David Trawin a good pick for City’s top administrative job

In some circles, City council’s choice for its next chief administrative officer is a surprise.

There are many reasons, though, that David Trawin will be the kind of CAO who will be good for Kamloops. I say this not only because I worked with him when he was first recruited into City Hall eight years ago, but because of what I’ve come to know of him since.

He was part of the new wave of fresh faces brought in by Randy Diehl as the ranks of departmental managers were depleted by retirements.

Diehl was one himself. Though he’d been around awhile as the City’s planner, his hiring to the top job after Joe Martignago moved to Victoria brought a new way of doing things to the City’s administration.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to handpick his lieutenants to replace outgoing veterans, Diehl surrounded himself with comparative youngsters from out of town. Succession planning is always an issue but his choices proved to be inspired.

When the long-serving Dennis Kujat retired, Diehl hired ex-footballer Byron McCorkell as the parks, recreation and culture director. McCorkell is credited with stick handling the challenging Tournament Capital infrastructure file to successful completion.

Then, City engineer and public works director Ernie Kurtz also retired, and Dave Duckworth — who competes in triathlons in his spare time — was hired to take his place.

Diehl then transferred Len Hrycan from the planning department to head up corporate services, and brought Trawin down from Terrace as development and engineering services director.

Now, with Hrycan close to retirement, Trawin will have his own chance to handpick one of the three top department managers. And should Duckworth or McCorkell decide to move on to other opportunities, there could be further change.

Early in his tenure in the planning department (he is an urban planner, not an engineer, which he’ll point out to you if you get it wrong), Trawin seemed at times to struggle with the massive workload dropped on his shoulders, and it took time to adjust to the spotlight when called upon to speak on projects his department was involved with.

He doesn’t take over a room; he doesn’t dominate a conversation.

But he has grown steadily in the job. He’s stronger, more confident of his abilities. He doesn’t blow his stack. Throughout the parkade-at-the-park fiasco, for example, he remained cool, collected and professional even though he was under a lot of public pressure for his role in it.

I’m guessing council looked at such things and was influenced by the fact Trawin enjoys working things through with a team.

Not long ago, I witnessed an example of his collaborative style. The Graffiti Task Force was doing good work but from an organizational standpoint it was verging on dysfunctional. It needed somebody to help come up with a plan.

The task force board asked Trawin to facilitate some strategic planning. He did so over several evenings, and everybody in the room was impressed with the way he kept them on track, made sure all had a say, and pointed them in the right direction.

That sort of skill can be learned, to a point, but a lot of it has to come natural. It’s one of the strengths Trawin will bring to the City Hall board rooms.