County Manager Harry Burgess

As many of you know, CEDD Director Anne Laurent has decided to move on to a new job opportunity in Park City, Utah.

Her last day of work for the County is Friday, Oct. 9 and I would like to offer Anne my thanks on behalf of the County for her hard work, enthusiasm and dedication to County government.

Anne has given Los Alamos County a wonderful seven years of public service! Anne was hired in September 2008 to lead the Capital Projects and Facilities (CP&F) Department, but soon stepped up to the challenge of serving as Acting Assistant County Administrator during a time when many of the department director positions had vacancies and the design and construction of a variety of capital projects such as the new Municipal Building were demanding.

Her professionalism and proven ability to manage and prioritize responsibilities, along with her knowledge of County processes, easy-going relationship with employees and the respect she had earned from community members impressed me when I became County Administrator in October 2011.

At my request, she agreed to take on the challenge of merging CP&F with Community Development to create a new Community & Economic Development Department in May 2012.

Under her leadership these past three years, CEDD has brought together goals to improve housing, planning, projects, marketing, tourism and code enforcement and led efforts to design new codes, better buildings, stronger ordinances and updated, developer-friendly processes.

She has brought our County’s goals together in one place – facilitating better communication within the County and providing more responsive, pro-active community service levels for our residents to enjoy.

While we are happy that Anne has this new opportunity and challenge in her career, we are sorry to see her, Steve and family leaving our community. She will truly be missed. 

We will be beginning the search for a new director shortly. In the interim, I have asked Paul Andrus to serve as CEDD Department Director. Paul has been with CEDD since 2012 as Housing and Special Projects Manager, and brings the breadth and depth of experience I feel is needed to act in this capacity for the next few months.

I would like to thank Paul in advance for agreeing to take on this responsibility in the midst of his other duties, as this is a very busy and challenging time for CEDD with many new initiatives, tasks and projects just getting underway.

To that end, I am asking you to offer your support to Paul and our employees in CEDD. We need to pull together and assist them during this transition.  

Again, please join me in congratulating Anne and wishing her the best of luck as Community Development director in Park City. They will be fortunate to have her background, knowledge, skills and dedication as a public servant.