Athens-Clarke County Manager Blaine Williams has named Robert Cheshire as the first Capital Projects Director. He will begin in his new role on Sept. 14. “I am grateful to the Mayor and Commission for creating this vital position, and thankful to hire an individual with meaningful experiences in both the public and private sector,” Williams said. “As an interim and deputy city manager, Robert provided important guidance to the city of Statesboro’s workforce as they delivered quality services in a university community. Robert’s experience in collaborative efforts will serve the community extremely well as we work to improve our planning and execution of large capital project delivery, as well as increasing resident engagement and input.” Cheshire has served for the past two years as vice president of Operations and Development for Maxwell-Reddick and Associates, a mid-size consulting engineering firm that provides civil engineering and surveying services to public and private entities. Prior to his time with Maxwell-Reddick. he served in the public sector with the City of Statesboro in several roles including interim city manager, deputy city manager, and city engineer. The Statesboro area is home to Georgia Southern University, East Georgia State College, and Ogeechee Technical Institute. “I’m excited for this opportunity to do what I truly enjoy in a place I love,” says Cheshire. “I look forward to working alongside exceptional staff in a community that shares a passion for projects that can help to improve the quality of life for everyone.” The Capital Projects Director is a new position created as part of the 2021 Fiscal Year budget to oversee and coordinate Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) 2020 projects and other municipal capital projects. In past years, an outside contracted program management company was selected by the Mayor and Board of Commissioners to oversee all SPLOST and TSPLOST projects and coordinate these efforts with county departments, while departments managed their own department capital projects. The Capital Projects director will oversee all capital projects for the county in order to coordinate efforts, schedules, budgets, procurement, and resident engagement and improve communication between departments. A private contractor will continue to provide program management services for SPLOST 2011 and TSPLOST 2018 projects with oversight from the Capital Projects Director. Currently, a competitive bidding process is reviewing companies for eventual recommendation to the Mayor and Commission for project management services of the SPLOST 2020 projects. During his career, Cheshire has worked in private sector positions with consulting engineering firms Dan McGill and Associates and Harrison and Spencer. He also worked as a Senior Engineer for the City of Greenville, North Carolina. Cheshire has been a member of the Georgia City County Managers Association and the American Public Works Association. He has served for 25 years on the Statesboro-Bulloch County Airport Committee, 11 of them as Vice Chairman. He is also certified as a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Level II design professional and holds a Registered Professional Engineer license in both North and South Carolina, as well as in Georgia.