Greg Batts Retiring After Building Dalton's HR Department

Thursday, October 2nd, 2025

The only director that Dalton's Human Resources Department has ever known is set to retire after nearly 30 years on the job. Greg Batts, who joined the City of Dalton in 1996 to build the HR department from the ground up, will have his last day on the job Friday. 

"Butch Sanders, who was the city administrator at the time, he handled whatever needed to be handled from an HR standpoint," Batts said. "Each department had their own process... there wasn't a lot of citywide coordination. I'd worked in HR before, in established departments, but (this job) we built from scratch." 

Caption: Greg Batts poses in his office at City Hall 

After joining the City, Batts built a team of HR professionals to serve Dalton's employees and also created a set of HR policies used by all employees. Batts says that it's a point of pride that he and his team have been able to serve the City for nearly 30 years. 

"I think for a lot of people, when you think of HR, you think of a lot of rules and a lot of paperwork and things like that," he said. "But hopefully it's been a positive for not just the City, but for the employees to have consistent policies across the board. Obviously, some departments like the police department have different requirements and policies than public works would. But as far as the overreaching, the overall citywide policies, you know, I'm pretty proud of that as well as the benefits that we have and keep current." 

Batts says that his mission has been to take care of the City's staff so they can focus on their jobs. His department helps with everything from helping individual employees file healthcare claims or recruiting applicants to negotiating with insurance providers to build the City's health plan. 

"It's really what can we do to help achieve whatever it is that that (our people) are trying to achieve," Batts said. "What can we do to help you, what can we do to help your department? That's how I look at it, what are you working on right now, whether it's getting applicants in the door, help me with a health claim that I can't get paid, or an insurer is giving me trouble with. Maybe one of (the City's) trucks got hit, we need to make sure that information is sent to our insurer. Our job is to make sure that the things that go along with their job get taken care of." 

It's a big job to oversee the needs of all of Dalton's employees, from insurance to retirement saving to benefits. When Batts wakes up on Monday, though, that will all be someone else's responsibility. HR Generalist Haliyma Jones has been named as the sole finalist to succeed him as HR director. 

"That's a unique position for Haliyma, she can blame everything on me," Batts said with a laugh. "Anything that goes haywire, I get the blame for it. I think she is going to do great... The important things, knowing how to work with employees on claim forms, for example, or how to calculate pension payments for the defined benefit plan, she knows all of that." 

"I've worked since I was 12 doing something," Batts continued. "From pitching hay out in the hayfield or working in a tobacco field or mowing grass or something. I've had a job since I was old enough to not kill myself, you know, doing something dangerous. So, it's going to be different for sure... it's excitement and sadness at the same time, which is kind of strange when you think about it. I'm excited to have free time to do, you know, pretty much whatever I need or want to do. But then again, I've worked with this group of people, the whole group of employees, with the City... some of them for 30 years. So yeah, it's going to be different for sure."

Batts isn't sure what is next after retiring, but he does know that it will involve plenty of time with his wife and children, and also fishing. He already has one fishing trip planned, with more to come. 

"One thing I spend a good deal of time doing after work and on weekends is building fly rods. I've got one going right now," Batts said. "It takes about a month to two months to build one. So, we'll see how long it takes when I don't have to come to work every day."