By Joe Johnson
Athens-Clarke County Manager Blaine Williams announced on Friday that Stephen Bailey was appointed as director of the the Transportation and Public Works Department.
Bailey had served as interim director since June after the retirement of the previous director, Steve Decker.
He has worked for the department since October 2014 and served as assistant director since June 2019.
"Stephen is a proven high performing leader who cares deeply about initiatives best serving this community and collaboration with other departments," Williams said. "His background in program development, customer relations, and performance analytics has served immensely well over the last seven years. I'm confident he will guide Transportation and Public Works into an innovative future serving residents and visitors through continual improvement of transportation safety and infrastructure renewal."
In addition to his supervision of direct reports, operating and capital budget development, and tracking of metrics in his Assistant Director role, Bailey led a COVID-19 Response Project Planning Team in 2020. In partnership with Athens Community Council on Aging, the Clarke County School District, and other community partners, the team developed a county-wide plan for the creation of a food/resource distribution program that eventually became the Athens Eats Together program.
During the program's operation, it fed 9,118 people and served over 341,000 meals, as well as providing cleaning, household, and school supplies to the community. The team also worked on an initiative involving the distribution of 79,000 masks throughout the community, developed plans to secure non-emergency resources for ACCGov needs, and created an internal local resource bank with available goods for distribution.
“I’m honored and excited to move into this role,” Bailey said.. “I have an excellent team surrounding me, in a community that truly cares about its people. As stewards of the public’s resources, we strive to provide safe and equitable transportation networks and to protect the safety of our residents and environment through our road and stormwater infrastructure. I look forward to building upon that mission and the good work we do here/"
Prior to his time as assistant director, Bailey served as the Capital Programs Coordinator and Program Development for the department. In this role, he supervised Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) functions, including asset inventories and a work order management system; oversaw grant application and coordination of external funding sources from state, federal, and private entities; facilitated the ACCGov Streetlight Program; served as the accreditation manager to lead self-assessment process and internal policies and procedures; and created and tracked performance metrics for all essential departmental functions.
Bailey has achieved American Public Works Association Public Works Professional Certification, Georgia Department of Transportation Local Administered Project Certification, and Johns Hopkins Foundations of Performance Analytics Certification. He holds Bachelor of Business Administration and Master of Public Administration degrees from the University of Georgia.