Duckworth reflects on journey from Kamloops to City of Calgary’s top job

The 52-year-old left B.C. two years ago having spent 15 years at Kamloops City Hall, managing the public works and corporate and protective services departments. Though he considered returning to Vancouver where his career began, the decision to head east was based on a balance of family and career factors.

“We sat back and tried to think, ‘What’s the next step?’ — not just in my career but for our children as young adults,” said Duckworth. “We felt that moving back to the Lower Mainland, to the Vancouver area was not realistic. It’s unaffordable, not just for ourselves but for our children, and we just stumbled upon an opportunity in Calgary.”

Duckworth was hired as the City of Calgary’s general manager of utilities and environmental protection.

“The more I looked at what the city of Calgary has to offer our family and what it had to offer for my career, we decided to take a bold step and leave the city of Kamloops and move to Calgary.”

An opportunity for career advancement came sooner than expected. Fielding left Calgary for Toronto in April, 2019, opening up Calgary’s top job. For Duckworth, nagging self-doubt about his readiness for the position gave way to excitement over the possibility.

“I stepped back and I thought, ‘Well, I’ve always kind of aspired to be a CAO or a city manager.’ [But] the City of Calgary as an organization has 15,000 staff, we have a $4 billion annual budget — it’s a big beast. I thought it might be a little bit too quick but I thought, ‘What the heck, I’m going to throw my name in because I’m pretty confident that I’m ready.'”

His hiring came seven years after he was passed over for the CAO’s position in Kamloops. Local council went with former development manager David Trawin.

File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

Calgary has long been one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities with a population of about 1.3 million. Though its growth has slowed in recent years, it still adds about 20,000 people annually. That means it will add roughly the population of Kamloops every five years.

Even with that much larger scale, Duckworth says there are plenty of similarities in how the municipal operations of both cities work.

“The services that the City of Kamloops provides and the City of Calgary provides — or the City of Toronto, for that matter — are by and large the same. In a larger city, they’re just at a different magnitude,” said Duckworth.

“With respect to growth here in the city, it’s slowed down. But as slow as it is, adding 20,000 new residents to your city (annually), that means there’s an increased demand for your services,” he continued. “Property taxes and user fees don’t necessarily go down when demand goes up, so that’s been a bit of a challenge to communicate those things to our citizens.”

Calgary’s growth has slowed largely due to a slowdown in the oil and gas industry — long Calgary’s bread and butter. But after working in Vancouver, Penticton and Kamloops, Duckworth says he has no plans to pick up and move if the local economy does not stabilize.

“We moved to Calgary to stay; for our young adult children to hopefully have rewarding, fulfilling careers and have families,” said Duckworth. “One of our goals was to all be together and that’s kind of our dream vision, my wife and I. So we have absolutely zero plans to move anywhere else. We’re really, really enjoying the city.”

“I’m passionate about public service. I love doing what I do. It’s been a part of my whole life. My father was an elected official for the first 13 years of my life and so this is what I do.”

Here are a few more quotes from David Duckworth’s conversation with CFJC Today‘s James Peters:

On being hired as Calgary’s city manager:

“I wasn’t surprised. I think I knew what I could offer any organization. I look at my time back in the City of Kamloops and there were three internal candidates going for the CAO position back in 2012 — and they were three pretty strong candidates. Any one of them, in my opinion, could have done a great job, and I think Mr. Trawin’s doing a great job.”

“I’m pretty energetic with lots of passion and enthusiasm, and I guess council thought that was something they were looking for.”

On Fielding’s decision to leave for Toronto:

“That came as a surprise to me because one of the reasons why I came here was to mentor under him. He’s been a city manager for (around) 25 years, he’s got an incredible amount of experience and he was such a great guy to work for. So it came as a bit of a shock.”

On the challenging economy’s impact on Calgary:

“Our downtown core, which is an amazing downtown, but in a lot of our high rises right now, we have a vacancy rate of around 25 per cent right now as we are trying to adjust to what we say is the new economy.”

“We know oil and gas will always be a big part of Alberta and the city of Calgary. But we’re looking to see, what’s the next step for our great city? It will likely be in the high tech industry. So we’re looking at opportunities there to help grow our city.”

On media scrutiny in Kamloops and Calgary:

“When I worked and lived in Kamloops, I thought City Hall in Kamloops was the news. We were pretty heavily scrutinized. But it wasn’t until I came to Calgary… we are so heavily scrutinized. To be honest, I think that’s a great thing; I have no problem with our organization being scrutinized.”

“We’re public servants and our goal is to deliver great services to the citizens who pay our salaries and wages so I have no problem with scrutiny, but there seems to be an extra level of scrutiny here.”

“Social media, over the last probably five years, has really driven that scrutiny and a lot of the public debate and discourse that happens is on social media. That’s really changed things, not just for the City of Calgary, but likely any local government in North America or around the world.”

On working with Mayor Naheed Nenshi:

“We’ve got a great working relationship. I meet with him weekly. We talk a lot about a lot of different things. He’s got incredible experience and expertise and knowledge. He, too, is super passionate about public service and he loves doing what he does.”

“I got an opportunity to spend a couple of days in Ottawa with him a few weeks back. When we were in the airport, it’s like I’m with a movie star because every five or 10 minutes, someone comes up and wants to have a selfie with the mayor. I was a photographer for most of my time with him.”

On his 15-year home in Kamloops:

“I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Kamloops. My wife and I loved living there. We still go back to visit friends; we miss all of our friends but we still talk to people regularly. We’ve had a lot of our friends from Kamloops and Penticton actually come out to Calgary (to visit).”

by James Peters

Duckworth reflects on journey from Kamloops to City of Calgary’s top job

This Week in Flyers

This Week in Flyers

Our Community