The Wilmington Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners will be casting a wide net to land its next leader. This morning, just a week after CEO Michael Krause was fired following his second DWI, the board convened in a special session to discuss the search process for his replacement. The board has voted unanimously to recommend that the Authority itself take on the task—rather than paying any outside consultants to spearhead the search.
Pending consensus from the four board members who weren’t present for this session, commission chair Jeff Hovis says he hopes to come up with a job description and requisite criteria for the open position—which he says could be filled by either a CEO or executive director—at Monday’s regularly scheduled Authority board meeting. Hovis notes that when Michael Krause was hired in 2008, the CEO search process took about ten months.
"That’s why I wanted us to gather information and have this meeting so fast. I mean this meeting’s, you know, a week after everything that’s taken place. And we want to have--our goal is, we will be up and running. That whatever decisions we make, we’ll make those decisions Monday and that will determine how fast we can expedite it. Because it has to be done swiftly, and it has to be done correctly."
Within two weeks, the board hopes to blast a job ad via national publications and search engines, with the objective of finding someone qualified to take the helm during the first quarter of next year. The commissioners also took a moment to thank Vernice Hamilton, the Authority’s HR director, for her willingness to step us as interim CEO in the meantime.