Managers have an important job – building a support team, setting goals and objectives, overseeing performance, and much more. Imagine managing an entire city! Scott Swigert is a husband, a father, a man of deep faith, and he is energetic about stepping into the position of Huntsville City Manager. Swigert is hopeful and excited about the future of our beloved community!
We moved to College Station when I was in junior high school. So, I went to Blinn College first, then Texas A&M, where I obtained a parks and recreation/tourism science degree.
My first municipal position was with the City of Brenham. I started off as concession supervisor, then recreation supervisor coordinator, and then superintendent. You know, just kind of worked my way up as we were developing the recreational aspects there. I had the opportunity to be involved and help build the Blue Bell Aquatic Center and Hope Park. From there, I went to Midland and was the recreation manager there and oversaw all the parks and recreation aspects. I also began working on my master’s degree in public administration at UT-Permian Basin. Next, I went on to Deer Park and became the parks recreation director for the city. During this time, I was able to finish my master’s degree online. After that, I had the opportunity to go to Mont Belvieu and be their assistant city manager. Following, I had the chance to work in Cleveland as city manager for a time. Then this opportunity in Huntsville came!
Coming from the parks & recreation path, I learned how to communicate well with the public, as well as others (both inside and outside city organizations) who were on and working with our team.
Every city is different, and every city has its benefits, and it has its challenges, so I’m able to take what I’ve learned in the past and apply it. Having a parks and recreation background is very important to me when you’re looking at running a city, because parks and recreation is about quality of life. And that’s one of the things that is important for our community and our families. We’re trying to make it to where people want to come back here. The kids who grew up here may go off to college, but we want them to come back and raise their family here.
What do we have in Huntsville that can entice those college students to stay here and raise their families here, become part of our community, and invest back in our community? And so that quality of life aspect is huge when we try to figure out in what areas we need to improve. We just did a Parks Recreation Master Plan and just adopted it a couple of council meetings ago. It addresses the fact that we’ve got a good amount of park land and park facilities, but we need to enhance those. They’ve been around for a long time, and they need to be upgraded and transformed and improved. And we need to meet the needs of our community—for all age groups.
I see a lot of similarities between where Huntsville is now and where College Station was when I was growing up. We’re in a position here in Huntsville that the growth is coming. And I mean, everybody can see it for sure. It’s headed in this direction, right? It’s coming right up 45. It’s already gone past Conroe, and it’s coming here. We’ve got to be prepared for that. So, unfortunately, water, sewer, water plants, treatment plants, your roads—those are all very costly infrastructure not only to maintain, but to expand and to add new ones. We have beautiful landscapes and elevations in our area, but that also translates into drainage problems—erosion and flood-prone areas to mitigate.
We are an older city, and that means we have a lot of older infrastructure. How do we get in front of that as growth is coming? We’re working on that; we’re looking for every grant opportunity we can. We’ve got a good team in place. We’re working with Sam Houston State University right now to find additional grants and apply for additional funding that can help us prepare for the future. We just received a federal grant for $1 million to help with one of our plants.
We’re blessed. You know, so many places in the state don’t have water or don’t have the capacity for water. We’ve got plenty of water, which is great for us! We’ve got a great agreement and a partnership with the Trinity River Authority. We’re about to replace that main line coming in, and upgrades are happening. We’ve got the water capacity, and we’ve got wells that are backup we can utilize in case something happens to those main lines. So, we’ve got plenty of water for future growth!
One of the things is downtown. We want to enhance the downtown area and improve upon it, get more people coming downtown. We want to revitalize it. So, we’re going to do our part. Not only are we trying to invest in the sidewalks, but we’re also doing some other improvements as well. Many have seen the new murals. We want to promote the downtown businesses. We’re increasing the opportunity for those businesses to make some improvements, too. We also want to maintain and improve our historic, arts and entertainment, and cultural attractions.
It takes all of us working together. We’re working with Walker County, we’re working with the Chamber of Commerce, working with Sam Houston State University. It’s not all about just Huntsville. Bringing business and bringing people to Walker County will improve and enhance Huntsville as well, because they’re going to do their shopping here; they’re going to come to school here; they’re going to do banking, restaurants and grocery stores. We all want Huntsville to grow and be successful, and we want it to be a better place for our families that are here now and those to come. There are a lot of positives and partnerships coming together at the same time. We are blessed. We just have to figure out how to put it all together and make the most of it. There are some big things ahead for Huntsville, and it’s an exciting time.
Well, this is six months now, so for about five months I was driving back and forth. We now have a house here in Huntsville, and Jennifer and I wanted to make sure that our twin sons were in school here and getting involved. They’re playing football right now, so they’re getting acclimated. We’re going through the challenge of trying to find a church, so visiting different churches.
Where’s that perfect fit? Where does God want us to be? Right? But we’re loving it. Just having everything right here in town, you know, that’s one of the things we enjoy. You know, we have retail centers, multiple options for grocery stores…I mean, that’s a blessing. It’s all right here. And there’s all these different restaurants. And more coming!
