10 Jun Update on the process of hiring a Chief Sustainability Officer, reflections on the community engagement portion

People have been asking me if I’ve heard anything about the hiring of the new Chief Sustainability Officer. As of Sunday the search firm representative said that no offer had been made and the earliest would be this week. I heard through another grapevine rumors that the City Manager might want to wait until he was closer to hiring the new GM for Austin Energy. I hope that it’s soon…yet…

I met with some eco-leaders by phone yesterday to discuss how we should be involved before and after the CSO is hired. Part of the conversation revolved around seeing if thre was any last hope of having eco-community input being formally included in the final stages of the hiring process. The other part revolved around what we can do to help the new person be successful.

There was some frustration that the really great process used during the hiring of Bob Geddert, the new DIrector of Solid Waste Services, was not followed for this CSO hiring process. The main difference I see was the lack of an opportunity to interview the candidates side-by-side.

I was as close to the process as anyone and think that Affion did a great job of seeking community input; for example, back in February they inquired the public for about qualities we want in our CSO, asking for suggestions on where to publicize the position to recruit the best candidates, and finding and narrowing a slate of candidates who are all strong in slightly different ways. I was under the impression that the community "panels" that took place last Thursday would allow us to ask the candidates questions side-by-side and see how they each responded. For the SWS position there was actually a community stakeholder group that got to conduct a real panel interview of each of the finalist candidates. In this CSO process one of the panel interviews was with content experts from different City departments, but there was not an equivalent community leader input process.

Last Thursday we got to hear 5-10 minutes from each of the 4 finalist candidates, one at a time, and then had the remaining time during each of the two sessions for meet and greet. I attended both so I feel like I got to spend time with all 4 panelsts and was able to form a gut-level ranking of them backed up by a few anecdotes for each, but even for me it wasn’t easy to compare how they would really stack up replying to questions crafted by a thoughtful group of leaders to see where each candidate stands, how they plan to apporach the position, and then allow the community stakeholders a forum for offering feedback that would be used during the final hiring decision. Instead, Meet & Greet participants were asked to fill out a form (anonymously if they wished – there was no place on the form for name or affiliation) with perceptions of each finalist’s strengths, weaknesses and other comments. Edna Santos from HR was going to type the comments up for Marc Ott by 8 the next morning so he would have that before his interviews with the finalists, which were scheduled from 8:30-10:30 that Friday.

I asked a search firm rep yesterday to check and see if even a vidoeconference interview with the finalists might be possible, especially if it’s been nearrowed down even further.

As soon as I know the CSO hire, you’ll know, especially if you follow brandi_clark or AustinEcoNet on Twitter AND/OR Brandi Clark Burton or Austin EcoNetwork on Facebook.