City manager brings stability to city: Marsh reflects on first 20 months

Ron Marsh

Abilene-RC.com
Gail Parsons
Jan 26, 2023

When Ron Marsh accepted the position of Abilene’s city manager, he brought stability to a revolving door.

Soon after starting he learned he was the fourth of fifth city manager in about seven years, he said.

“Which is crazy,” he said. “If you don’t have consistency or if you don’t have stability in this position, it’s hard to get anything done because you’re constantly changing direction on where you’re going.”

Beyond stability, everything else accomplished in the 20 months that he’s been at the helm, has been a team effort.

“I'm a relationship builder, I believe in building relationships,” he said. “You get farther in life when you work together, it’s not rocket science. I know it's fairly cliché, but if you're pulling apart you're not going anywhere.”

During his initial interview with the city commission, he was left with the impression they were looking for someone who could bring the city employees together as one team. Meeting that goal wasn’t difficult because he started with a solid foundation.

When Marsh and his wife started exploring the town and weighing their options, they recognized that employees were invested in the community. 

“The employees that work for the city are very, very invested in the city,” he said. “That was good to see. A large majority of our employees live in the city of Abilene and they care about this city; they really do, they care about what they do. It's not just to come to work and go home.”

The sentiment spills over to the residents as well, which was also one of the selling points on Abilene for him. When moving into a new community he said people would often say, “this is a nice community, but.

“There was always that, ‘but,’” he said. “We never heard that. Everyone we met was, “You’re going to love it here. Abilene’s a great town, great people. There was never that ‘but’ at the end of the sentence.”

Bringing stability to the team was easy, but there were also matters of city business he needed to address. First and foremost was the Golden Belt Heights development project.

After several years of sitting nearly empty the subdivision, formally known as The Highlands, broke ground shortly after Marsh’s one year anniversary. Several houses are built now and while a downturn in the economy and an uptick in interest rates may have slowed some progress, it is still a project that he is proud of.

“I can't take credit for getting things going there,” he said. “All I did was bring stability to this position and give them a hope that what they did was going to stay the course over time so they could get something done.”

In other areas of the city, Marsh secured funding from the Kansas Department of Transportation for the 14th Street Industrial Corridor.

“There’s been a lot of little projects that we've done,” he said. “Working with the Public Works director and Community Development Director and the Convention Visitors Bureau director — it's just been very rewarding. Everyday coming to work is rewarding.”

The reward comes from seeing the city staff working together as a team. They are energetic and love the community, he said.

Over the next 18 months or so, he has quality of life projects he wants to see underway and hopes to have the infrastructure for shovel-ready business along the 14 Street Corridor in place.

With Abilene’s location on Interstate 70, Marsh said he sees a lot of potential for the city but balances change and growth with maintaining the vibe of what makes Abilene special and what makes it home.