The Minot City Council plans to meet Thursday, Oct. 2, at 4:30 p.m. to consider the finalists – David Kees, an independent contractor in business development and mineral acquisition in Irving, Texas;, David Lakefield, City of Minot finance director; and Tom Joyce, City of Minot interim and assistant city manager.

“The end goal is we want to serve the citizens of this community – make our community strong, better, more resilient, more attractive to folks from outside of this area. We want to have a growing community,” Lakefield said. “We need to expand the economic base. We need to address the issues that we have that, maybe, prohibit us from doing that. We need to follow through on the commitments we’ve made on a number of legacy projects.”

Kees, a former assistant city manager in Duncanville, Texas, said coming from outside Mino, his first task will be talking to people and getting their perspectives on what they want to see in the city.

“And then sometimes even learning about yourself and how you really, truly lead when you’re the top person at the organization, and whether the style that you’ve grown accustomed to in Louisiana and Texas is going to fit in North Dakota. Those are some of those things where you’ve got to have that self reflection and know what we need to learn to grow,” he said.

Jill Schramm/MDN Minot city manager finalist Tom Joyce answers questions during a meet-and greet at the City Hall Tuesday, Sept. 30.

Kees said, if selected, he would encourage public feedback and would engage staff and get to know them and their jobs. He spoke about an internal internship program to help employees grow and about the creation of cross-department education to keep staff from becoming siloed in their fields.

“We all have strengths, and I say run with your strengths,” Joyce said. “For me, my strengths are leading people and leading change. That’s where I can hit the ground running with this team.”

He said he’s come to know many community partners and has experience overseeing public works, public safety and airport operations. His financial acumen is in federal government funding but he would lean on staff experts as he comes to grasps with municipal financing.

“I rely on subject matter experts, and over the years, I’ve been pretty good at asking probing questions and learning, and I’m confident that I would learn that rather quickly,” he said.

Lakefield said his steepest learning curve will be managing the political landscape, referring to the need to forge relationships with community partners to get projects past the finish line. He’s also had the opportunity to testify before and work with legislators.

Lakefield said learning the ropes while growing up on the farm prepared him for almost anything.

Lakefield said one of the skills learned on the farm is problem solving, which carries over into city government, where staff are constantly analyzing problems to come up with solutions that work best for the community as a whole.

“I’m a roll up your sleeves and get things done kind of guy. The problem with that is you grow up being a doer your entire career and as you move up the chain of command a little bit, you get a little bit removed from that. You can’t do everything. So, you have to rely on your staff to follow behind you and carry some of that burden for you,” he said.

“My leadership style and approach to management, especially in city government, really comes down to alignment, trust and accountability,” Kees said. He noted the city has a strategic plan and has set goals based on that plan that reflect what Minot residents want their city to look like.

“My job as the city manager is to take that and make sure that staff is in alignment with those goals,” he said. “I know a lot about a lot of things, but they are the subject matter experts and I’m going to trust them to do it.”

However, he added there must be accountability.

“It always comes back to the things that we’re doing every day. Are we setting a process in place that gets us to meet those metrics, gets us to meet those key performance indicators, that gets us to achieving the goals that have been established by the council and by the comprehensive plan? If not, we have to have conversations,” Kees said.

“My leadership style starts with people,” Joyce said. “I’m a people-first person.”

He said he is about supporting the staff and getting the right people on the team by acquiring, developing, rewarding and retaining talent.

“I consider myself a transformational leader. I’m confident in leading change and leading people. I feel I can motivate and inspire people to work towards these identified projects that we have,” Joyce said.

Management differs from leadership and involves planning, he added.

“I believe in being results focused, being accountable, of building the team, first and foremost,” he said.

Joyce said he’s been fortunate to have a number of experiences in which he’s been able to lead or help facilitate the development of strategic plans for different organizations. He said Minot’s 2040 comprehensive plan needs to be considered again.

“Frankly, we are not anywhere near where we should be,” he said. “We have too many darn great aspirations to do at one time. If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. So, I would like to get back with council over the next three months, sit down and refine those a bit after sitting down with the team and doing a self assessment of where we are nine months after we started, and what are some areas of improvement that we can help move that needle a bit more.”