Page 133 - CSD - PUD 02 28 19

Macaroy Underwood

Monday, February 4, 2019
3:16 PM
1. What drives you to seek this position? Tell me a bit about what you know about the City and the
fit you see with your interests.
I'll be honest - I don't know a whole lot about the City - I've been to San Diego 4 or 5 times. I left
my position at Birmingham Waterworks. We want to find something in a good neighborhood. Kids
are in college.

2. Please describe your most recent position and day-to-day responsibilities.

I managed the Birmingham Water Board. Ran system, budgets, pension plans, we had
$150m pension plan and our capital budget was about $65m per year.

December 2018 left - the Board did some things that they shouldn't have done and I didn't want
to get in trouble. For instance, they hired a firm to do engineering work who were not licensed.
They hired an attorney they were going to pay $2M per year that was clearly overpriced.

3. How many employees do you supervise? Who do you report to?
Had 650 Employees - 10 direct reports. There were 3 Assistant GMs. I had risk
management, HR, and project development. We were separate to the City I reported to a
Board of Directors of 9 who were appointed. We met twice a month - every contract that
had to approved had to be submitted for approval. Any contracts or salary survey review
contracts.

4. Please describe your experience in public sector executive management and leadership.
I go back to 1988 - I started in Public Sector Management, I was an Assistant Director of Finance
for Jefferson County. I would put together their operating budgets. I reported to a County
Commission. After that I moved over to the City of Birmingham, had about $100m operating
budget. Everything had to be presented to the City Council and the Mayor. I have been in the
Public sector for 25 years.

5. This position requires staff to work between multiple divisions of the Department and multiple
City departments. How will you enable the organization to deliver a significantly better
customer experience, including clarity, timeliness, and responsiveness?
As a finance director I worked between multiple departments. I did the same thing as GM here.
We had four intakes and four plants. I had to work with all of those divisions to make sure we met
all of the federal divisions to make sure we were meeting the regulations.
I'll say this - I have to get on the ground and see what we're facing. We started going to
community meetings. When we got ready to do projects in their area we would go to
neighborhood meetings - anything that you can do to get more information to the customer to
help them with their experience. We put in a new billiing system to allow customer's to
understand usage and what expenses they were incurring. I have examples of where we started