A two-time Utah State Banjo Champion, former performance auditor for Arizona and originator of a top community marketing campaign is Fountain Hills’ next town manager.
The Fountain Hills Town Council announced Thursday, May 1, Richard Davis, the current city manager of West Point City, Utah, has been chosen as Fountain Hills’ new town manager.
Davis was unanimously selected by the Town Council and will make a base salary of $135,000. He is expected to start no later than July 7.
A total of nine candidates were interviewed and the committee narrowed the candidates to five, all of which visited Fountain Hills from March 27-29 and participate in the second phase of the interview process at the Fountain Hills Community Center.
Following the extensive selection process that included pre-screening, rounds of interviews, in-depth reference and background checks and a citizen forum, Davis was chosen to succeed Tim Pickering, who mutually severed ties with the Town in November.
Davis will be the third town manager of Fountain Hills.
Davis currently serves as the city manager of one of the fastest growing communities in Utah, West Point City.
During his more than seven year tenure with the city, Davis has directed the total transition of this once sleepy farming hamlet into a full-service Salt Lake suburb.
This metamorphosis required the ground-up development of policies and procedures, several master plans, emergency preparedness plan, capital facilities plan and a general plan, according to a press release from Fountain Hills Public Information Officer Katie Decker.
The general plan, specifically, was awarded the Governor’s Quality Growth Award.
Under Davis’ leadership, millions in infrastructure have been installed; and a new, thriving central business district now occupies an area that once hosted only cows.
Residential development, meanwhile, has nearly tripled during the last few years and continues to increase by 10 to 15 percent annually.
Through it all, Davis has restructured the West Point organization as well; forming, recruiting, and staffing six departments and implementing a performance measures program and continuous improvement culture throughout the city.
Davis also implemented an ERP process which resulted in the complete retooling of West Point’s technology infrastructure.
Background
Prior to coming to West Point, Davis served from 1996 to 2000 as the assistant to the chief administrator of one of the largest cities in Utah, Sandy City.
First given responsibility for performance auditing and public relations, Davis’s role rapidly expanded onto the executive budget committee, responsible for the formation of a $60 million annual budget.
Davis was also given responsibility for the development, administration, programming and marketing of the city’s first performing arts center.
By 1998, Davis was named the city’s director of community affairs. Meanwhile, his supervision of various divisions and functions expanded to include not only performance auditing, budget development and public relations, but also total quality management, employee training, citizen health, traffic calming, civic events and economic development.
Davis’s 1998 community marketing campaign, “Sandy – The Other Downtown,” won national acclaim as the nation’s top such campaign among large cities, besting the efforts of other cities such as San Diego, Cincinnati and Seattle.
Davis’s public career began in 1994, when he served as a performance auditor for the state of Arizona.
In this capacity, Davis was involved in auditing numerous state agencies and working with the state legislative audit oversight committee to improve the operations of these entities.
From 1989 to 1994, as a new undergraduate, Rick served as the Director of Corporate Communications for the largest life insurance company in the Western U.S., Beneficial Life.
Davis has a bachelors degree in communications (public relations) and a masters of public administration, both from Brigham Young University. Davis graduated with “High Distinction” from the Romney Institute for Public Administration, part of the Marriott School of Management at BYU, and was awarded the Lennis M. Knighton Award for graduating top of his class. He is a member of two academic honor societies, Beta Gamma Sigma National Management Honor Society and Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society.
Professionally, he is a member of the International City and County Management Association (ICMA) and is the past president of the Utah City Management Association.
In 2005, Davis was awarded credentialed status with ICMA.
A guest lecturer at BYU, the University of Utah, and Weber State University, Davis is the author of “Marketing Your Community for Economic Development” (an ICMA publication) and presented on that topic at the 2002 ICMA international conference in Philadelphia.
Davis and his wife Aimee are the parents of three; Aubrey (14), Zachary (10), and Malorie (6).
He enjoys family time and Bluegrass music (Davis is a two-time Utah State Banjo Champion).
With his musical group “Fire on the Mountain,” Davis has recorded five albums and one movie sound-track.
Davis officially will start as Town Manager on July 7. Once settled in Fountain Hills, a formal welcome reception will be organized with community members.