate — economic developmentg and neighborhood development. We are still working throughg the dynamics of that and whers we can leverage the two areas into thisintegratecd approach. On top of that, we’re working on the budget with the we’re dealing with stimulus dollars that are flowin through and trying to make sure thatwe don’ty just look at the stimulus money by If there’s a way we can take this little bit and this bit over here and supporrt broader goals in the community, I think that’e what we’re supposed to be doing. So there’s that piece of it.
The speecd with which we are receiving details on stimulus moneh isjust crazy. Literally, we’lk get rules on a Monday and two Fridayz fromthen we’ll have to have the applicatioj in to the federal government. So the pace of thingzs right now isprettyt daunting. And longer term? Making sure there is not thatthere wasn’t, but accountability that really ties in all of these disparate work groups.
Then there’sd the whole notion of communication: communication internally, communication with the manager’a office, communication to the media, communication to the general public, communicationh to the elected Just helping people understand the work thatwe do, why we’red doing it. Everything we do, what is the message that we’rr trying to get across