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3 <br />experience, direct exposure as manager of two other NC Counties and <br />regular interaction with numerous county managers and staff in other <br />counties over a ten year plus period in NC. <br />I also call upon past experience as a city manager in other jurisdictions along <br />with some experience in private sector areas including manufacturing and <br />land development activities. <br />One tenet to keep in mind is there is "NO" one-size fits all perfect <br />method to do anything or everything. Any effort applied in delivering <br />services must be customized to local conditions BUT valuable lessons are to <br />be learned from other applications elsewhere. There is seldom an issue <br />faced by local government "anywhere" that has not been dealt with <br />"elsewhere". <br />Approach and Methodology <br />It would have been easy for me to make a list of items for you and the next <br />manager to address and walk away saying the task is done. I approached <br />these tasks with two objectives. First, I felt it important to give the BOCC <br />my best effort responding to your directives. Second, regardless of who the <br />next manager is, you have some personalized perspective of what that <br />person will face and can use this input to best judge what type of individual <br />will be best suited and capable of addressing these issues with some degree <br />of success. Finally, "timing", "resources", "organizational response" <br />and "persistence" will be the elements most impacting upon successful <br />change AND improvements will be incremental. (Slay one dragon at a <br />time!) <br />My approach beyond addressing those challenges and opportunities that <br />were readily available and obvious, was to attempt to reach out to every <br />department in an effort to gain a better understanding of why "things are the <br />way they are". In most cases, department heads and staff were fairly open <br />about their operations. Many are proud of what they do and very guarded <br />about how they do it. Ms. Blackmon began a process of transitioning the <br />organization from that developed by Mr. Link over his 18 years as manager <br />to more closely align with today's challenges and "resource limitations". <br />I spent time talking with Ms. Blackmon and Mr. Link to gain a personalized <br />perspective of their analysis of how the organization functions and could <br />function better. Both provided valuable insight and similar perspectives on <br />factors that critically impact upon county operations, and the ability of the <br />2 <br />