New administrator starts at Town Hall

Battleford's new administrator is the current mayor of Kindersley.

John Enns-Wind was introduced by Mayor Derek Mahon at Monday evening's regular council meeting  as the new chief administrative officer for the town, filling the position previously held by the now-retired Sheryl Ballendine.

"I'm still currently the mayor of Kindersley," said Enns-Wind. "I will be resigning that position in February."

Most recently, he has worked as a management consultant, however, he said he has a "rather diverse background," starting in the North West Territories where he did consultancy work with a diamond mining company and then became an economic planner for the territorial government.

Enns-Wind, who has been serving as Kindersley's mayor since 2012, has master's degrees in business administration and in divinity as well as an undergraduate degree in liberal studies and politics.  He is well travelled, having lived in the Arctic, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan – and even on a kibbutz in Israel.

It was just before Christmas that Enns-Wind agreed to become Battleford's new administrator. He says there have been extensive conversations since then about the direction council sees itself going in as well as conversations to help him understand what's going on from a corporate perspective.

Those conversations have also helped him begin an understanding of Battleford on a community level.

"Not being from here, there's a bit of a steep curve," he said.

He noted the previous administrator, Sheryl Ballendine, had 35 years experience with the Town of Battleford in a variety of roles, as well as growing up in the community.

"I bring a fresh set of eyes, I bring a different skill set that sees things a little bit differently," he said. "I'm just going to be building on what Sheryl has done, and Gary [Gelech] before her."

He added, "It's each generation's responsibility to carry it forward and that's what I see myself doing."

He says he is looking forward to working as a member of a team.

"Fundamentally, we at the town office here are community builders," he said. "We're working with council to implement what they want and also the residents to ensure we have a community that we're proud to live in, to work in, to own a business in, and play in, of course."

For the first three months, Enns-Wind is officially "acting" chief administrative officer while he goes through the process of certification with the Urban Municipal Administrators Association of Saskatchewan.

"For someone who doesn't have their certification, that's the normal process," said the new administrator, explaining it's a way to make sure the administrators of towns and villages in the province have the appropriate qualifications.

As he settles into his new job, Ennis-Wind will also continue to serve as the mayor of Kindersley until the middle of February.

"There are a couple of projects council wants me to see through … they just asked me to stay on and shut it down after that. It will be a heavy slog for a few weeks," he laughed.

On the move out of governance and into administration, he said, "There were a number of factors that contributed to it. I loved being mayor, it broke my heart a little bit to move over … for family circumstances this is the time to do it."

As a mayor, Enns-Wind has been a prolific blogger. Since being elected, he has almost a thousand posts on everything from asset management to governance and strategic planning, he said. He has now moved his blog to a new site, which can be found at http://johnenns-wind.ca. In one of his last posts on the Town of Kindersley's site, he wrote, "As much as I enjoy and love being mayor, and as rewarding and fulfilling as being mayor has been, I can’t continue to be mayor; my family just can’t afford it. The financial sacrifice has been too significant and is no longer viable. Recently, I was offered a position in another community that I anticipate being very rewarding and fulfilling …

"Being mayor is not what I set out to do – I had to be talked into it – but it was something I embraced wholeheartedly and did my best to serve you and Kindersley. The experience has exceeded my expectations and been substantially more rewarding and fulfilling than I anticipated."

In his first post as the administrator of Battleford, Enns-Wind has written: "I’m making this transition from the role of mayor and I have received this piece of advice from George Cuff, a leading Canadian expert on the governance and operations of municipalities who transitioned from being mayor to CAO as I am doing: You will need to take your focus off  'how will this proposal sell on main street?' to 'does this make good sense from an administrative perspective?'”

Enns-Wind has already begun the relocation to Battleford, which will happen in phases.

"I have an apartment already," he said. "I moved in over the weekend."

His three sons and his wife Annette helped him move in, then went home Sunday.

"It was a bit hard, but my wife teaches in Kindersley, so she has a contract with the high school, and then we'll have to see if the house sells in a soft market," he said. "Hopefully everything goes well and we'll all be here together."

He says he expects his two youngest sons to be here after the long weekend in May, when they will be enrolling in school locally.

Enns-Wind was born in Winnipeg and grew up just outside of Toronto. When he finished school he moved to southwestern Alberta, where he met his wife. They moved to northeastern British Columbia and then Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories before relocating to southern Saskatchewan, central Saskatchewan and then Kindersley.

At the University of Saskatchewan, he earned an undergraduate degree and a master's degree. His second master's degree, one in divinity, he obtained at Briercrest Seminary at Caronport.

Enns-Wind lists his specialties as being strategic planning, coaching, outplacement and transitions, organizational design and effectiveness, project management and business planning.