Palmer pares manager pics

PALMER — The list of candidates for the Palmer city manager has shrunk even further.

At last count, seven candidates remained, and until last week, five had appointments to interview and participate in a city meet-and-greet at 6:30 p.m. on September 9 at the Palmer Depot.

The city council eliminated two candidates — Greg Moyer and James Dinley — from contention last week. Another candidate, Kristin Vesel, delivered a letter Aug. 27 asking for her name to be withdrawn from the list. City code requires the manager to live inside city limits, or relocate within a few months of taking the job, and Vesel currently lives in the Butte community.

“I just didn’t think that was feasible,” she said.

That leaves four candidates on the list: Nathan Wallace, Patrick Jordan, Christian Crane, and Dave Martinson.

Nathan Wallace

Wallace is presently the utility and facility manager at the Kellogg’s-Pringles Plant in Jackson, Tennessee. He left Alaska in 2014 after completing a term of service at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, where he served first as a deputy commander and executive officer of the 4^th Brigade Combat Team, 25^th Infantry Division at Fort Richardson, then as Knowledge Management Officer for the Joint Base.

He won the Bronze Star twice, once in 2006, and again in 2009, and received a Certificate of Appreciation from the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan in 2009.

Wallace is a graduate of West Point and the Army Logistics Management College at Fort Lee, Virginia, and said he had always intended to return to Alaska some day. He lived in the Palmer area for nine years while stationed at JBER.

“I have a desire to be back in public service,” he said. “Plus I love Palmer.”

When he got out of the service in 2014 amid concerns that JBER would face downsizing, Kellogg’s was simply the company that made the best offer, he said.

He listed an ability to work with large groups as his greatest strength.

“In the Army, people have the impression that the higher up in rank you go the more authority you have, and really some of that’s true, but the higher up you go, the more you have to work with large groups and organizations to come to an agreement or move all in the same direction,” he said. “You’re always gonna have — if you bring more than two people together — some kind of disagreement. I think my greatest strength is being able to overcome those challenges.”

That applies to municipal governance because the manager must go between the council and the administration, or the public and the council, Wallace said.

“The understanding is that if the city council sets the direction, it’s the city manager’s job to carry it out,” he said.

Patrick Jordan

Jordan is currently the assistant city manager for Unalaska. He previously worked as the borough manager for the Bristol Bay Borough, the vital records manager for the Tarrant County Clerk’s Office, the township supervisor for the township of Muskegon, Michigan, and was an adjunct professor at Baker College. He has a bachelor of science in Political Science from Grand Valley State University and a Masters of Public Administration from Western Michigan University.

“We love Alaska,” he said, of he and his family. “We love Alaska and we really like Palmer. We’ve been through there many times, and just love the community and hope to make it our home.”

Family also played a role in the desire to move to an easier access point to the Lower 48.

“I see it as advancing my career, of course, to lead a community like that,” he said. “It’s a place we fell in love with when we came to Alaska. We have four grandchildren back in Michigan, and we look at Palmer as the best of both worlds. We can get home much more cheaply and easily from Anchorage than we can here. We’d like to stay here in Alaska, and that’s what brings us to Palmer.”

Jackson has also watched budget moves at the state level play havoc with the municipal finance picture.

“I think the big issue is the state budget, and the ripple effect of streamlining and cuts that the state’s going to have to make,” he said. “I think the state’s going to shed a lot of employees. They’re going to downgrade services. I don’t see much of a capital budget for years to come. It’s gonna have an effect on all communities in the state.”

Massive cuts could feed high unemployment, which could poison the economy over all, Jordan added.

“It will be a changeover as far as the atmosphere in the community, and it’s a wonderful, wonderful community,” he said. “I care very much about that, about the family-friendliness of a community.”

Christian Crane

Crane has served as the Chief Financial Officer for LiquaDry, Inc in Abraham, Utah. The company produces shelf-stable juice powders for the consumer marketplace. Prior to that he was the chief financial and operations officer for the Osteoarthritis Centers of America in Salt Lake City. From 2009 to 2011 he served as the manager of maintenance operations for the Utah Transit Authority in Salt Lake City.

He has an associates degree in science from Salt Lake Community College, as well as a bachelor of science in statistics and a masters of public administration, both from Brigham Young University.

Crane could not be reached for comment last week.

Dave Martinson

Martinson presently as served as the Executive Vice President of Cherokee Nation Businesses Technology Solutions in San Antonio, Texas since September 2014.

Prior to that he served as the deputy director of logistics, installations, and mission support at the Air Education and Training Command at Joint Base San Antonio between December 2012 and September 2014. Prior to that he served as chief of staff for the Air Force Civil Engineer Directorate at the Pentagon.

Martinson holds a bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Arizona, a Master of Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma, and attended the Air Command and Staff College and the Air War College, and received the Bronze Star.

In 2006, Martinson served as the oil recovery program manager for the Corps of Engineers and Project Contracting Office in Baghdad, Iraq, and oversaw roughly $1.7 billion in construction contracts to re-establish oil production in Iraqi oil fields, according to his resume.

Martinson also did not return calls seeking comment.

Contact Reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.