2008 12 People You Need to Know: Steve Childers

After growing up in Marshfield and earning a bachelor’s degree from Missouri State University, Steve Childers went backpacking through Europe … but he came back to Springfield to get his master’s degree in land planning and management.

He then left the area again, first to serve as a planner for the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission in Peoria, Ill., then to private companies in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Chicago.

But when he heard that the city of Ozark was hiring its first full-time planning director, he returned again.

Now he has added city administrator to his résumé, succeeding Collin Quigley on Nov. 19 to manage the Christian County seat of 17,000 residents.

“I had worked very hard for three years to build a planning department – when I started, there had only been one person in the department, and now it includes everything from code enforcement … to flood planning,” he says. “When you set those long-range plans and goals, you want to be involved in implementing them.”

Childers’ new job, however, may be a case of “be careful what you wish for” – he continues to serve as head of planning due to city budget constraints.

“We’ve only had about 1 percent growth this year where we projected 4 percent,” Childers says. “The economy has taken a dip, especially (residential) building, so there’s not a budget to hire. The workload has not changed for us – we’re just as busy, and commercial permits are up.”

Despite the added work, Childers has definite goals in mind. While continuing to handle Ozark’s population growth – up 75 percent since 2000 – Childers says his biggest task is balancing the city budget.

“I don’t think anyone knew the economy was going to do what it did,” Childers says. “I had to go back and re-evaluate our spending behaviors and say, ‘We have to set a different style of management in place in order to balance this budget in December 2007.’”

Another key, he says, is organization – and he points to findings from a state audit of Springfield as an example.

“With Ozark, you can only imagine that a town that’s been growing the way we have needs to step back and look at our structure and procedures for tracking information and storing, managing and securing data,” Childers says. “If you’re not organized, you’re going to make mistakes.”

Steve Childers

Position: City administrator, Ozark

Age: 37

Education: Bachelor’s degree in organizational communications and a master’s degree in land planning and management, Missouri State University

Career: Planner for the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission in Peoria, Ill.; governmental relations manager for American Tower Corp. in Chicago

Q&A Date: April 15