County of Minburn Appoints Chief Administrative Officer

County of Minburn Appoints Chief Administrative Officer

Michelle Pinon - News Advertiser

Pat Podoborozny has a wealth of education and experience in municipal government and is thrilled to be joining the administrative team at the County of Minburn.

In fact, Podoborozny will be the new administrative lead of operations and responsible for the all of the day-to-day activities in running of the municipality starting on Feb. 6. “I am very excited to work with the staff, council and ratepayers of the County of Minburn,” said Podoborozny.

Podoborozny will take over from Interim Chief Administrative Officer, (CAO) Pat Vincent. Reeve Roger Konieczny announced her appointment as CAO following a special meeting on Jan. 4. “With her municipal experience, council and I believe Podoborozny is well suited to lead the County as we continue to strive for success.”

Podoborozny holds a Certification of Local Government Managers (CLGM) designation and served as CAO for the Town of Bruderheim since 2014. Podoborozny was an employee of Strathcona County for thirty years. She’s a Certified Engineering Technologist (CET) and holds memberships in the Association of Science and Engineering Technology, (ASET) and the Alberta Public Works Association (APWA).

In 2019, Podoborozny was the first female ever to be awarded ASET’s Technologist of the Year. Later, she went on to become the President of become the President of the Canadian Public Works Association. “I really enjoyed the advocacy in Ottawa and bringing rural perspectives of small towns.

Even though she hasn’t had the chance to take a deep dive into the County’s infrastructure, she will be helping to develop a strategic plan. Once that is completed, Podoborozny said, “then it is up to the County of Minburn team to

implement council’s priorities based on that plan, and come up with a tactical plan to support that. And they’re very well on their way to asset management, which is great…So, I’m happy to implement infrastructure asset management into their strategic plan, and the strategic plan drives the budget into the future.”

Pat Podoborozny.

(Pat Podoborozny/Submitted Photo)

Podoborozny said you have to keep looking for funding. Because of the small budget she had to work with in Bruderheim, she said she became adept at leveraging provincial, federal and industry grants to help replace aging infrastructure in that community.

“The job of the administration team is to watch those grants, figure out how to identify our priorities and having a good strategic plan with an asset management plan, and that really sits you well for grant funding. Sometimes grant funding has a very short turn around so you have to be ready with those, and the County of Minburn is well on the way to that.”

Having worked for a small urban like Bruderheim as well as a very large municipality like Strathcona County has been helpful. “It gave me a real unique perspective on the needs of the larger and smaller municipalities and I just feel that I can contribute a lot to the County of Minburn with that unique background as the County of Minburn has hamlets and there’s urbans within it. So, I just want to contribute to the future of the community that I live in.”

She’s a “big believer” in inter-municipal collaboration and is hoping to do some of that with the Town of Vegreville. She added, “Both the federal and provincial governments appreciate when we use collaboration to look at ways to move ahead things together.”

Podoborozny resides in Vegreville with Ken, her husband of 32 years. They have two daughters, Natasha and Kendra. Natasha is articling with Wilde & Co. and Kendra is a teacher with Elk Island Catholic Schools in Sherwood Park.