{"id":15088,"date":"2025-03-05T09:46:18","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T17:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/?p=15088"},"modified":"2025-03-05T09:46:18","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T17:46:18","slug":"new-assistant-city-manager-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/new-assistant-city-manager-announced\/","title":{"rendered":"New Assistant City Manager Announced"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Yakima City Manager Vicki Baker announced today that Gary Ballew has been selected to fill the position of assistant city manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Gary brings to the City a wealth of experience,&#8221; said Baker.&nbsp; &#8220;He has been instrumental in guiding significant economic development initiatives from concept to success,&#8221; said Baker.&nbsp; &#8220;I\u2019m confident Gary will help Yakima address some of the issues we are facing today as well as building a vibrant future.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m thrilled to join the City of Yakima team and be part of the great work happening here,\u201d said Ballew.&nbsp; \u201cThroughout my career, I\u2019ve focused on building strong economies that create opportunities and improve the lives of the people in our communities. I can\u2019t wait to bring that experience to Yakima,\u201d said Ballew.&nbsp; \u201cThis city has so much potential, and I look forward to working with the team, local businesses, partner organizations and the community to keep moving Yakima forward.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From 2000 to 2006, Ballew served as deputy county administrator\/sustainable development manager for Benton County.&nbsp; In 2006, he became economic development manager for the City of Richland.&nbsp; From 2013 to 2015, Ballew led the Wine Science Center Development Authority in Richland as its executive director.&nbsp; He spent seven years as the Port of Pasco\u2019s director of economic development and marketing before joining Greater Spokane, Inc. in 2020 as vice president of economic development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ballew earned a bachelor of arts degree in hotel and restaurant administration from Washington State University in 1988.&nbsp; In 1994, he earned a bachelor of science degree from WSU in civil and environmental engineering.&nbsp; Ballew also holds a master of science degree in environmental engineering from WSU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ballew is a board member for the Washington Economic Development Association and sits on the board of the State of Washington Tourism.&nbsp; Additionally, he is a member of the International Economic Development Council and serves on the board of the Spokane Workforce Development Council. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As assistant city manager, Ballew will be responsible for working closely with the city manager on a variety of issues and will specifically oversee strategic projects related to economic development and infrastructure.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ballew&#8217;s first day on the job will be March 17<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div data-wp-interactive=\"core\/file\" class=\"wp-block-file\"><object data-wp-bind--hidden=\"!state.hasPdfPreview\" hidden class=\"wp-block-file__embed\" data=\"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/sites\/6\/New-Assistant-City-Manager-Named-News-Release-1.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px\" aria-label=\"Embed of New Assistant City Manager Named - News Release.\"><\/object><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-365871d2-c578-4f44-930d-7b492b6a2960\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/sites\/6\/New-Assistant-City-Manager-Named-News-Release-1.pdf\">New Assistant City Manager Named &#8211; News Release<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/sites\/6\/New-Assistant-City-Manager-Named-News-Release-1.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-365871d2-c578-4f44-930d-7b492b6a2960\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/sites\/6\/Gary-Ballew-Photo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"977\" src=\"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/sites\/6\/Gary-Ballew-Photo-1024x977.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15090\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/sites\/6\/Gary-Ballew-Photo-1024x977.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/sites\/6\/Gary-Ballew-Photo-300x286.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/sites\/6\/Gary-Ballew-Photo-768x733.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/sites\/6\/Gary-Ballew-Photo.jpg 1067w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yakima City Manager Vicki Baker announced today that Gary Ballew has been selected to fill the position of assistant city manager. &#8220;Gary brings to the City a wealth of experience,&#8221; said Baker.&nbsp; &#8220;He has been instrumental in guiding significant economic development initiatives from concept to success,&#8221; said Baker.&nbsp; &#8220;I\u2019m confident Gary will help Yakima address<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15091,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15088\/revisions\/15091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}