Deborah Bowie
I truly believe we have all the answers, and I hope my legacy speaks directly to the importance of never ever giving up.” -Deborah Bowie
Deborah Bowie
The Woman Behind Gainesville’s Solutions eborah Bowie is resilient, self-motivated, and adaptable. As the Assistant City Manager with the City of Gainesville and a mother of four, the qualities are both learned and innate.
From a young age she wanted to be a reporter, so Bowie studied journalism and began working as a beat reporter covering City Hall. As a professional writer, she gained exposure to various topics and grew her ability to research complex issues and distill the subject matter down to clear and concise information.
After heading up membership, communications, and marketing for the Greater Gainesville Chamber of Commerce, Deborah led the United Way of North Central Florida as its CEO and President for three and a half years before joining the city of Gainesville as Executive Chief of Staff in 2018.
“I would say being adaptable and resilient are learned behaviors, but I’ve always been motivated to do things on my own, learn as much as I could, and figure out how to solve a problem.”
“The acquired skills of paying attention to detail, learning how to listen first, and then clearly communicating to different people has helped me to simplify and humanize government.”
Bowie grew up in Liberty City, a community in Miami that didn’t have many resources available to her. She became scrappy early on, learning to stand up for what she believed in by first learning to stand up for herself.
When she first moved to Gainesville in 2013, she did so to find autism services for her son—the only boy of her triplets, and the only one with autism. Then, she started working to make Gainesville a better place for everyone.
As the Assistant City Manager with the City of Gainesville, Bowie works every day to help the people of this community towards better solutions in every aspect of life, from affordable housing and unsheltered population services to parks. She describes the areas within her portfolio as “people issues.”
Story By:
Mia Brabham
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SYNERGY MAGAZINE
“Working with my departments, the community, and our partners, [we] find solutions to the challenges that many people face in
trying to live the highest quality of life they can— whether it’s in a safe, stable place to call home or a clean and safe place to spend time in the community with their families.” Bowie emphasized how devising strategies to improve the availability of affordable housing is directly linked to economic opportunity—or lack thereof. “The pressing issues in our community, like many communities, is in developing a variety of affordable housing options, creating and maintaining public spaces that serve everyone’s needs, and in creating economic opportunities that includes more people than it excludes.” For Bowie, no two days are the same. “There are sometimes far too many meetings, but the work is always interesting and the
