Strickland taps trio to guide transition
Memphis mayor-elect Jim Strickland on Oct. 14 named the three co-chairs of the team that will guide the transition to his administration.
Strickland picked Rosie Phillips Bingham, vice president of student affairs for the University of Memphis; Mitch Graves, president and CEO of HealthChoice LLC, a joint venture between Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare and Metro Care; and Emily Greer, chief administrative officer of ALSAC, the fundraising arm of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The cochairs, among other duties, will provide input on the selection of members for the full transition team, help identify candidates to serve in the new administration and make other managerial and administrative recommendations.
“I will lean on the expertise of each of my cochairs to recruit a full transition team and an administration that is representative of the diverse talent that Memphis deserves,” Strickland said in a statement. “I am confident that this team will be a critical component of my mission to serve as everybody’s mayor.”
Two of the three cochairs are women and minorities. Strickland has been critical of the lack of women in the previous administration. Strickland, a City Council member who defeated incumbent Mayor A C Wharton in the Oct. 8 election, met with city officials to talk about the transition.
Jack Sammons, chief administrative officer under Wharton, said officials gave Strickland updates on ongoing issues like police staffing and response times, and the city’s financial health.
Sammons reiterated that Wharton had committed to making the transition an easy one for Strickland.
“We’re all going to live here, and we want him to be enormously successful,” Sammons said.