The Columbia City Council announced Monday, July 15 that they selected John Glascock to fill the role as Columbia’s next city manager.
Earlier this year, the City Council authorized CPS HR Consulting to conduct an aggressive engagement process to gather information regarding the leadership characteristics, knowledge, and skills that the public, employees and a myriad of stakeholders would like to see in Columbia's next city manager. The culmination of these activities, which included two public community meetings, resulted in more than 500 responses to an online survey and in-person meetings with more than 75 individuals, which included department directors, senior City staff, and a number of community organizations, such as labor organizations, the Chamber of Commerce, the University of Missouri, and various community nonprofit and advocacy groups.
"We heard our community members say they want someone who is open and honest. A manager who values working together to form relationships and someone who understands working with university leaders. An individual with experience. Someone who will work on equity and diversity within our community. And most of all, a person of integrity who values and lives transparency," Columbia Mayor Brian Treece said. "We believe John embodies all of those traits."
During the Monday announcement, Glascock thanked the City Council, community, and staff for their trust in his abilities to provide relationship building, transparency, stability, continued development of community policing and the willingness to make changes when changes are needed.
"I am both honored, and grateful of the trust which is being placed in me to help lead our community with authenticity, openness, honest communications and facing our issues head-on," Glascock said. "As I mentioned in the State of the City address at the end of May, working together, we can find community-acceptable solutions to the challenges we face as a City and community. Relationships are key to solving issues and I am excited to forge new relationships, make better existing ones and heal those which may be broken."
Glascock has served as Columbia's interim city manager since November 2018. During his more than 16-year career with the City of Columbia, Glascock has served as chief engineer, director of Public Works, acting Water & Light director, and prior to his appointment as interim city manager, deputy city manager for three years. As deputy city manager, he was responsible for overseeing Community Development, Public Works, Sustainability, and Utilities, more than 700 employees and combined operating and capital improvement budgets of more than $275 million. During his tenure as interim city manager, he appointed an interim police chief and addressed community concerns regarding the Police Department, reorganized the City Manager's Office to gain efficiencies and focused on relationship building with City stakeholders. Prior to joining the City, Glascock had a 20-year engineering career with MoDOT. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from the University of Missouri and is a registered professional engineer.