CITY

President Anthony Michelic spoke on the services they would be able to offer the Council and a detailed overview of their specific recruitment process.

According to Michelic, the PACE Group is an executive search firm specializing in economic development, community development, and municipal management searches. The PACE Group has been in business since 1993 and Michelic has been involved with the company for six years with recently taking on the role of President last year in July.

Michelic also noted that earlier this year, the PACE Group was used to fulfill an Executive Director position for the Economic Development Corporation here in Big Spring.

“We just completed your Executive Director search for the Economic Development Corporation of Big Spring. Mark Willis, who we were really excited to get to work with as well as we presented four other candidates along with him and your EDC Board decided to go with Mr. Willis,” Michelic said. “So, we'll see how that turns out over the long run. We think he'll do a pretty good job.”

The Council was presented with a formal proposal by the PACE Group entailing the services and search process used by their company. According to Michelic, the PACE Group's Executive Search Services follow a five phase process where in-depth research and assessments are utilized in order to find several qualified candidates to fit the vacant role.

“We start out on the ground with you as Council and anybody else that you think that we should speak with and find out what it is that you're looking for. That's what we did with your EDC Board and that's what we do with any client that we work with,” Michelic said. “We found out exactly what it is that the council needs out of your City Manager, what, as the Mayor, that you would like to see or the type of person that you'd like to work with, the staff, the citizens that you think we need to speak with, other community leadership that you want to get input from. Usually 20-35 people - that's what it looks like - the type of leaders we go after - the central leaders who work with and around the individual who is going to be place.”

Michelic then began to explain the next phase which entails a document produced by the PACE Group called the “Needs Assessment.” This assessment is consolidation of all of the interviews with city leadership and other outside information such as characteristics, personality types, work background, previously held jobs, possible duration of a City Manager role, other roles the candidate may have needed to have to hold particular skill sets, technical abilities for the specific job in the particular community, culture background, and educational background.

“We develop the job description with you, but we go much deeper than that. We look for the right type of person, the right type of personality that would work well with you, with the teams, with the other city employees, with the people of Big Spring, with other City Managers if you're looking for a regional approach, if you're looking to partner with other communities or the county - with Howard College for example. We will try to find the best candidates to fit along all of those different strata. So, the Needs Assessment document is first used to show you what we heard from those interviews and to make sure that it's right,” Michelic said.

According to Michelic, the Needs Assessment document takes approximately one to two weeks to gather. The document would then need approval from the council before any next step would take place, including speaking to available candidates, center of influence and searching for candidates to be presented or interviewed by the council.

“We want to make sure that document is airtight

and is exactly what you want, exactly what the community needs. That dictates the entire search from here on out to make sure we're looking for the right types of candidates,” Michelic said.

Once the initial document is complete, according to Michelic, it is then used as a marketing piece for the community and for the position. The marketing piece would include demographics, workforce, livability, and education in order to inform potential candidates of what a City Manager role in Big Spring would entail.

“We try to make sure that they have all of the information that they need, or at least a substantial portion in that document as well. So, it will contain all of the things that we are looking for as far as personality, background, it will have a job description, it will also have a community overview and a description and summary of the community and the surrounding area,” Michelic said.

After the document is fully completed, it would then be sent out to centers of influence such as other City Mangers in the region, other PACE Group's West Texas contacts, throughout Texas, throughout the region of the U.S., and possibly beyond for a full national search dictated by the Council.

According to Michelic, PACE Group does not post job postings on Indeed, LinkedIn, or Facebook but rather by word of mouth and individual or secondary relationships.

Once a group of candidates are selected, the PACE Group would then distill the candidates to 3-5 for consideration. Candidates would then be presented to the council in a confidential notebook that would include resume information, background information, and a pre-interview questionnaire of around 10-15 questions that would be asked by the PACE Group.

“Those are questions that we would ask them to respond to. You don't have to ask those in the interview, you can get a little more granular and deep with them,” Michelic said.

Potential candidates would then need to take a DISC personality test, which is similar to MyerBriggs test or Strengths Screening test. Also included in the overview would be a credit and criminal history background check and an education background check.

“From that point forward, once we present 3-5 candidates to you, you select which ones you would like to interview in person, if any. If not, we go back and we do it again. But typically, most of our clients find that they're happy to interview the 3-5 that we bring to them. What we will do at that point is work with you to schedule interviews, to get them here, take care of travel, and then move all the way through contract negotiation and actually hiring,” Michelic said.

According to Michelic, after a candidate is selected and hired, the PACE Group would then come back 365 days later and hold a confidential review with the council and anybody else who would like to get a review, including the wider community through a community survey. All searches through the PACE Group include a two year guarantee if the person leaves or is terminated within those two years.

The PACE Group's fee structure is 33% or 1/3 portion of the first year's base salary for the person selected along with search expenses.

During the question portion of the presentation, Council member Camila

Strande asked Michelic how long a typical City

Manger search would take.

“Our normal search process, whether it's a

City Manager or Economic Developer or any other, is 40-75 days.

We're just coming off of finishing one here in Big

Spring - it won't take us

that long. I would be surprised if it took us 40-50 days. Just because a lot of the relationships, the conversations are still fresh with several people in and around the community. We're pretty familiar with your market. We would need to go back and do some modification to it because it's a different position, we would need some additional information, but we have a lot of the research already done. So, I think we'd be on the front end of that. I think we could knock it out in a month and a half. That's us presenting candidates to you, that's not all the way through interviews and hires. But we could bring you a good group of candidates between 45 or 50 days,” Michelic said.

After hearing the PACE Group's presentation, Council members then adjourned for Executive Session to deliberate the appointment, employment, and duties of an Interim City Manger.

Council members reconvened after an almost three hour Executive Session where Council Member Raul Marquez motioned to appoint City Works Director Shane Bowels as Interim City Manager and was seconded by Mayor Shannon Thomason. The vote passed 6 to 0 with Council member Doug Hartman absent.

Before adjourning for the afternoon, Council Member Camila Strande motioned to authorize the Interim City Manger to seek proposals or bids for executive search services for a City Manager, and/ or post notices of the employment vacancy for City Manager. The motion was then seconded by Council Member Gloria McDonald to pass unanimously.

Iris Rangel is a Staff Writer at the Big Spring Herald. To contact her, email reporter@bigspringherald.com or call 432-263-7331.