Meet The New Public Works Director
Monday night, the Dalton Mayor and Council made it official, voting unanimously to hire Chad Townsend as the new Public Works Department director. He was named as the sole finalist for the position in January after a national search.
Townsend is a north Georgia native, growing up in Chatsworth and graduating from Murray County High School before attending Southern Polytechnic State University where he earned a degree in construction management in 2012. After graduation, he stayed in the metro Atlanta area, working for firms in the private sector.
He started work at the Public Works Department this week alongside Benny Dunn, who worked in the department for more than 23 years including 15 as director or interim director, a position he came out of retirement to take on after director Andrew Parker was promoted to city administrator in August 2021. Here’s a brief Q&A about his first week on his career, his first week on the job, and his thoughts on the new position:
So how happy are you to be back home?
It’s very exciting.
Where were you living when you worked in Atlanta?
Some of the time I was living in Kennesaw, working for a firm out of Marietta and traveled all over the metro working on water and wastewater treatment plants. And then I bought the house in Calhoun and lived there and was commuting back and forth.
You graduated from Murray County High School and then went to Southern Poly – what was it that drew you towards construction management in school?
Well, when I started out, my great uncle used to build houses all around north Georgia. I started working with him when I was like 15, he had two daughters who didn’t really anticipate taking over the business so I went off to school and I was anticipating coming back to work with him and make that my career. But he wound up passing away from mesothelioma so I ended up stuck down in Atlanta and stayed down there in that rat race for a few years.
Living and working in Atlanta is definitely a different pace.
Oh yeah, it’s a headache in and of itself. And that’s ultimately why we moved back here, my wife Stephanie and I, because I wanted to come back home. And she’s from Rome. I’d anticipated it being another few years before we were able to come back but then this opportunity came up.
Being from the area you obviously knew a little bit about the Dalton Public Works Department already – when you heard about the opportunity, what attracted you to the job?
Just the day to day work, everything that I’ll be dealing with is something that I’ve already had experience in. And obviously it’s local, being back home in the City of Dalton definitely piqued my interest. And then seeing all of the projects that we’re working on, all of the growth here, it’s pretty cool to experience and be a part of it.
You’ve got a full plate with everything the department is working on. What are some of the things that have you the most excited to get a chance to work on?
Obviously, we’ve got the soccer complex going on now [at Hale Bowen Drive], I think that’s a great project. And also the aquatic center, obviously you see all of these different aquatic centers around the state and not a lot of people really see how big of a deal those facilities are but they bring in some really big crowds. I think that’s going to be a very neat project to be a part of. I don’t know exactly how much our hands will be in that project but I’m sure we’ll be behind the scenes working on parts of it. The aquatic center in Calhoun, I was talking to Benn [Dunn] about it, the aquatic center there draws people from all over.
From your previous jobs in project management and construction management, what were some of the projects you worked on that you enjoyed most? What were you most proud of?
I was working for a private sector contractor, but we did a lot of municipal work. Just seeing the inner workings of the city, and we did a lot with sanitary sewer and water, seeing how the distribution system actually works – how you get water to your house – a lot of people don’t pay any attention to that. But just seeing how the city functions underground was neat. And then of course, where it all goes to, to the plants and how it all gets processed and put back out, I think that was very eye opening to me. Did I go to college to be in the water and waste water treatment business? No, I never fathomed that I would be doing that, but it was something that was neat to see. And once our work was done, nobody ever saw it, it got covered up immediately. But that was probably what was most fascinating to me, was learning how the actual city functions as it relates to water, sewer, stormwater and all of the infrastructure.
And that obviously carries over into this position with the City of Dalton. It must be a unique sense of pride to pass by places where you worked and know that you had a hand in building it even if nobody can see it.
Yeah, definitely. And I did a lot of subdivision development as well so it was pretty neat, once my time was done when the curb and paving and everything was down and we got the lots grassed and we were gone. And then to come back five years later and to see that, “hey, I developed that subdivision.” And there are 100 families there enjoying it, that was pretty neat to see.
There’s a large staff here at Public Works with a lot of experience and a great team here. How would you describe your philosophy for managing a department like this?
It’s like I told the guys, my first day we came in and I met all of the crew leads and the operations manager and all of the foremen under them. I said that I’m not here to come in and completely change everything up. From what I understand, we’ve got a pretty well-oiled machine here, a lot of great employees with a lot of experience. I definitely lean on that experience. I lean on them to know what needs to be changed, what doesn’t need to be changed, what’s efficient and what’s not. So, I definitely lean on them, these guys have been here for years.
You’re wrapping up your first week on the job and getting to know the department. How have you approached that process of learning more about the department?
I’ve had a great resource this week with Benny. And I’ll continue to lean on him, so it’s been very nice having him here, as well as Andrew [Parker]. It’s nice having them around, as well as all of the guys who are here in some of our key positions who are quick to come in and say, “hey, down here and come check this out” or “hey, come look at this” or “hey, we’ve got these new track hoes and dozers, come look at these” so it’s been nice to see exactly what assets are at our disposal and see exactly what we have to work with. Without Benny it would probably be really tough, but at the same time all of the guys here are very tenured guys and they know what’s going on as well.
Do you have any final thoughts before getting back to work?
Just that I’m very grateful for this opportunity, and I’m very excited.
