Whitmire rounding out administration
Mayor John Whitmire’s administration is beginning to take shape, and on Friday, he announced several new top hires at City Hall.
Whitmire has begun replacing department heads and is filling his administrative ranks with almost entirely new staff to carry out his vision for the city.
Here are some of the faces working in Whitmire’s administration.
Chris Newport
Newport is Whitmire’s new chief of staff. His primary job is to serve as the eyes and ears of the administration and work closely with city departments to ensure the mayor’s goals are accomplished.
Newport previously worked as a chief of staff for former Mayor Annise Parker. After leaving Parker’s office, he held several consulting jobs and served on the Houston Super Bowl Host Committee as the executive vice president’s chief of staff. Before joining Parker, he served as chief of staff for the city’s Administration & Regulatory Affairs Department.
In an interview, Newport said Whitmire’s commitment to service, especially on-the-ground constituent service, lured him back to City Hall.
“I believed in him, I believed in his commitment, I believed in his ability to execute on the vision and I wanted to help him,” Newport said.
Steven David
David, who worked at Accenture, a business management company, will serve as deputy chief of staff.
David will assist Newport in managing staff, overseeing the day-to-day operations of Whitmire’s office, developing policy and communicating with department heads.
David worked with Parker as a special assistant, then as a special assistant to the chief development officer in the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development. He was also a performance analyst for the Mayor’s Office of Innovation and Performance under former Mayor Sylvester Turner.
Chris Brown
Brown, Houston’s former city controller, is the new senior adviser for financial integrity. As controller, Brown played a role in helping the city address its pension crisis.
Brown could not seek re-election to the controller’s office, where he served eight years, because the position is term-limited.
Marta Crinejo
Crinejo will rejoin the mayor’s office as the senior adviser for council agenda. She held the same role under Turner.
Jose Soto
Soto joins Whitmire’s office as the senior adviser for labor relations. Soto previously worked as an assistant public information officer, legislative liaison, and council liaison for Houston’s municipal courts.
Veronica Weatherspoon
Weatherspoon will become a senior adviser for constituent engagement. She was previously the director of the city’s Correspondence & Constituent Services Division.
Rebekah Williams
Williams will serve as the senior adviser for community relations. She previously served as a communications specialist supervisor for the city.
Cynthia Wilson
Wilson, a former Houston ISD and Dallas ISD administrator, is a senior adviser for organizational culture and education.
Prior to joining Whitmire’s office, Wilson was an educational consultant at CSW Solutions, a Chicago-based software company.
Joshua Sanders
Sanders takes over as the chief of intergovernmental relations. Prior to that, he lobbied the state and lobbied for the Houston Professional Firefighters Association and Uptown Houston.
Allison Alexander
Alexander will serve as head of administrative operations. She previously served as director of events and operations at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business.
Elijah J. Williams
Williams is the new senior adviser for infrastructure and economic development.
He had been the executive director for Houston’s Energy Corridor and served in government roles at the Texas House, NASA and the U.S. Small Business
Administration, where he was a presidential appointee.
Marlene Gafrick
Gafrick, who previously served as director of planning for MetroNational, becomes the senior adviser for planning.
She worked for 33 years in Houston’s Planning Department and was its director for eight years.
Ahmed Sharma
Sharma has been hired as a senior multimedia specialist. He formerly worked at Fox and Sinclair Broadcast Groups.
Scout Odegaard
Odegaard is the new senior advisor for boards and commissions. She comes from the Greater Houston Builders Association, where she worked as a government affairs manager. She interned with the lobbying group of Whitmire’s daughter, Whitney Whitmire. The firm is Whitmire-Munoz.
Alexa Aragonez
Aragonez rejoins the mayor’s office as deputy chief of governmental relations, a role she held in Turner’s administration. She previously worked for the city of Arlington as a senior management analyst for its intergovernmental relations and management resources team.
Mary Benton
Benton returns to the mayor’s office as Whitmire’s senior adviser for communications. She served the same role in Turner’s administration and was previously a broadcast journalist.