"TM: Vice Mayor Gray, in last year's election you were the top vote-getter among the at-large candidates for the urban county council, and as such, you became the city's vice mayor. It's been just over six months now since your inauguration. How do you like the job?
JG: Truthfully, the work with the council is really a lot of fun. I think anyone who's as curious about organizations and the way in which systems and people and organizations work to get outcomes as I am is going to be interested in the way that a government works. Because there are so many constituents that have input, and there is such a broad spectrum of issues and opportunities and problems to work on and to fix. It's very stimulating.
TM: Ten years ago, you had the opportunity to spend a year at Harvard on a Loeb Fellowship, and a great deal of what you studied during that time there had to do with organization and management. How do the lessons from that experience influence or inform what you do now as vice mayor of Lexington?
JG: Well, it really was an informative and shaping year for me. A big deal in that period was a class that I took at the Kennedy School called "Leadership Without Easy Answers," and in that class, we were given what amounted to a problem-solving platform that was used to address really complex problems. I think that diagramming process and that platform have been really informative for me both in the business environment, the private sector environment and in the broader government role today, especially.
And it acknowledges that battleships don't make right-hand turns. Institutions like the government are tough to change, and that's for a reason. It was designed by the founders; inefficiency was designed into the process, and inefficiency that actually in many respects is very efficient. But we are taking into account enormous checks and balances in the process, many constituents' interests and points of view, and through that, we are actually developing products and services that are very meaningful and in many respects are, despite the superficial inefficiencies, very efficient.
TM: We often hear the argument that government ought to be run like a business, but I take it from what I'm hearing you say and as a business person who oversees the management of complex projects and construction, that you are finding that government is a different animal altogether.
JG: Well, I felt like when I ran for public office both five years ago and then last year, I would often find myself saying that government shouldn't be run like a business, but good management principles and practices can be translated into government just like they can be translated into a business. And the best-managed governments are also the ones that are most effective and most efficient. And what I've seen so far in our government in Lexington is extremely, extraordinarily well-intended people. Our systems for management are weak in many respects, and we have lots of opportunities for improvement, and that's what I find encouraging and that's what I find stimulating in this role.
TM: Let's turn this around and let me ask you how your experience so far as vice mayor has influenced your role in the private sector?
JG: Well, I actually love that. I was a little concerned about how I would actually take on two day jobs. But as many people discover in their own lives and in their own careers, when you find yourself engaged and enthusiastic and enjoying what you're doing and as I have with my role in city government, then you also discover that other things in life are also perhaps more successful. You are more successful at them. And I really have discovered in the first six months that my role at our company, I'm finding it more fulfilling as well. And I'm able to translate experiences and lessons learned in the government role, particularly in terms of working collaboratively with others in a leadership role that requires essentially a higher level of collaborative skills. And perhaps being the CEO and president of a company, I'm finding that role as vice mayor to be informing for my role in our company.
TM: You have had almost seven months to get the lay of the land at the city government center. At this early stage, is there anything in particular that you feel needs to change?
JG: What I have discovered is that really exceptional management practices can be discovered and utilized in our government, and we really don't have much choice but to do that. For example, project management skill sets and an organization that's shaped around projects and project management doesn't exist today. So I think we have plenty of opportunity to engage better systems, better management systems, which will allow our employees to really execute their work better. And we've really got an imperative; it's not an elective. It's really not an option. With the EPA Consent Agreement that we are soon to engage, that's going to mean more projects. So it's not going to be an option. It's going to be essential. It's going to be imperative that we engage these better project management skills and utilize better project management technologies than we have in the past.
TM: There are the early stirrings of an effort to convince the Kentucky General Assembly to ask voters whether to amend the Kentucky constitution to free local communities such as Lexington to raise the revenues that they need for projects that are specific and unique to their local needs. Would you support such an effort?
JG: Well, it seems like it's only reasonable that we would be able to ask for that, since we've seen that the General Assembly can mandate or through legislation require cities and municipalities to raise other costs, for example retirement benefits to employees, without giving us the opportunity to raise revenue in all the ways that we should have the opportunity to. So of course I support it, because absent this liberty and these constraints being lifted, we really are limited in the ways the city can create step change projects.
TM: But what would you say is the single most important "to do" list for downtown Lexington?
JG: I would say a strategic plan for the downtown. You know, we've got the physical and infrastructure issues. We've got affordable housing issues, we've got the issues associated with entertainment in the downtown, traffic, so it is a general management issue and challenge. It's not one that we can cherry-pick one specific idea or one specific project, like the streetscapes, and be effective. These all need to be coordinated in an effective way, and that goes back to my earlier comments about project management. You know absent seeing the downtown in a comprehensive and realistic way, we may miss some of the mission-crucial pieces that are just absolutely essential to getting the job done as fully and as comprehensively and as effectively and as successfully as we really must.
TM: I'd like to come back to something you mentioned a minute ago: in today's world, the 21st century world, the downtown is becoming the industrial park for this economy. So in that
JG: I struggled to find that metaphor for a long time. So this is why some people will say to me things like art and culture are frivolous or extravagant, and I'm puzzled with that and I struggle with it, because I understand there is that push back and there's that point of view. And yet, we're seeing across this country and across the world that there's a recognition that there is an art-centric economy and cultural-centric economy, and those pieces of the economic fabric are required in order for us to move forward.
TM: What do you say to the resident of the south side or the north side, other areas of Lexington, suburban residents, when you are tasked to make the case for revitalizing downtown? In other words, what's in it for them?
JG: What's in it for them at the end of the day are better job opportunities, better economic opportunities, and better quality of life. That's what's in it at the end of the day, and there is a leap of faith associated with this and we must illustrate the vision. That's what I'm sensing that we really have got to get our arms around today. What does it look like? What are the opportunities associated with it? What's the yield on it for an investment?
TM: It's been a really busy first six months — are you planning on taking a breather any time soon?
JG: You know, if you are really enjoying what you are doing, you really don't look for holidays and vacations. The council has a break right now, but it means that you have a break from the regular meeting and perhaps taking a little while off. But one of unexpected discoveries I've had in this role — I used to travel a whole lot in my job, both in this country and abroad, and when I was thinking about this job, I thought I really will sort of be shackled to staying at home. And what I've discovered is there is so much right here in our backyard to keep you interested that I don't like traveling away nearly as much as I used to. So the best part of being away is often coming home.
TM: Vice Mayor Jim Gray, on that note, thank you very much.
JG: Thank you, Tom, always.