Borough Manager Jeff Good submitted his resignation on Sept. 27 after nearly two years of service. He has accepted a civil engineering job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs which will allow him to live in Wrangell and also spend more time with family in Oklahoma and Texas.
The assembly will formally accept Good’s resignation and discuss a succession plan at its Tuesday, Oct. 10, meeting. The borough may hire a new interim manager internally or conduct a more widespread search to find a permanent replacement before Good’s last day on Jan. 1, 2024.
“I want to ensure and facilitate a smooth transition of leadership,” said Mayor Patty Gilbert. “We just have too many infrastructure projects in various stages of completion. We have too many economic development decisions to make. I don’t want to lose our forward momentum that we have established over the year.”
Good’s new job is a supervisory civil engineer with the Division of Water and Power at BIA. The division is based in Lakewood, Colorado, next door to Denver.
He started as Wrangell’s interim borough manager on Oct. 28, 2021, after the previous manager, Lisa Von Bargen, resigned. In late January 2022, he stepped into the role permanently.
He moved to Wrangell from Kodiak, where he served as U.S. Coast Guard base director from 2017 to 2020. He earned master’s degrees in engineering management and civil engineering from Duke University and the University of Illinois and received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at the Coast Guard Academy.
“I really appreciate the community, I appreciate the staff here in Wrangell,” he said. “They work hard every day to contribute to the city and give back to the city. … Getting a chance to work with them for the past two years … the amount of volunteer time the assembly and all the different boards put in, I really appreciated the opportunity to work with them.”
Good plans to let the assembly determine how it wants to handle the job transition, though he is happy to aid the process however he can.
In past years, the borough has sought candidates with four-year degrees for borough manager, preferably with a master’s degree in public administration or business administration. A combination of educational experience and municipal government experience would also be considered. The market for borough managers, however, is sparse — only five candidates, including Good, applied for the interim position two years ago.
“We are sorry to see Jeff leave,” Gilbert said. “He helped us move forward. … We wish him well on his future endeavors.”
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