Jose Madrigal The Art of Intentional Leadership: Lessons from Durango’s City Manager

When José Madrigal became City Manager of Durango, Colorado in the middle of a pandemic and following a financial scandal, he faced a mountain of challenges — and not just the literal ones surrounding Durango. In this episode, José shares how he rebuilt trust through transparency, empowered his team with autonomy, and created a culture rooted in authenticity and family-first values.

From implementing open financial reporting systems to leading with empathy and intent, José offers a masterclass in modern municipal leadership. We discuss how he balances high performance with humanity, what “effort and intent” really mean in decision-making, and how small cities can achieve big results through trust and collaboration.

If you’re a leader striving to inspire, empower, and transform your organization from the inside out, this episode is for you.

Connect at TakisTalk.com

Transcript

Setting the Stage in Durango

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Today we're driving at the heart of the ring. It's far more than post-card. The guy who took the ring 2020 from it. Navigating album. Get ready for wisdom. And a behind the scenes look at how Durango budget above its weight. Weathering challenges in building trust. One transparent budget report and family first policy at a time. Let's get into it with Jose Mudrigal context.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Thank you so much for the invite. Durango's doing well. We're getting a fall is in the air, and it's in the high is going to be the upper 60s, so enjoying the weather.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

I envy you. I love that kind of weather. I I've gone to the Durango website and uh there's some beautiful pictures there. Trees turning, the leaves, that red, orange, yellow thing going on, and it's a really pretty time. Although I don't think you've gotten quite there yet, have you?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Not quite there, but it's coming. I'm just looking at my office down here on Maine, and I can see the green turning into yellow. So I'd probably say here, maybe in the next two weeks, it'll be full go.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

I want to dive right into. I think you started in Durango in 2020.

COVID Arrival and Economic Uncertainty

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yes, sir. September of 2020. All right. So COVID, uh, if it hasn't hit full guns, it's about to. And you land in Durango and you have some issues to deal with. Can you run us through maybe your first hundred days, first six months in Durango?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, absolutely. COVID was actually full bore. So March of 2020 is kind of when COVID stopped with, or really got into it with the travel and everything stopping September of 2020. COVID was here. You know, you kind of look at Durango, and the ability that I think was absolutely to be able to help us is that we are an outdoor community. We are a little bit remote. So when you look at the ability to have outdoor dining, especially during the summer, when our temperatures specifically, especially comparing them against most of the other southwest, are quite bearable. You know, usually in the summer, we're in the lower 80s, mid-80s, and uh humidity is very minimal if here at all. But we're about 60, we're at 6,500 feet above sea level. So it's a great place. Tourism was booming. A lot of people were trying to get out of the metro areas. Tourism actually still is booming, but uh our main street was vibrant. Things were going really well in regards to the community with as with sales tax and that portion of it. But we were also warning into the part where winter was coming, and that was kind of leaving a lot of question marks for our community in that October, November, December time frame as to when you can no longer be outside and you needed to be inside. What was that going to do during the COVID portion of it?

Embezzlement Fallout and Restoring Trust

SPEAKER_01 3:30

So there was there, there were some concerns about the economy, how that was going to develop for the city of Durango, what that would look like in the future. And then we were also coming off of a embezzlement before I had gotten to Durango as they were going through their city manager search. I think it was probably right before they started. The longtime finance director here had been arrested for embezzlement. And I believe it was about $500,000. Like I could be wrong on that. I need to spot check that with you. It's been so long now. But it was a it was a very it was a big amount. And we had to really recover the tr the trust back in the community. It really rocked the community in regards to the government employees and the checks and balances that we had with our finance department. And it still reverberates in our organization today. I mean, when we look at financial matters, we really take them seriously, and people are on heightened alert just because just because of that still. Five years ago, it's still here and it still feels within our organization. But we definitely want to show the community that we are doing our best and we have made such great progress that those days are very much behind us.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

So $500,000. What is uh Durango's annual budget?

SPEAKER_01 4:42

All in, so when you look at our capital budget and everything, we are about 170 million. So for a 20, yeah, we we we punch above our weight class. I think a lot of folks, when they look at Durango and then our population of 19,000, they kind of look at a maybe a small sleepy town, but we have over 425 full-time employees. Seasonally, we have about another 600, just depending on the time of the season. So there's times that specifically during the summer, it's not unusual for us to be anywhere in the 600 to 800 range of people working for the city when you have the full-time plus our our seasonal. So we're about 170 million. Uh that's all in. We are a full-service city, so we offer just about every service there is outside of electricity. But we have our own water and wastewater plants as well as distribution and collection. We have our own public transit. We also have our own airport. While it's jointly owned by the city and county, the city does run it. And we do our own trash and recycling. So when you look at that, we compare probably more to larger cities than we do to smaller cities when it comes to the things that we offer.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

So that was something I was going to get to is some of these numbers are so atypical for a little town, because that's what I had assumed. But going back to the embezzlement, a half a million dollars, perhaps 170 million, so not a huge impact financially, but you did touch on it. You had to deal with the financial aspect of it, but community trust, uh restoring professional integrity, that sort of thing. How did you do that? Was it just simply communicating to the community that you've taken these safeguards, these new protocols, or was there something more?

SPEAKER_01 6:25

You know, the first thing that we did was uh we utilized OpenGov or we got that

A Full-Service City That Punches Above Weight

SPEAKER_01 6:30

going. It was a software system that I was familiar with when I was in McKinney. And it, you know, provides that real life 24-7 picture of our finances. You could see what we were spending money on, where it was at. You could take a look at our expenditures and you know, all of the good stuff, I guess, that some of those folks that like to audit city governments uh from the sidelines like to know. And that was a big first step of just showing everything. The second step that I think was the most probably valuable is really taking our financial reporting serious to the council. I do think sometimes you kind of get into that rut to where you know you throw a monthly financial statement or monthly financial report, and it goes really quickly, right? No one's asking any questions and you're just trying to get through it. But we took them really serious and we wanted to make sure that we took the time to explain where we were, explain the uh options that we have, you know, financially and kind of where we were sitting. And I think that really began to build the trust for uh the community. We did end up having a lot of turnover in our finance department just because it is what it is sometimes. So when new leadership comes in, things like that were rocked. We did have people leave. So we did have new people. We made sure to uh bring in really qualified folks that have been in the municipal environment or financial environment. And I think all of those things in general began uh really putting faith and and belief back into our finance department. And then also just making sure we post and make our transparency portal, which we created, that kind of goes into our financial portal, all of our reports, all of our budgets, all of our financial documents online to be really transparent and bring that out to the community so they could see it for themselves.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Wow, that's I it's a daunting task because you know you lose faith like this, and then you always have those folks that just cling to this sort of thing and they they don't want to let it go. So unfortunate, but it sounds like you've rebounded fairly nicely. I want to roll into that airport thing. You are a little town and you have this airport, and correct me as I go along because you know the internet is not always 100% spot on, but I've got about half a million passengers come through your airport annually. You have major carriers, TSA, and you said that it's a joint effort between you and county. But how much of that burden is on Durango? Uh infrastructure, maintenance, that sort of thing?

Radical Financial Transparency and Culture Change

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah, I mean the the assets are owned jointly, but the operations, the day-to-day operations, the airport department is a full city department that runs the operations. So you know the the burden or the effort is definitely on the city. And yeah, I'm not exactly sure on the passengers. That sounds about right. We continue since 2020, continue to have record-breaking years year after year. When you look at our airports, we have United, we have American Airlines. United offers six daily nonstops to Denver. American has three to Dallas Fort Worth and two to Phoenix. So those are daily. Right off the bat, we're very much connected into lots of the hubs within the country. And then we actually even have some seasonal service where this summer United did daily to Houston on top of that. So there's a big booming uh aviation contingent that uses commercial airlines, whether it's the remote workers that we have in our area, whether it is the ability to people maybe having second homes in this area, it really does drive the commercial traffic. While we're 20,000, I think it is important also to note that our La Plata County, which is the county that we're in, we are the county seat and obviously the biggest city by far, but the population of La Plata County is around 60,000. And then if you look, kind of we're in the four corners, Farmington, New Mexico, which is about 60,000. Population is a 45-minute drive from us. So while we're not all really bunched together like you'll see in a metropolitan area, there are these population pockets that are around. So as we put all of those together, we definitely have a market for commercial aviation. And then if you look at what's the closest metro airport from us, would be Albuquerque, and that's about a three, three and a half hour drive. So there's a service that's out here, and it's also a destination, right? When you look at where people want to go, Durango is a great place for them to visit. And I think you see all of those things coming together, and it really does put together this real sweet spot of an airport that we have on the process of completely re-overhauling and should be done here next spring, and with new terminals and uh new baggage claim. And so it's a really awesome time for us, and we're really excited to be able to have that connectivity. I think it offers a lot, not only for our residents, but for folks that are visiting.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Wow, the little town. I just the more we talk about Durango, the more I I drill into it, the more it surprises me. And I I look at some other statistics. So on certain occasions, so you have a 20,000, let's just say, and I I call it indigenous population, a military term, people that live there, right? So so your locals are about 20,000, but the actual that can swell a lot with uh tourists. So you have this huge delta that your infrastructure has to handle, whether it's law enforcement, it's fire, it's just the basics, running water and power. And is that is that cyclical? Is that something that's predictable, or is that something that just fluctuates and you have to be ready for worst case?

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Population-wise on our swings? Is that what you're specifically yasking? Yeah. So

The Regional Airport as a Growth Engine

SPEAKER_01 12:15

contrary to popular belief, Durango, we do have a ski resort called Purgatory, which is 30 minutes north of Durango. And because of that, that's I think where some people know Durango and they believe us to kind of be a ski resort winter town. And that actually isn't true. Winter is our slowest time of the year. We call it our shoulder season. So when we look at winter in terms of population swings, that's where we know we're going to be pretty normal. When you look at our population, it's about 20,000. If you look at our daytime, we're probably around the 50,000, 55,000 daytime population, just being the county seat, being at a crossroads of a couple of U.S. highways, 550 and 160, New Mexico traffic coming in. So we're about daytime 50 to 60,000. During the winter, I'd probably say, you know, probably about 35,000, 40,000 daytime population, just because of snow. Sometimes, you know, you're not going to get that dependable traffic daily, but that's where we are normally at. When we start getting into the summer, which is our high time, I'd say it's easily 60 to 70,000 daytime population. We do have a couple events like 4th of July. There's a biker rally that does come through during the September Labor Day holidays. And when you look at those types of things, it's not unusual for us to hit 90,000, 100,000 daytime population within the city of Durango. So we know when our hot spots are, we know where our low spots are, but continuously what we do know is that it's just never 20, 19,000, 20,000 people in our town during the day. That number is probably more in that 45 to 60,000 range, just depending on the year.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Okay. So there's a huge delta there, but it's a predictable delta. You seem to manage it fairly well. I I've also noticed that, so I don't know if I've got this right. A gentleman by the name of Mike French and a lady, Sarah Jane Johnson. Do you have a department called Prosperity or Prosperity? Is it a Prosperity Director? Prosperity Office, yes. Okay. So is that pretty much a marketing department for the city of Durango?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

No, actually, it's uh relatively new. So Mike French was the executive director of uh what we call is our La Plata and La Plata Economic Alliance. And it really is a it was a standalone organization that is the city of Durango has a chair on it, the county has a chair, but it's also a privately sector, it's a private sector funded majority organization to really help businesses out. So it was kind of like an economic development feel to it. And when I got here, Mike and I had had a lot of conversations just regarding about economic development coming from Texas, there really was a big influence and a big, a big priority for economic development. And there's a lot of tools. And we realized I realized quickly here the same amount of tools or investment isn't really an economic development in Durango that we had back where I was from in Texas. So Mike and I used to have conversations regarding, you know, what could it look like? And about a year and a half ago, Mike was stepping down from his position as the La Plata Economic Alliance to allow his assistant to take over. And Mike was a little bit different. Economic development wasn't really his forte. He was a private business, corporate guy, marketing, as well as you know, built some businesses, sold some businesses, took over the economic alliance because they needed some help. So he did have a more pro-corporate business lens. And as he was coming in, or as he was making that transition, we had had a conversation kind of regarding, you know, what is good for Durango? What are some of the things that we can put together? And we started talking about economic development. One of the things that also we're struggling with, that I think a lot of folks are, and especially probably in California, workforce housing. And that was a huge initiative that we've been undertaking. And then we also look at tourism, which, as I was kind of talking about a little bit earlier, it probably makes up about 30, 35% of

Managing Seasonal Population Swings

SPEAKER_01 16:30

our economy here in Durango. And sometimes when you look at how do you fund economic development, tourism, and housing, they kind of become competing interests, right? You've got to, if you're gonna be a housing person, then maybe that means tourism has to give up money. Or if you're gonna be a tourism person, maybe you don't fund into housing. And we looked at it as why don't we put these things together? Because in the end, your economic development, our tourism industry, and our ability to provide workforce housing is gonna determine the prosperity of Durango now and in the future. So we put these three divisions that were, well, the housing division and economic development division, they were under community development, and we pushed them into this prosperity office. At the same time, our tourism visit Durango was actually a nonprofit outside of the city entity that was funded through lodgers tax. They had decided that they would like to come within the city, and we matched those three together and created a prosperity office to bring in a bit of that synergy between each one of those areas because they all work together for each other. We can't have a vibrant tourism industry if we don't have any workforce housing, and we can't have economic development if we don't have tourism propelling and workforce housing also establishing housing for workers. So there's a real good nexus that's coming into it. It's been together completely now for probably about four months. Visit Durango finally fully came in, probably around the beginning of the summer. We were able to hire the tourism manager, Sarah Jane, that you talked about or mentioned. So we're really beginning to hit the ground running on what that could look like here. And I'm excited of that, the outlook and the accomplishments that they're gonna have in the next you know 12 to 18 months and then continuously past that.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

So I'm guessing that tourism is your number one industry, is that or source of revenue?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Uh it's it's up there.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

I mean, if it's not one, it's one B. What other sorts of industries do you have going? I know I'm I'm assuming not manufacturing or anything like that. We have a little bit of manufacturing.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

What we are really is a is a group, a town that's really built on entrepreneurs. So what we normally see is a lot of businesses spin up and then they get to a certain stage that they're bought out and they go on to a bigger metro area. But we do have a little bit of industrial, we do have a little bit of manufacturing. Uh, we definitely would like more, and those are some areas that we could definitely develop and go through and looking at ways to do so. So we do have some of that. So we are very local business run. Uh we don't have many of the big boxes or chains that you see around uh in other communities, so that makes us also a really cool part that's that's unique on our main street. We don't we don't have any uh national brands on our main street. It's all restaurants owned by local businesses, which makes it really cool. And we have more restaurants per capita than San Francisco, so it kind of tells you a little bit of that that feel that

Building the Prosperity Office

SPEAKER_01 19:30

it's not just a couple restaurants, it's a lot. But our hospitality industry is probably one of our most our most impactful sector.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

I really like that concept of the the local businesses. Going back to the prosperity and the and the tourism, I read something about a tourism advisory commission. What's that about?

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Yeah, so as we brought it, as we brought tourism within our organization, they did have a Visit Durango board, and we wanted to continue to keep that. So we have a tourism commission that does that's a combination of folks that are in the industry. So we have members of the Purgatory Resort, the train that we have here that's very popular, some folks from the Chamber of Commerce that joined. We want to kind of get like a restaurant and a hotel, uh, some people who represent our hotel industry. But one of the things that we're doing here that we're we're struggling with a bit is getting those that are not have anything to do with the tourism community or tourism industry, shall I say, being placed on our board, so residents. And the reason for that is there's a lot of times when you have tourism that it's it's a two, a two two-edged sword, right? You've got the part that you have visitors coming in, visitors that are providing for our local economy and our businesses, and people love that. And then you have the other sword of where people, you know, may not believe that there's too much tourism, and that's kind of taking away from the locals. And are they really following the values that we hold dear within Durango and cleaning up cleaning up after themselves, especially in like the trails and continuing to keep the trails natural? And so we try to do this with this tourism advisory commission that's providing advice not only to our staff but to the council to have both sides of that coin represented because sustainable tourism and leave no trace when you're on the trails are big initiatives for our community.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Well, I just the community concerns when you have a group of locals and then you have this huge influx of tourists. I could see that that would be a concern. One of the things that I looked at when I travel, one of the and I also have uh my daughter is applying to med school, she's looking at different schools. I'm always looking at crime statistics, what's the community like community like and so forth. And here in Livermore, very low crime. We're uh been recognized for a variety of different things in terms of that, and in California, I noticed that Durango, a very safe city, uh almost non-existent violent crime. You have the typical little stuff that you have with tourist towns. Uh when we went to visit it, when maybe we visited Italy, one of the things that you see countless videos of the pickpockets and things like that. Felt very safe, but you know, we are all cognizant of that, had our little pouches on our chests and so forth. So I get all that. I I see the the local communities' concerns. You have all these people that are from outside the area keeping things clean and keeping things safe. Your police force are they doing anything different? Because again, I I see this, I think of this small little town, but they have to police a lot of people in a lot of area. Is there anything anything that they're doing special or different?

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Well, you know, I'll say my police department's always doing something special with it. There, you know, I think the biggest part with our police department, it started with our previous police chief. He's now an assistant city manager, and it's being carried by our current police chief, is just the relationships that you develop in the community. And we are

Local Business DNA and Tourism Governance

SPEAKER_01 23:00

blessed with having, you know, that 20,000-member community. There's you can't really hide. You know, our kids go to school together, we work together, we go to the same grocery stores together. And that does lend the ability for our police officers to be really involved in the community and start getting to know when when things might problems might be developing because business owners reach out, residents reach out, they kind of you know begin to share a little bit of what they see. The other part of it is when I got here, I did move, which is it's common in some cities, but here it was not. I did move code enforcement underneath the police department. I think it's important because sometimes when you see code enforcement issues develop, it's usually the sign before the crime comes behind it. So they're kind of working together, talking together. We do we're big on regional partnerships here because we have to be, right? We're out here, you know, in a little bit of a remote area. So we work together, the community works together. And I think the number one issue is just, you know, it really is the relationships we've built. The community really supports our police department. We're able to have those conversations and really work to try and develop those relationships so that we're ahead of the curve. We've used also technology, you know, flock cameras, we have drones, we, you know, do hot extra patrols in hot areas, things that are probably pretty common. So I think that when you say like, what is it? I think that's that secret sauce here in Durango, it's the community involvement and the relationships that we really focus on with our police department and making those relationships with our Chamber of Commerce, our business improvement district, our business owners, our our residents, and really being a visible presence there to try and answer questions, attend community events, and make sure that we're seen.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Wow, a lot of involvement.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

The Durango Silverton train. Yes. That looks amazing. And that is an old steam engine that's still on that that drives that thing. It was environment fire danger.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

They've converted it into diesel so that it's not steam, and it still has the steam aspect to it, but it is one of our number one, if not our number one, tourist attractions, especially during the the summer. You take it to a town called Silverton, which is probably a 45-minute drive. But of course, through the train tracks, it's going to be uh a few hours. But some of the sites and the gorges and the things that you see through the mountains are just they're just beautiful. And uh it's great scenery, and that really is a big tourism draw. And so we have a lot of people who ride the train uh to do that. And then over Christmas, it turns into the Polar Express. They were one of the first, I believe they have the copyright to the Polar Express. So anyone who does polar expresses around the world has to go through them on how they do it. And it's a great uh portion of it. I do it many times. I have a younger daughter, she's eight. We've done it uh a couple times now, and it's just a great experience with uh the train card

Safety, Policing, and Community Ties

SPEAKER_01 26:00

attendants dancing and songs and hot cocoa and going through it. So we do have a definite gem with the train here.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Wow. That's so that was gonna be my next question. Should I do winter or summer? It sounds like you can't go wrong with either. The Polar Express thing sounds really cool if you got kids.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

If you got kids, Polar Express is the one, but that one is gonna be a little bit shorter. You want kind of like the whole day adventure, the summer and spring, as that starts opening up to go to Silverton, because you make the trip up there, you get to spend a couple hours in Silverton, which is a cool little old mining town. Going to be smaller, but they've got their main street, and you get to have lunch there, enjoy some of the parts that are there, and then uh make the trip back.

unknown 26:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

All right. I want to switch gears a little bit and look at your career a bit. City manager. I've seen city managers, and in a lot of instances, it's a linear path. You have someone that has a background in finance or perhaps community development, whatever it is. You have a very diverse background, a zigzag pattern, IT, Muni, HR, budget. And from my perspective, I think that's a great path for a city manager. You have a, I'm gonna say, uh a working background, working knowledge of a lot of different departments. Would you say that has helped you or hurt you?

SPEAKER_01 27:18

As far as being a city manager, yes. You know, it's an interesting part. I think absolutely it's helped. What I would tell anyone, and I didn't quite realize how it I didn't quite realize it until I actually got it. And you know, I've been an assistant city manager, so I was an assistant, I was an intern in Lubbock. I moved into an assistant to the city council, and then moved to Cedar Park as an assistant to the city manager, and then became an assistant city manager when I was 26 years old, then went to Irving in an assistant city manager type role, and then was a deputy city manager in McKinney. And I say that to say, you know, I've been the number two in McKinney. I was also the interim city manager there for a bit when we had a transition. And all of that is really good experience. But I learned really quickly, especially here, when I got to this chair, when I got to be the city manager, it is a different job. It is definitely a different job. You're dealing more on the political side, you're dealing with council members, you're dealing with your team morale and getting everything kind of flowing together and moving to once. And you don't really get to spend much time on the operational side. However, I'll kind of go back to the the diverse uh experiences because of because of all the different city manager or assistant city manager positions I've had, there's never there wasn't really a department outside of an electric utility that I did not have an opportunity to directly oversee or supervise. And I think that part is critical because when it does come to operations or things that do float up to the city manager's office

Iconic Train, Seasons, and Visitor Experience

SPEAKER_01 29:00

that I have to make a decision, none of it is like a new industry that I have to learn. I'm very familiar with it. I understand the regulations with it, I understand the grant funding that kind of goes with it. So it does help on the operational side, but I would also caution as people ask me about it do you believe that's what's made you successful? I think it's part of it. But the other part of it is there's a whole different realm of being a city manager and the expectations and the political environment that you have to navigate around or navigate with is probably mostly the job.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Interesting. So that brings me to another point. I am a new city employee. I'm looking to fast track to be a city manager. It seems that you've had a great deal of success fairly quickly and at a young age. So if you were going to put together a script for someone that was up and coming, what would be the game plan? How do you navigate and get to the city manager? I'm not gonna say as quickly as possible, but just get there. What what what are things that you should do? Inside the jurisdiction as well as outside.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

You know, the first one is is build relationships of trust and be authentic. I I knew I wanted to be an assistant city manager. And the funny part about all of this is I'll kind of tell you the time frame uh that I thought of. When I graduated out of grad school, my career goal, right, was maybe one day I could be the assistant city manager in Lubbock. And that would be awesome. And I say that in regards to not to say you shouldn't dream big, not that you shouldn't be, you know, go for what you want, but I wasn't in any rush, which is kind of funny because I got to be an assistant city manager at 26, right? But I wasn't in a rush to be an assistant city manager. I was in a rush to learn. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to learn. And I soaked everything in like a sponge, and I listened. And I only say I listen part because I have mentors in the the business now that you know have always told me it's like, you know, why did you take an interest in me? Why did you help? And they're like, because you always listened. And even if it was feedback that maybe wasn't so positive, you still listened. And you didn't just say, like, no, I know what I'm doing, and you know, I've got it, or try to explain it away. And I look at that's the first part when I see folks and what I'm looking for is you know, somebody who's listening, somebody who wants to learn, and somebody who's not in a rush. It will come, the opportunity will come when the opportunity does present

A Nonlinear Path to City Management

SPEAKER_01 31:30

itself, and you've got to prepare yourself to be ready for it. But a lot of times what I've been seeing sometimes in in local government is you have people that are ready to be the assistant city manager tomorrow. And I think that's an unfair expectation. And I think from my side of it all was those were the things that I did. I learned, I wanted to know about a lot of things. I wasn't worried about I must hit this by this year, I must be a, you know, this by this part of my career. And I think that built a lot of relationship with mentorships. So if they saw somebody wanting to learn, and people are more apt to help those that are wanting to learn. And then the other part of it is take the projects nobody else wants. You know, take the ones that are difficult. I've built my career in getting spotlight from city managers because I was the one who's like, okay, I'll do it. And while everybody else is kind of like, no, I don't want to do that, stick away from that. It brings really great opportunity for you, A, to learn uh about a project, but B to begin navigating complexities and understanding how to work with people to get success.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

I agree with you. My I have two adult children, and I always tell them that you start auditioning for a job or a position long before it's ever advertised. And I've witnessed a lot of folks that are traveling at a certain path, a certain production, and then a job will get posted, and then you see there is a delta in how they're operating and their productivity and so forth. And so you always have to be putting in the work. And what you said, you have to do the dirty jobs because you have to make that commitment. Anyone is a fair weather, whatever, right? You'll you'll take things that are easy, follow the path of least resistance. The people that are willing to take the ugly, one of the other guests said something about dealing with the suck. Those are the people that you know that you can count on. And I think that people appreciate that and they're willing to give you those opportunities when they come up.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah, I mean, on a personal note, my first assistant city manager position, and this is Brenda, she's still the city manager of Cedar Park. She had just become the city manager who hired me to be assistant to the city manager, didn't last long. And so she had been in the organization for a good time as an assistant city manager, but really HR director was her background. She became an assistant, she became the interim city manager. I was able to work really closely with her because it was during budget time when the change was made. And I had gotten a lot of budget experience during my time in in Lubbock, working in the council office and understanding council needs and just kind of built off of that. And we were a small city, and I helped her through the budget side of it all. And it came time where she began, she got the city manager position, and uh she was beginning to look for an assistant city manager position, and she had a posting for one. And uh I didn't apply. I didn't feel like I was ready for it. And I also understood at that time that Brenda, being somebody who is new in city management, would probably benefit from an assistant city manager that had a lot of experience, right? Kind of want to offset what your your strengths and your weaknesses. And I remember having a conversation with her that she had found somebody that she was really interested in making an assistant city manager, and she was just letting me know and just saying, you know, you didn't apply for it. I hope you weren't disappointed. And I said, No. And I was like, I I know what you need, I'm here to support you. Sometimes the opportunity is not right, but it was okay. And she's like, Well, I'm just glad that you weren't mad that I didn't ask you to apply or anything else. I

Mentors, Baldrige, and Lean Six Sigma

SPEAKER_01 35:00

was like, No, I was like, completely get it, understand it. You know, it's just not, you know, it's not just I don't think it's just the right time for either one of us, and you need to be successful. Well, you know, fast forward like a few weeks, that person decided not to take that position. And she came back to me and said, I'd like to give you the shot. And I took the shot and I got it. And I think it's that part, right, again, of how do we act? I could have definitely at that point been, I don't know why you didn't ask me, I helped you do all these things, and taking it as a as a more of a disrespect, or looking at it more as an opportunity and understanding it's bigger than myself. And I think that that's kind of those parts where those opportunities come back if you really take a look at that step at it and just say, like, okay, how do I fit in? How does this work? Those opportunities will find their way to come back to you.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Very altruistic kind of a approach to all that. Hey, mentors, I've heard you mention a particular person repeatedly. Can you tell me who that was and how they impacted you?

SPEAKER_01 36:01

My mentor, you know, I've got a lot of them, so I want to be careful of it. I mean, I've got a I've got a few out there, uh, but one of the mentors that I know I've repeated to you recently and kind of talked about is Tommy Gonzalez, who is the uh city manager of Midland.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

That's the guy. So Tommy seems to have had a huge impact on you. How was that?

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Yeah, so you know, you look at things in regards to different spots of your career. And when, you know, I was coming out of Cedar Park and I made the jump over to Irving, Tommy really embraced upon me performance excellence, the Malcolm Baldridge framework, Lean Six Sigma, and these were things that were so unique and different to me that I really took a liking to and wanting to know more of. And one thing about Tommy that I've always like enjoyed, and I I got to full disclosure, I met him in in Lubbock. He was the interim city manager there for a time while I was there. So I had known him, didn't get a chance to work directly with for him. I would worked for the managing director of planning and transportation. But I'd known of him, I'd gotten to meet him, kind of had visited him or seen him from afar, and then working in that culture that he built in Irving, that one of Baldridge, and how the framework and results and KPIs and all of these things were working together. It was such so intriguing to me because it was things that just weren't typical city manager positions. You know, some of the typical city managers were just like, you know, we come in, we do our job, we, you know, we we we make sure that we get the basics taken care of. And he really opened me up to a different side of why can't we compete with the best organizations in the country, not just be the best city, but be with the best organization. And that really changed my whole vision and outtake of what a city could be. And I think it's important to always look at how do you be the best and not just say we're good enough for government. And I think that part and that instilling, and then Tommy always pushing me for to get better and do different things and challenge each other with different ideas has really just been an awesome spot for me.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

I love to hear the phrase, not good enough for for government. We have a similar culture here in Livermore and providing high customer service, thinking outside the box, how can we make things happen rather than being an obstacle, that sort of thing. And I've worked at several jurisdictions, and that's not always the case. And it's very forward-thinking, it's very community-minded, and you actually get results that way. And so I I could really appreciate that. I hope that your folks there in Durango appreciate that. I wanted to ask you about Lean Six Sigma. You still uh is so so tell me about it. I'm not too familiar with it.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Yeah, so I mean, the basic of Lean Six Sigma is taking a process and making it the most efficient you possibly can. And you there's like a green belt and there's a black belt. I've got my black belt. Uh, black belt tends to be more like engineering and manufacturing, or more manufacturing, you know. If you're building a, if you're making a seat, it's taking the process all the way down to get to six sigma, which basically says it is the most efficient process that you can do. Mathematical equation that talks about you know time, work, and process and all of this. And I say that because black belts, I think it's a great thing to have if you're really into lean six sigma, but in government we don't make widgets, right? We don't we don't take a look at of processing a product that somebody buys. However, we do have a lot of processes and services that we do provide or that we undertake, such as procuring a car. And taking a look at lean six sigma as a process to look at process mapping it out, seeing where the slow, where we have parts that are slow in the process, how do we improve those, taking a look and seeing how what really is wrong with the process? Because I think sometimes in in government and experiences that I've had in the past, it's just like, oh, it just takes 30 days to procure a car because that's what it takes. Why? That's just because you know you've got to go through all of those things. And Lean Six Sigma breaks that down, where you actually get everyone in the room, you map it, and you start finding out like, oh, the reason it takes 30 days is because we have this slow part with getting process payments or the paperwork to finance

Process Improvement, Data, and Results

SPEAKER_01 40:30

to get approved because somebody might be a little bit later, or it's not, you know, electric, it's not a it was an electric electronic process, and really beginning to see it step by step, and then changing that and saying, now by doing this, we just cut off five days off that process, and now it's a 25-day process. And so that's really what Lean Six Sigma does is just making sure that all your processes are running as efficiently as possible by bringing everyone in, mapping the process, taking a look at it, and seeing what every step takes and why it's taking that long.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

That's a great approach because and I'm not even gonna go into it because I'm gonna butcher it. But years ago, this a coworker was telling me about I was asking why a certain thing was done a certain way. And uh, we went into this whole process about how something was started decades ago, it's still in place. We don't know why, but it's still there. And nobody had looked at how do we refine this? Is it still necessary, or you know, what the case? So I could really appreciate this because I think a lot of organizations could really benefit from something like this. I'm surprised that it's not more mainstream in government.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

It's getting to be. I think it just depends on your government of who's using it. Because I know there's a Peak Academy that's run out of the city, county of Denver there about Lean Six Sigma for local government. You know, obviously the entities in Irving, we were there. McKinney, we I had brought it over into McKinney. We have it here in Durango, Fort Collins, who's a also a Baldridge Award-winning community that's in Colorado. They use Lean Six Sigma. So I do think it's out there more than people know in local government, and it's an important part that I think local government has. So, what is the Baldrich Award? So the Malcolm Baldridge Award was founded by a gentleman named Malcolm Baldridge, or is named after a gentleman named Malcolm Baldridge. It was actually a program started by Ronald Reagan. This was during the Cold War, where there was a belief that maybe American manufacturing had been eclipsed and we were no longer the lead manufacturing country in the world. And so they sent up this Baldridge program. And what uh the president Ronald Reagan at the time was it was an ability for the best of the best to learn from each other. How are these best organizations? How are they working together and a shared best practices? And if you were awarded as one of the best, you would get the presidential award, the Malcolm Baldrich Award that actually has the presidential seal. Since then, that program has expanded. It now not only includes manufacturing, but has healthcare, nonprofits, governmental agencies, and it's built on the a framework that really is I could list them all, but sometimes that just kind of then kind of confuses people. But what I always look at is how do you do what you say that you do in a manner that takes all of your customers into consideration and then provide the data that shows them you've made the results that you said that you did. And there's a lot to that, but I think that's the most that's the easiest way that I that I can put it out there, I think, that I found to distill it. Because a lot of people say, well, that's our mission. Well, it's like, well, how do you know that you're doing your mission? How do you prove that? What's the data? You know, and it's that part. What do your customers say? And then breaking down your customers, because your customers just aren't citizens. That's too broad, right? It's our business owners, it's our residents, it's our visitors, it might be our our other local governments that we partner with, it's our neighbor our neighborhood associations and nonprofits, really breaking them down by sector because your customer base of just residents is too broad.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Interesting. It's a good focus on the community, it's a good focus on your business owners. But something else I wanted to touch on is your staff. I've read a few things. You're very not sure what you do a lot of things for your staff. You seem to also, in my opinion, you've you've accelerated. You're you're an overachiever at a young age, but it also seems like you segregate work and personal. That's not typical. I usually, when I see people that achieve a lot, they're usually on 24-7. They don't know how to turn it off. And you seem to have that fam, that work-life balance.

Family-First Leadership and Culture

SPEAKER_00 45:00

So run me through that. What's important to you and how does that translate for benefits to your staff or how you manage things for your team?

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Yeah, so that actually comes from Tommy Gonzalez. I was not like that in my earlier years, in the earlier part of my career, but when I worked for him in Irving, he would always have this saying about family first. And everything with family comes first. Family time comes first, comes before work. You know, we're here to work, but you know, you've got to take care of your family. And that meant a lot to me. And I think in my eyes at that time, opened up to things that maybe I hadn't, maybe I'd sacrifice things for my kids that I probably shouldn't have. Maybe I didn't go to events that I wished that I did. And I did it all for work. And then when you start really looking at some of the things that I sacrificed, was it really important that I went to that, you know, that community event that night? Because I could have had another staff member just take the notes for me or be there for me because I have a family obligation to go through. And so I've taken that here. Everything and everyone here knows it's family first. If somebody comes in and says, you know, Jose, can I take off because of XYZ with my family? I'm like, family first, go. And don't worry about it. We'll find a way behind it to take care of it because it's important for you to meet those family commitments. And I didn't think anything of it in regards to it, but you know, I've had the awesome, I got awesome recognition from my staff one time where they said, you know, we just want to go ahead and recognize you, Jose, because you do you say family first, but you actually practice it. There was a time I took off three days. My son was a senior over the fall. He was playing his last, you know, high school uh high school soccer, and I took off three days to go see him in Denver play soccer. And it was like a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And I was staying there to watch him in the playoffs, and they the staff looked at that and said, it really impacted them because, like, if you can do it, you're practicing it, that means that it's important, we should do it too. And that's where it really came from. And it's always to me family first, and I always have to put that in front of myself. And I think city managers need to do it too, and everybody needs to do it as well, because when you look at it at the end of the day, when this career is done, the family's what's going to be left with you, and it's got to be family first, and you want to make sure you took care of them.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

I like the concept of leading by example there. So, on that same track, we have some things that we deal with here. How do you feel about uh work from home? I know that was a big transition from for us. COVID, almost everyone was working from home, and then post-COVID, we were brought back into the office. My team, inspectors, neighborhood preservation, code enforcement, they were always in the field, but then bringing the staff back. So we had to adopt some work from home protocol after the fact. Do you folks do anything like that? We have some work from home.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

You know, I think it just it it depends on the department, right? Of

Hybrid Work with Service at the Center

SPEAKER_01 48:00

how that work from home uh model works. And I think the biggest part for me is I'm not against work from home. I think sometimes it makes sense. I think in the market that we're in to compete, sometimes you have to offer that virtual option. But we do not have anyone that's completely remote. So if we have, I don't know, let's just call it a division that does work from home, they may do where everybody gets one day where they can work for home, but it's on different days, so it's always covered. So anytime a work from home policy or a request comes from my staff, the biggest thing they're gonna know is how do we not impact customer service? Because if you can show me it's not gonna impact customer service, then I'm gonna go with it. And we should be able, you know, let's let's give it a shot. But we can't have work from home impacting customer service. That is our that is our number one goal. Our mission is providing outstanding services and experiences for the entire community. So as long as we do everything that supports that mission and we're not doing anything that's gonna take away from that mission, I'm willing to give it a shot. And I do think you can do some work from home portions that allow that. But I do think it does get complicated if it's a complete work from home environment and there's no office expectation with it.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Hey, I wanted to ask you about your ICMA involvement. I think this year, you are you providing a training or are you a speaker?

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Yes, I'm a speaker at a session uh in regards to, man, and I don't have the title right off the top of my head. That does that's how it goes. But it is a speaker in regards to transforming your organization for new city managers and how to make a positive impact to transform the culture.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

I find it an interesting perspective that you like to give your staff initiative and the latitude to make their own decisions.

SPEAKER_01 49:47

Yeah, I believe empowering your staff is incredibly beneficial and has really been a key component in the transformation that we've seen here and that we've seen that I've seen be rewarded through our employee surveys and being above national benchmark ratings. And it's important to be able to give it to them, right? There's two things, you know, give the uh the person at the person closest to the problem has the expertise to solve that problem. And how do we ensure that that person feels that they have the ability to make the decision to solve the problem? And what I've always told my staff members from when I got here to now, they always, you know, the new employees come in, or you know,

Empowerment: Effort and Intent

SPEAKER_01 50:30

what is what are your expectations, Jose? How do I know that I'm going to be I'm gonna make my decisions are gonna be okay? And what I tell them is I measure everyone in my in my organization on two things effort and intent. Because in my belief, those are the only two things you can control in any situation. What type of effort am I gonna place into this and what's my intent for the decision that I'm making? And if both of those are good, where I'm never gonna have a problem. It may not fix the problem correctly, but if you have good effort and your intent is good, how do you make a bad decision? You just don't. And you get yourself in trouble where you're like, well, I didn't really go all the way on my effort to research the problem. And you know, that person I was a little frustrated with, so I went ahead and made a decision that wasn't for the best of intent. It was more to pay them back for the frustration they paid me. And those are the things that I think you know have helped within our culture that I've been told and feedback on is A, I want the person closest to the problem to be able to have the power to make the decision, and I want that decision to be based on good effort and good intent.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

Sound advice. We have something similar. I like to let my folks problem solve for themselves. I want them to have the to to be at ease that although I want to say there is no wrong answer, sometimes there is, right? But things can be corrected so long as the intent was right. And we just kind of muddle through that. But it's it's very difficult for someone to execute and problem solve where when they're concerned that you know, what's the criticism? What's what's the downside if I make a mistake here? And so, you know, there has to be that acceptance that not everybody's gonna be 100%, 100% of the time. And just so long as the intent is right and you're making an effort, that everything's gonna, for the most part, come out right.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

For sure. And I've also changed, you know, one of the things that I do that's a little possibly different, and I'm sure you've heard the saying, don't come with me, don't come to me with the problem, come to me with a solution. And I actually don't believe in that. I, you know, what I will say is come with me with a problem, but just don't expect a solution from me. Because sometimes there are problems that you may not have a solution to, and I don't want that to be the barrier to have a discussion with you. Because sometimes you can have that conversation to walk through that problem, and based off the conversation that we're passing back and forth, you get to that solution. And I think those are golden moments that we can miss when sometimes we have that saying that people think is important, you know, don't come with me a problem, come with a solution. Well, if they don't have a solution, then they don't come with you and the problem still goes on. And my part of it is just don't come to me expecting me to give you the solution. If you come in and you have a conversation and you're like, here's what I'm thinking, Jose, but here's my concern. But I think if we do this, I'm not quite there, I can work with you. We can talk through that and get you to a solution.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

I want to have those conversations. I agree with you. My my uh my line there is when I have I'm presented with the problem is in a perfect world, what's the solution for you? And from there we have a starting point. We have a point where we can negotiate whether I'm dealing with one of my staff or one of a community member that has a problem. So there always has to be dialogue. Absolutely. So, Jose, what's next? What's what's on the horizon for you?

SPEAKER_01 53:58

I think you know, the horizon for me is

What’s Next: Continuous Improvement

SPEAKER_01 54:00

you know, continuous improvement. It always is. And from a local government aspect and from a Durango, City of Durango aspect is how do we continue to improve? What are things that are out there and the systems that we've developed through our strategic plan, our cross-functional team, our trails to excellence as we work on the Balduridge criteria? What's next is always it.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

How do we get better every day? I have been extremely surprised. We looked at this initially and looked at Durango, and I was I'm gonna say it again, just surprised. Durango is a lot bigger than it seems. There, it's a lot more complicated than it seems. And you know, I'm gonna throw it out there again. I think that when we spoke earlier, I had to ask your age because when I look at your accomplishments, look at where you have been, I expected a much older man. And so you've accomplished, you've accomplished a bit, you've been recognized, there are a lot of accolades around you. And so uh I just I'm impressed. So I wanted to say thank you for taking the time because impressive speaker, impressive accomplishments. I like your family theme. That's something that's very important to me. We mentioned it, well, family first, right? Uh growing up, my dad was a blue-collar guy, very hardworking, and wasn't there a lot. But you know, not that that was a terrible thing. He was just a great provider. And it's so important to have that balance. And you have that balance, you have that drive, that career side of it. And you know, you took over Durango when it had a little bit of uh turmoil going on, COVID was was hitting. So you had to overcome some obstacles. So congrats to you, accolades to you, for what you've done. I am impressed as an old guy here, and I wish you the best success. I think you're on a great track and uh really kind of curious to see where where you're headed next.

SPEAKER_01 55:50

Well, I appreciate that. Take, I would tell you take a look at City Durango, keep it, keep it on the radar because I think you're gonna still see some great things to to come. We definitely aren't even haven't really kind of scratched the surface of some of the opportunities that we've been working on as a team and as a staff, and excited for it. And you know, again, I've been blessed to have a lot of accomplishments across a lot of different things. And the blessing I think really comes into those that allowed me to be in this position, that provided me the opportunities to grow, and then those staff members who believed in me, followed me, saw the uh the process through those parts and that you know, I am incredibly grateful for my staffs and those mentors that have provided me opportunities. It's been an amazing very gracious sentiment, Jose.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

Thank you for being on the podcast today, and thank you for proving that there is a work-life balance. It is possible to put family first and still accomplish extraordinary professional excellence. To our audience, as always, I wish you all the best. On the next episode, take care.