Assembly has five final manager candidates

PALMER — On Wednesday, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly continued their search for a new Manager.

After the departure of former Manager John Moosey to take the city manager position with Palmer, former Deputy Manager George Hays has been promoted to Acting Borough Manager and Russ Krafft has been serving as Deputy Borough Manager.

Added to the previous list of semfinalists that was voted on in September by the Assembly, current Executive Director of Operations for the Mat-Su Borough School District Mike Brown and Kim Zimmerman from North Pole were also added to the list.

The Assembly has been working with municipal advising firm Baker Tilly to recruit managerial hopefuls to apply for the position left vacant by Moosey in April. The Assembly pared down an enormous list of candidates in August and selected Janette Bower, Thomas Hutka and Randy Robertson as semifinalists in early September, leaving the application period open until Sept. 21. At their meeting on Sept. 30, the Assembly was informed that 11 people had responded to the vacant position and that questionnaire requests had been sent to four of the 11 candidates, one of whom chose to withdraw. After hearing Assembly members ask for candidates with experience in Alaska, Brown and Zimmerman joined the list of semifinalists. The third candidate that provided video questionnaire responses was Travis Mortimer, an Assistant County Administrator in Port Charlotte, FL. Zimmerman serves as the living operations director for Corvais Air Force Living in North Pole and Brown has often presented to the Assembly on behalf of MSBSD as the Executive Director of Operations, frequently providing updates on the Houston Middle School rebuild.

Brown has served as the Executive Director of Operations for the MSBSD since 2015 and previously served two years as the capital projects director for the Mat-Su Borough. Brown served as a U.S. Army officer for 21 years at Joint-Base Elmendorf Richardson. Brown received a Master of Science Telecommunications from the University of Maryland in 2001 and a Bachelors of Science Electronics Engineering Technology from DeVry Institute Of Technology.

Mortimer served as the Assistant County Administrator Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners in Port Charlotte, FL for the last year and previously served as the capital projects manager in Port Charlotte for four years. Mortimer received a Masters in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Bachelors in Civil Engineering from the University of South Carolina and served in the Air Force for nearly a decade.

Retired Air Force Colonel Kim Zimmerman has served as the Operations Director for Corvais for the last two years and previously served as the City Manager for the Borough of Ridgeway, PA. Zimerman received his bachelor’s degree from the Clarion University of Pennsylvania and his masters in Geography and Regional Planning from the California University of Pennsylvania.

Previously selected finalist Randy Robertson was previously the city manager in Cordova and currently serves as the city manager in Aberdeen, MD. Janette Bower also has local experience as the Palmer city Clerk and is currently the City Administrator in Wadena, MN. The third semifinalists selected early in September was Public Works Director for Broward Country, FL Thomas Hutka.

“I was pleased with your selections for your finalists.I think they are great candidates,” said Mayor Vern Halter.

The Assembly will meet next on Oct. 6 and will hold a special session on Oct. 21 starting at 9 a.m. with an hour interview for each of the five final candidates.