{"id":207,"date":"2012-10-09T11:18:06","date_gmt":"2012-10-09T18:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/?p=207"},"modified":"2013-03-12T11:20:10","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T18:20:10","slug":"experienced-leaders-fill-key-positions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/experienced-leaders-fill-key-positions\/","title":{"rendered":"Experienced Leaders Fill Key Positions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contact:<\/strong> City Manager Tony O’Rourke \u2013 575-6040
\nCommunity Relations Manager Randy Beehler \u2013 901-1142 \u2013 randy.beehler@yakimawa.gov<\/a><\/p>\n

Yakima City Manager Tony O\u2019Rourke has selected Sean Hawkins to become Yakima\u2019s Economic Development Manager, Steve Osguthorpe to serve as Community Development Director, and longtime City staff member Joan Davenport to serve in a new role as Strategic Projects Manager.<\/p>\n

The appointments of Hawkins, Osguthorpe, and Davenport are part of an ongoing City reorganization plan approved by the City Council earlier this year.\u00a0 The three are expected to begin their new jobs on November 5th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Hawkins is familiar to many people in Yakima because from 2007 to 2009 he served as the first Executive Director of the Committee for Downtown Yakima (\u201cCDY\u201d), spearheading startup of the non-profit organization\u2019s economic development, business support, and \u201cclean and safe\u201d efforts in Yakima\u2019s 16-block Business Improvement District (\u201cBID\u201d).\u00a0 Since then, he has worked as Project Manager and Regional Vice President for Block by Block, a private company based in Louisville, Kentucky that provides BID management services to 46 cities across the nation.\u00a0 Block by Block took over CDY\u2019s responsibilities here in Yakima earlier this year.\u00a0\u00a0 Hawkins, who has a B.A. in marketing from the University of Kentucky and an M.B.A. from the University of Montana, was the Director of Visitor Experiences\/Community Development for the Harrison County Convention and Visitors Bureau in Corydon, Indiana from 2002 to 2007.\u00a0 He served as a Program Assistant for the Missoula Downtown Association in that Montana city from 2000 to 2001. As Yakima\u2019s Economic Development Manager, Hawkins will work primarily on improving the business environment in the downtown area and at the Yakima airport.<\/p>\n

Osguthorpe, who has both a B.S. in urban planning and a B.S. in economics from the University of Utah, began his career as a planner in Park City, Utah in 1989.\u00a0 Two years later, he moved to Washington State to become a downtown development planner in Bremerton.\u00a0 In 1992, Osguthorpe began a seven-year stint in Gig Harbor as an associate planner.\u00a0 From 1999 to 2002, he worked for the City of Puyallup as a senior planner.\u00a0 Osguthorpe returned to Gig Harbor in 2002 to serve as that city\u2019s Planning and Building Manager.\u00a0 In 2005, he was hired by the City of Shelton as its Community and Economic Development Director.\u00a0 Since 2007, Osguthorpe has been the Planning and Housing Director for the City of Ames, Iowa.\u00a0 In his role as Yakima\u2019s Community Development Director, Osguthorpe will oversee the City\u2019s planning, neighborhood development, code administration, animal control, and City Hall maintenance operations.<\/p>\n

Davenport has worked for the City of Yakima in several capacities since she was hired as an Associate Planner in 1987, including as a Senior Supervising Planner, Supervising Traffic Engineer, Planning Manager, and as Acting Community and Economic Development Director since earlier this year.\u00a0 As Strategic Projects Manager for the City, Davenport will coordinate the Mill Site project, the North 1st<\/sup> Street revitalization project, and other land use and economic development initiatives.<\/p>\n

Experienced Leaders Fill Key Positions (pdf)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contact: City Manager Tony O’Rourke \u2013 575-6040 Community Relations Manager Randy Beehler \u2013 901-1142 \u2013 randy.beehler@yakimawa.gov Yakima City Manager Tony O\u2019Rourke has selected Sean Hawkins to become Yakima\u2019s Economic Development Manager, Steve Osguthorpe to serve as Community Development Director, and longtime City staff member Joan Davenport to serve in a new role as Strategic Projects<\/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-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","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=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}