Published: July 08, 2008 12:27 am            

ERIE COUNTY: Collins appoints new deputy county executive.

After only seven months on the job, Deputy Erie County Executive Mark Davis is leaving to pursue opportunities in the private sector.

To replace him, County Executive Chris Collins has chosen his current Six Sigma Director Alfred Hammonds Jr. Hammonds has been in that position since it was created by a state efficiency grant in January.

Collins said Davis’ departure didn’t come as a surprise since the two men reached an agreement that Davis would hold the office for somewhere between six months and a year even before he signed on. That fact wasn’t disclosed to the public when Davis was hired, Collins said, because it would have undermined his ability to affect change in county departments if the leaders viewed him as someone who would be gone soon.

“When I started in January there was so much on my plate,” Collins said. “I’ll admit, it took some arm twisting to get Mark to sign on even for this short tenure. But if he had not done that, the county and this administration would not be where it is today.”

Davis served as Collins’ eyes and ears for the county’s day to day operations and worked closely with Hammonds to begin implementing 12 new Six Sigma programs. The timing of the move was set to coincide with the beginning of budget season, since Collins inherited out-going County Executive Joel Giambra’s budget this year and wouldn’t want Hammonds dealing with a similar situation in 2009.

“I want Al to have direct input and ownership of the budget,” Collins said.

Hammonds will take over the position effective Aug. 4 and said he’s excited about the opportunity to continue implementing Six Sigma business practices within county departments. A new director for the Six Sigma program will be chosen within the next three to four weeks, Collins said. The hope is that the new hire will be easier to find than Hammonds was.

“It should be easier to recruit because the groundwork had already been laid,” Collins said. “When we were interviewing Al, this was not a guaranteed job because we still had to go after control board funding.”

The county also has two Six Sigma contractors who can step up to the challenge if the hiring takes longer, Collins said.

Hammonds will take a slight pay decrease to move into the deputy executive chair, but he won’t be signing on to the pledge that Collins and Davis made to accept $1 per month in salary as long as the county has a hard control board. Collins said that promise was made because he and Davis were wealthy enough to do so and Hammonds, like the majority of Western New Yorkers, goes to work every day to pay his bills.

“Mark and I were in the financial position in our lives where we’re able to do that,” Collins said. “It’s not something I’d expect anyone else to do.”

Contact reporter Daniel Pyeat 693-1000, ext. 158.

        

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