FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The first major meeting on strategic planning for city government will occur early next year.

The city’s Strategic Planning Steering Committee decided last Thursday to meet with city department heads on Jan. 9 to describe the strategic planning process to be used and introduce the committee members assigned to help formulate plans for the departments.

“You could request what preliminary information you need, and (the staff) could bring it (to the meeting),” said Planning Director Gregg Mims, who has represented Mayor Tim Kant, steering committee member, at recent meetings. “The city has a mission statement, and I presume most departments do.

At the Dec. 18 meeting, the committee assigned the following members to work with these city departments and agencies to help formulate strategic plans for each department: Pam Caudill (Airport Authority, Police and Fire departments); Ron Heveran (Public Works Department); Harvey Joanning (Electric, Water/Sewer and Gas departments); City Councilman Lonnie Mixon and Committee Chairman John Gutknecht (City Treasurer, and other financial departments); Diane Thomas (Public Library, Planning, Human Resources and Information Technology departments); and Marvin Wilder/Mixon (Golf and Parks and Recreation departments).

The committee also agreed to use the following strategic planning model and introduce it to city staff at the January meeting:

• “Define the mission statement.

• “Conduct a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis.

• “Define goals and the strategies and objectives to meet the goals.

• “Consolidation of action plans from each city department.

• “Priorities established and a draft plan formulated.

• “Gather public input through public meetings.

• “Draft a final plan to include an implementation schedule.”

The January meeting will be one of the first steps in an educational process outlined in a report accepted by the City Council in July, which formally initiated the city’s strategic planning process.

“The City Council, mayor and city department heads will participate in a training and education program on how to do the first annual cycle of the strategic plan, with training conducted by the steering committee,” the July 28 final report of the Strategic Planning Process Committee stated. “The training should be open to the public so that individuals and special-interest groups will better understand how to participate in the strategic planning process.”

That report also recommended appointment of a Strategic Planning Steering Committee during the first council meeting in September, to include seven “citizen members,” the mayor and a council member appointed by the council president.

The council delayed making all appointments until recently, and there is still one vacancy on the committee. This delay has required the committee to make adjustments in the schedule for the first year’s work as outlined in the July report.

The professional background of the committee members includes the following, according to the committee members who provided the information:

•Caudill is a retired federal criminal investigator with 30 years of service and experience as a senior manager in strategic planning, operational and organizational assessments at the national level.

•Gutknecht was director of graduate studies and associate professor at the George Southern University Management Department where he taught for 12 years before retiring in 1985. Prior to that, he worked for more than 25 years with Kaiser Aluminum. He has a chemical engineering degree from Tulane University and a master’s in business administration from Louisiana State University.

•Heveran retired from the solid waste business and moved to Fairhope 18 years ago. He has been a member of the Fairhope Environmental Advisory for the past eight years and prior to that served on Baldwin County’s environmental board for eight years. He has a master’s in business administration from the University of Chicago. 

•Joanning is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a private practice in Fairhope, receiving his doctorate from the University of Iowa. He is professor emeritus at Iowa State University and lectures on science issues at several colleges and universities, as well as training health-care workers to assist families of Alzheimer’s patients. He is current president of the local nonprofit organization, Citizens for Responsible Government, and moderated several of this year’s city election forums sponsored by that group.

•Thomas is a licensed clinical psychologist, receiving her doctorate from the University of Arkansas. She has worked as a psychologist in private practice in Arkansas and as supervisor of psychoeducational services for Jefferson County, Ala., where she was responsible for all individual and group testing of the 50,000 students in that system and helped implement the Education of All Handicapped Children Act. She has lived in Fairhope for 20 years, during which time she has coordinated the financial management of her husband’s psychiatric practice.

• Wilder is an attorney and certified public accountant licensed in California, where his professional career involved corporate finance, for 18 years with Fluor Corp. as controller of the Offshore Drilling Division, and the last 15 years as vice president of finance for Aluminum Precision Products.

• Information about committee members Kant and Mixon is available at the city Web site at http://www.cofairhope.com/cityhall.html.

During Thursday’s meeting, the committee discussed ways to work diplomatically with city departments, many of which may have already been doing strategic planning, and how to determine the extent of work already done.

The next meeting of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee is scheduled for 2:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 8, at the James P. Nix Center. The meeting with city staff is scheduled for 9 a.m., Jan. 9, at the Civic Center Delchamps Room.