Another familiar face at city hall is moving onward and upward in administration.
Kevin Pearson, a planner with the City of Salmon Arm since 2000, was recently selected to serve as development services director. He’s taking over the role from Corey Paiement, who has been promoted to the position of corporate officer.
“The city is pleased to support Kevin’s promotion to this key position,” says city administrator Carl Bannister. “He has worked at the city for over 12 years and has proved himself as a leader and visionary. He brings academic and practical experience qualifications and is well respected in the development community.”
For Pearson, the move represents an opportunity to take on new challenges, while enabling him and his family to live in a community they love.
“We really like Salmon Arm and we want to stay here for a while; it’s a great place to raise our kids…,” says Pearson, who actually had a taste of the work ahead back in 2005, when the planning department consisted of two planners and a planning clerk.
“So, I had a little stint as acting director of development services, but at that time I realized the timing wasn’t right for me for a number of reasons,” says Pearson, adding that he learned a lot while working under Paiement for the past seven years. “He has a great leadership style, one that I would like to emulate and carry on forward.”
Also educational was the experience of working on some of Salmon Arm’s more high-profile developments in recent years, including Uptown Askew’s and the new branch of the Salmon Arm Savings and Credit Union.
“The architects involved with those projects were top notch and that really helped things move along in terms of the design, and dealing with the architects and the applicants for those was a pleasant experience,” says Pearson.
Another project Pearson is proud to have contributed to is the two office towers planned for the downtown by developer Bill Laird.
“It was quite a learning experience and I just hope that it’s built because we spent a lot of time on it,” laughs Pearson.