09/29/2012

Folks, it’s been a long and sometimes tedious week in our world, but it’s late Friday afternoon and we’re all still around and can talk about it.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been collecting “at-a-boys”…so let’s celebrate them!

· Lynnisse Roehrich-Patrick, Executive Director of TACIR said to Vicki South about a TACIR-related article Vicki had in the August 6 ^th TT&C, “Victoria, that’s a terrific article on page 3 of the current TT&C issue. Your article will certainly increase the likelihood of these issues getting the attention they should. You did a great job of tying in related tidbits about what’s already happening. That reinforces the message in a very positive way. Thanks so much for highlighting our report. We couldn’t have asked for better!”

· Mary Jinks told John Chlarson and Doug Brown (and others on the IPS Conference Planning Committee), “Special thanks for your hard work during the last year. Good planning makes the conference appear effortless to those attending – and that’s just how it looked this year. You attended to every detail. The program was great, the food and logistics were perfect, and the program flow was amazing. I know how much work goes in to planning this event – I was the program chair for several years! I really, really appreciate your dedication to IPS and to making this a great event for your fellow employees.”

· Pat Hardy reported that, during the recent TCMA Conference, “Morristown City Manager Tony Cox pulled me to the side at TCMA to tell how pleased he was with Dennis Wolf’s Fire Study. He went on and on about how professional he is, how excellent and helpful the study is, and how impressed he was with the turnaround time, especially since we let him know on the front end the study might not have been finished until well into the Fall.”

· At the same conference, Johnson City Manager Pete Peterson stopped me and generally praised MTAS with words like “outstanding”, “very customer oriented” and “thanks for what you do”.

· Over the past few months, the Town of Dover has been working to replace retiring (for the third time) City Administrator Jimmy Scurlock…and engaged MTAS to help with the task. Gary Jaeckel is Dover’s management consultant and when the process reached a successful conclusion, Jimmy wrote, “Gary developed an excellent proposal for our consideration and the Board voted to follow his recommendations. Throughout the process, he has been very professional and available to us when we had questions or needs. He was here to lead the interview process and offer suggestions to the Board. We very much appreciate the assistance of all the MTAS staff during this hiring process but most especially we appreciate the assistance and dedication of Gary”.

· Jeff Broughton, Kingsport’s City Manager, called me last week to sing the praises of Pat Hardy and Sally Thierbach soon after they rolled out a new leadership development training product at Kingsport’s staff and board retreat, “Learning to Innovate: Lessons from the Wright Brothers – Principles of Innovation and Problem-Solving.”

· And I can’t let the opportunity pass to recognize Margaret and Josh, not only for the incredible effort they put into producing the TNCPE Level 3 application, but also for the preparation and guidance they provided all of us who were involved in the site visit earlier this week.

So, there’s a few reasons to celebrate. Each of you is probably aware of others. Sometimes we don’t take (enough) time to enjoy our accomplishments, but we really should. Each one of us has done something this week to help somebody else. If they didn’t tell you “thanks”, please accept mine.

Enjoy the weekend!

Jim Thomas, Executive Director
The University of Tennessee Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS)
Office (615) 532-4950 Cell (615) 972-9219

jim.thomas@tennessee.edu

www.mtas.tennessee.edu