The Southwest Alliance for Excellence (SWAE) has announced that Coconino County Manager Cynthia Seelhammer is one of three finalists for the organization’s 2016 Leadership Award.
The SWAE Leadership Award recognizes an individual who exemplifies outstanding leadership in the pursuit of performance excellence and has furthered performance improvement beyond the boundaries of their organization. Jonathan Gardner of Southern Arizona VA Health Care System and Adrian Juchau of LDS Business College in Salt Lake City, Utah, are also finalists.
Finalists were selected by a committee of people with experience in organizational excellence and an understanding of the SWAE core values.
“Our success as a county organization can be attributed in part to leadership’s drive to instill performance excellence in our employees, and Cynthia is a great contributor to this effort,” said Coconino County Board of Supervisors Chair Art Babbott. “The Board of Supervisors commends County Manager Seelhammer for achieving finalist status.”
Seelhammer has more than 30 years of experience working for small towns, large cities and counties in three different states. As county manager, she is instituting programs and policies aimed at organizational effectiveness. In order to ensure a succession plan for retiring Coconino County leaders, Seelhammer has implemented the Developing Organizational Talent program to build the next generation of county leaders. Seelhammer also created the lean government committee, mandated to eliminate wasteful practices. FBN