Estevan's new city manager is looking forward to taking the next step in her career when she moves to the area in February.
Amber Smale was announced as the Energy City's new top administrator at the Jan. 20 regular meeting of council.
Smale has spent 22 years working for the City of Regina, beginning at the age of 16 in a front line position. Currently the deputy city clerk in Regina, Smale said she is excited about becoming city manager.
"(Estevan) is close to home for me; I have a very large family and they are all situated in Regina and we're very close. So I wanted to find a place that offered a challenge and some complexity but also wasn't too far away that I could see my family when I needed to," she said in an interview Monday.
Given her experience in Regina, it's clear that a move to a city manager's job was the next step in Smale's career path.
After spending seven years in Regina's leisure services division, Smale moved on to property assessment, taxation and reassessment. She then became a business analyst and worked on business process improvements and the implementation of the corporate-wide call management system for public complaints and inquiries and requests for service.
She eventually became manager of that division before moving into the role of deputy city clerk, where she has been involved in public policy and working directly with council in her six years in that role.
"I have a master's in business administration and my major is in executive management so I have always wanted to be in the top role, whether that was in the private or public sector," she said.
Aside from proximity to Regina, Smale said Estevan's growth was among the factors that made the move attractive to her.
"There's things to do, there's things to bring people out and there is a quality of life that doesn't exist in every small community," she said.
Smale will begin work with the City on Feb. 10 and will be officially sworn into the position at a council meeting that night. She is looking forward to getting to work and tackling the many challenges facing Estevan.
"It's a bit premature for me to say exactly what I am going to do for the City because I want that period to see what is really going on. Business and service excellence is really my priority and in the end that affects everything, the way the City runs on every front."
