City hires new deputy city manager

Avondale Estates recently hired Paul Hanebuth as its new deputy city manager/finance director, replacing Ken Turner who retired in early December. He’d previously spent 2½ years as finance director for Talladega, Alabama.

Hanebuth worked for nearly two years with Patrick Bryant, Talladega’s city manager before Bryant was terminated without cause last June. Bryant was subsequently hired as Avondale manager last September.

Hanebuth offers an atypical resume for a public official. Raised in Mobile, Alabama, he has two bachelor degrees from the University of South Alabama, one in piano performance and another in organ performance with an emphasis on church music.

Beginning in Nov. 1999, he spent 17 years as Director of Music Ministries for the Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

“It’s probably not as unusual as you think,” Hanebuth told the AJC. “In time I developed an interest in economy and finance. As a music director I had to pay employees, put together groups and develop a budget. I was spending more time doing that than practicing and playing.”

Hanebuth got his MBA, also from USA, in 2016, and shortly thereafter was hired by Talladega where he stayed until earlier this month.

He and his wife Laura have three children, with Laura living in Oxford, Alabama (about 100 miles from Avondale), and working at the University of Alabama Birmingham.

“I liked the job and the people in Talladega,” he said, “but I think they made a serious mistake letting Patrick go. I left because I felt it would take a few years before we could start taking forward strides again.”