Midland Mayor Lori Blong
City of Midland
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Lori Blong, Dan Corrales and Robin Poole
Over the last several months, the Midland City Council has carried out an exhaustive search for the best candidate to serve as Midland’s next city manager. We are proud to announce this search has resulted in a final candidate for consideration by the City Council. We want to offer an introduction of Tommy Gonzalez to Midlanders before the City Council meets to make a final decision regarding our hire.
Not only do we believe we have found a candidate who will meet the needs of our growing city, but we truly believe his extensive experience and proven track record exceed the expectations we collectively held as a council.
Tommy Gonzalez is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, an outstanding alumnus of Eastern New Mexico University, a Texas Tech distinguished alumnus, and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt from the University of Texas. Mr. Gonzalez’ background and resume demonstrate he can provide the executive leadership necessary to carry out the mission, goals and policies established by the city council.
Most recently, Mr. Gonzalez has managed the city of El Paso’s annual $1 billion operations budget, with approximately $1 billion capital expenditures last year, and with more than 6,000 staff members for the past nine years. Under his leadership, El Paso won numerous state and national recognitions and executed a complete financial turnaround, eliminating a $7.8 million deficit, more than tripling the fund balance from $26 million in 2014 to the current amount of $163 million. He also assembled a team that achieved zero audit findings for the past seven consecutive years – an important point, as he walked into an external audit that identified 21 findings.
Prior to El Paso, Mr. Gonzalez served as city manager for the city of Irving for more than seven years, where he led that organization to the Malcolm Baldrige Award recognition. The Baldrige award is the highest presidential award for leadership and management of an organization. Ronald Reagan put this award process in place to position private organizations to be more competitive. Today, this award process is open to the public sector as well. Irving remains the largest city to win this award.
We believe adding Mr. Gonzalez to our team will add to what we have already accomplished in Midland and what we have planned. On that note, our future is bright as we enjoy a strong financial position, with a healthy fund balance and a AAA bond rating. Council believes we are poised to make great strides in development, economic growth and quality of life for our community. But improving the quality of life for our children tomorrow begins with bold leaders in Midland making the right choices today. The Midland City Council believes now is the time to lead Midland forward in a financially responsible way.
We felt it was important to provide the public with some background of our hiring choice as our choice meets the desires of our community. We know this because as part of our search for the next city manager, we conducted a community survey. One of the most clear and consistent responses we received from that survey was to make sure we hire a person who understands West Texas, who shares the values of our community, and who will view our community as his or her home. Additionally, we heard clearly from you that we need a city manager who will manage our taxpayer dollars, who will benefit the culture of city staff, and who will create and uphold a high standard of customer service within the city. As a native West Texan and with a proven track record in city management with significant financial accomplishments and numerous improvements to customer service in several cities throughout Texas, Tommy Gonzalez meets those expectations of our community.
Further, Mr. Gonzalez’ reputation for success and past performance offer a strong framework for three major needs in our city:
Broad Economic Development
Midland deserves a city manager who will be strategic and possess the ability to plan for and deliver on long term economic strength, even in our oil and gas economy with an undulating plateau. In El Paso alone, Mr. Gonzalez delivered well over a billion dollars in total transportation and community projects, saved the community more than $210 million, and secured $257 million in new project dollars. He has become an expert in Texas, in working with state, federal and private funding sources to optimize community projects.
Long-range strategic planning, capital improvement programs and financial tools to fund these long-range plans that require capital, are at the top of Mr. Gonzalez priority list. These plans will serve as a road map to help city staff, the Midland Development Corp. and council to meet the growing needs of our community, as well as strategize how to best provide Midlanders with the “wants” they feel will better serve their quality of life. He will keep a close watch on our needs first and will work with the city council to find creative ways to fund our many wants for quality of life and quality of place.
Downtown Revitalization
The creation of Centennial Park drastically changed the downtown experience in Midland, as we have seen the area come alive. Restaurants, nightlife, parties and events are a common occurrence and have added to the felt energy just walking through the downtown streets. However, Midlanders want more.
Mr. Gonzalez played an integral role in the redevelopment of both Irving and El Paso. For a long time, the city of El Paso had a desire to increase the number of convention/conference hotel rooms in their downtown, but they had no plan. After Mr. Gonzalez introduced a concept utilized in Irving that provides tax relief, quality of life/place, and economic development opportunities that 72 Texas cities now benefit from, he brought that same funding concept to El Paso. The border city has now developed a new hotel in downtown, redeveloped a once boarded up historic hotel that lay dormant for decades and re-invested in yet another historic hotel. Today, El Paso has more than 1,000 rooms available for convention style offerings they didn’t have before. Add this to the Winterfest event and other downtown events that activate downtown for over 100 days per year, and you now have a happening downtown.
In Irving Mr. Gonzalez assisted in redeveloping the Urban Center in conjunction with the construction of the Toyota Music Factory adjacent to the Convention Center and Convention Center hotel. In El Paso, his leadership in developing strong public-private partnerships led to the transformation of downtown with a new award-winning AAA ballpark, as well as a beautiful new children’s museum.
Mr. Gonzalez’ desire to collaborate on downtown redevelopment and his historical success in this area will only serve to reinforce the growth we are currently experiencing around Centennial Park. A successful and flourishing downtown has been the vision of this council, as well as councils past – it is exciting to think we are on the precipice of seeing that vision become a reality.
Excellent Customer Service
Mr. Gonzalez’ leadership style, Lean Six Sigma expertise and established metrics for staff workflow, accountability and success will empower an already highly specialized and committed staff. This will ultimately provide proven, tangible growth in individuals, services departments provide, and city management that will focus on community needs.
The City of Midland is fortunate to have a deep pool of highly qualified, hard-working staff members – four of whom were also strong finalists in our selection process. Those candidates deserve our utmost respect, praise and admiration as they are truly the embodiment of leadership and service. Their continued dedication to the people of Midland is commendable, and we are fortunate that they each have a deep desire to see our community thrive and grow.
During Council’s interviews with Mr. Gonzalez, he made it clear that staff development and proven results are paramount when running a successful city operation. Along with his own words, past employees, council members and colleagues in the field of city management have given reference to his desire and ability to grow talent within the organizations in which he takes part.
In both his time in Irving and El Paso, Mr. Gonzalez created cross-functional teams made up of different departmental disciplines. These groups assisted in breaking down silos within the organizations and created opportunities for people to lead, develop bonds across departments and ultimately led to successful communication. Measures like this are sure to take our staff to the next level and provide an even better culture of excellence within customer service.
In our July 11 council m – at 10 a.m. -- we will receive public comment, as well as consider and have the opportunity to take action on an employment agreement with Mr. Gonzalez.
As a council, we maintain a deep conviction that Midlanders deserve bold leadership which is willing to take swift and decisive action, commensurate with the community’s immediate and future needs. We will promote an increased culture of excellence at city gall so that Midland can take pride in being one of the best managed cities in Texas. Our goal ultimately is to leave Midland better than we found it.