St. Albert's business community believes the city has found the right guy to lead the charge for economic development.
Guy Boston, the city's general manager of planning and engineering, will slide over to become St. Albert's first executive director of economic development, starting July 3. The appointment was announced at the beginning of Monday's standing committee on finance meeting.
“We're so pleased,” said Lynda Moffat, president and CEO of the St. Albert Chamber of Commerce. “We've just been able to work very well with Guy Boston over the last few years and we think that he will do very well in this position.”
Ivan Mayer, president of the Riel Business Association, was also happy to hear the news.
“I've known Guy for many, many years … and I've known him to be a very approachable, very open-minded individual and I think that's what today's developer is looking for,” Mayer said. “Someone who's not just going to shut them down.”
City council first created the position of general manager of economic development in September 2011, hoping to hire a jet-setting, smooth-talking salesman who could travel the world and encourage businesses to relocate to St. Albert. After posting the position and using a headhunting agency, the city found very few qualified applicants. After consulting with new city manager Patrick Draper back in April, the title was changed to executive director.
Draper said it was shortly after he arrived in late April that he started to realize that Boston might be the ideal candidate.
“It was actually an idea that came to mind and I started to broach the subject with Guy and we chatted over a couple of weeks and he really saw the vision — that this role was, in fact, the largest most significant position the city is going to have going forward,” Draper said.
That point was underscored last month when council designated 700 acres of land west of the city for future industrial and commercial development, lands that have since been rebranded at city hall as the “employment lands.” While the city is still working on amending its statutory documents, as well as partnering with the Urban Development Institute (UDI) to settle the issue of offsite levies, Boston will be charged with selling businesses on St. Albert.
Boston said that, until Draper raised the issue two weeks ago, he'd only considered serving in an interim capacity if council so desired.
“I wasn't thinking of putting my name in but certainly considered that, if the corporation was interested in someone doing it in the interim, I would,” Boston said.
Boston does have some economic development background in the private sector — after initially leaving the city, where he served in his current position, in 2007, Boston joined CH2M HILL Canada, a massive engineering company. Charged with growing the company provincially, his employers soon asked him to broaden his scope.
“That was going pretty well so they said, ‘Why don't you do all of Canada?' So it was interesting for me to do that because I'd never really had to do that before and it came natural to me,” Boston said.
Mayor Nolan Crouse said Boston's knowledge with not just St. Albert, but the city corporation, also works in his favour.
“He's got credibility as a person, knowledge of our community, knowledge of the corporation and knowledge of the development community,” Crouse said. “Technically he's outstanding and has a great ability to communicate.”
Draper was also impressed with Boston's interpersonal skills.
“I was impressed with his ability to relate to people and move the agenda forward. He's a very persuasive individual.”
While Draper's background in economic development casts a wide shadow, Boston insists this is his show to run.
“It's my responsibility, there's no doubt about it,” said Boston. “This is not a secondment. This is ‘dive in and make it happen.'
“There's a huge expectation. I'm looking at it from here as a pretty steep hill to climb, but I like climbing hills.”
Horncastle update: Meanwhile, Larry Horncastle, the city's former head of economic development who was fired last fall, has been contracted by the City of Edmonton to be project manager for its new economic development plan The Way We Prosper.
