The owner of a burger restaurant, an Army Corps of Engineers commander, city public-works directors and water and sewer officials are among the applicants for chief executive of Little Rock Wastewater Utility to be considered at an executive search committee meeting today.
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Little Rock Wastewater
Heidi Voorhees, president of Illinois-based search firm Voorhees Associates, will give a presentation on her top picks at 1:30 p.m. today at the utility’s headquarters, 11 Clearwater Drive.
In all, 60 resumes rolled in from 22 states and three countries. Eighteen applicants live or work in Arkansas.
Voorhees organized the list into three tiers and plans to recommend the 11 in the top two tiers to the search committee today, said the utility’s interim CEO John Jarratt, the director of administration and community outreach. Jarratt did not apply for the position.
He said Tuesday that he didn’t know what criteria Voorhees used to place applicants in the three groups. Voorhees didn’t return voice messages left for her at two phone numbers Tuesday.
She initially included 13 applicants in her top two tiers, according to a spreadsheet sent to committee members. When the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette received that document under a state Freedom of Information Act request Tuesday afternoon,Jarratt asked a reporter not to print any of the applicants’ names.
When the newspaper declined to honor that request, he said the utility’s attorneys had advised him to ask which names would be printed so Voorhees could contact those applicants and “give them the opportunity to withdraw.” When asked why, Jarratt indicated that some applicants may get in trouble with their employers for applying for the position.
Less than two hours after Voorhees began notifying applicants that their names were released to the newspaper, Jarratt said two had withdrawn without giving a reason.
One of the applicants who withdrew - Chris Browning, president of Advanced Utility Consulting Services in Canton, Ga. - had more years of wastewater experience than any other applicant listed in the top two tiers. According to Voorhees’ list, Browning had 30 years of wastewater utility experience, with 12 of those being in executive-level administration.
The other applicant to withdraw was Thomas Esqueda, a management consultant at Brown and Caldwell in Raleigh, N.C., who has no wastewater experience but has “extensive experience in private engineering practice [and] consulting to public agencies,” according to Voorhees’ summary document.
It is unclear whether “wastewater experience” means the applicant worked at a sewer utility. Some of the applicants have instead been or are employed at water utilities or with city public-works departments, but are listed as having wastewater utility experience on Voorhees’ summary spreadsheet.
Of the 11 applicants to be presented to the search committee today, two currently live in Arkansas. Both are included in Tier I.
Applicant Craig Guth of Sherwood is a deputy commander of the Little Rock District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He has no experience at a wastewater utility, but Voorhees noted on the spreadsheet that Guth has 15 years of “extensive relevant leadership and management experience.” He was in the Army from 1985 to 1996, and rejoined in 2001.
The other local applicant is Clyde Rhodes of Little Rock. He’s the president of HFB National Holdings Corp. and the owner and manager of Home Fresh Burgers on Main Street. Voorhees listed Rhodes as having seven years of executive-level wastewater administration experience. He worked at the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality from 2009 to 2012 and at an environmental-management company for seven years before that.
The other applicants listed in Tier I are:
Robert Knecht, deputy director of the Memphis Public Works Division. He has 10 years of wastewater experience, all in administration.
Charles Logue, director of technical services at Renewable Water Resources in Greenville, S.C. He has 29 years of wastewater experience, with five in administration.
David McNeeley, former director of operations and maintenance at Northwest Ohio Regional Sewer District in Cleveland. He has 22 years of wastewater experience, with 11 of those at the administration level.
Gregario Ramon, assistant general manager at Central Arizona Project in Phoenix. He has 22 years total wastewater experience and 10 in administration.
Jesse White, senior program manager of wastewater treatment for Dallas. He has 13 years of experience in wastewater, five at the administration level.
Applicants listed in Tier II are:
Darrell Blennis, executive director of the Central Lake County Joint Action Water Agency in Lake Bluff, Ill. He has six years of wastewater experience, all in administration.
Gerald Ihler, public-works director and city engineer in Lawton, Okla. He has 28 years of wastewater experience, with 21 in administration.
Andrew Neff, environmental services director for Seminole County, Fla. He’s in Sanford, Fla., and has 17 years of wastewater experience, with 13 in administration.
Holly McGrath Rosas, interim director of utilities for Midland, Texas. She has 14 years of wastewater experience and was in administration for half of them.
The wastewater CEO position became vacant in January when the utility’s authoritative body - the Sanitary Sewer Committee - fired Reggie Corbitt. An independent audit and a Little Rock Police Department investigation affirmed newspaper reports that Corbitt approved the rent-free, on-and-off stays of a top manager on utility property and a 24-hour access pass for the secure treatment plants for that manager’s girlfriend. The manager, Stan Miller, also was fired.
The Police Department forwarded its investigation to the Pulaski County prosecuting attorney’s office for review. That office has yet to announce whether it will pursue charges in the case.
The utility’s executive search committee will narrow the list of CEO applicants and conduct interviews of those it selects in May. The committee will make recommendations to the sewer committee by mid-May. The sewer committee will have the final authority on hiring the new CEO.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/09/2014