Chet Hagenbarth to become public works director overseeing TIF
By Polly Mikula
On Monday night, June 12, the Killington Select Board announced that current Town Manager Chet Hagenbarth would be stepping out of that role and into a new one as the public works director.
“We need to move someone over into this position and Chet is the right person,” explained Selectman Jim Haff announcing the motion to create the new position. “[Chet] knows the roads, he oversaw the public safety building, and he’s been working with us on TIF this whole time,” Haff said of his qualifications.
While Monday’s motion was the first the public had heard of this administration shake-up, the board and Hagenbarth had been talking about the possibility in executive sessions for “about five months,” Haff and Hagenbarth said.
The board also took action Monday night to offer the town manager position to a pre-selected candidate, but did not announce who the person was until Tuesday. At an emergency Select Board meeting at 2:30 p.m. Michael Ramsey, 36, signed an agreement with the town to become its new town manager.
Ramsey is currently the town manager in Proctor. He gave his resignation to the Proctor Select Board on Monday night, June 12. He will stay at the helm in Proctor for 60 days (per his contract) and start in Killington Aug. 14 — about two years after he first moved to Proctor for the job.
Hagenbarth will remain in the position as town manger until Ramsey starts, then will transition to director of public works. There will be no change in his salary or benefits.
Ramsey will be compensated $98,000 plus benefits.
When Selectmen Steve Finneron asked for clarification about their different roles, Hagenbarth summarized: “I’ll be the first point of contact for roads, building and anything TIF related.”
Haff added: “There is simply too much work for any one person to do at this point.”
Ramsey currently lives in Poultney with his partner of eight years, Brandy and their three cats. She works at Rutland Mental Health. Ramsey says they hope to move close to Killington by the winter, but acknowledged the challenging housing market.
Prior to moving to Vermont for the Proctor job in August 2021, Ramsey lived in Waynesboro, Virginia, a town of 22,000 people in the midst of the Blue Ridge Mountains. There Ramsey had been operations coordinator for Waynesboro where he oversaw a $3 million annual budget for the Public Works Department.
Ramsey was raised in Amherst, Virginia, a small town of about 2,200 people where he attended high school with little expectation to attend college, according to a story in the Brandon Reporter when he was new to the area. He then joined the U.S. Navy and serve four years from 2008-2012 in Japan, after which he got his bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from Randolph College in Lynchburg, Va, and a master’s degree in public administration from Ohio University. And somewhere along the way, he learned to play the banjo and love snow.
“The Navy helped straighten me out. My family came from coal county in West Virginia, so life wasn’t always sunshine and roses growing up. I was raised hard and could have easily gone down the wrong path, but the military helped me focus energy toward more positive things like setting goals, getting an education, and exercising,” he said.
“In Waynesboro’s Public Works Department, I managed large capital improvement projects, oversaw a multi-million budget, and managed around 20 utility workers. When I wasn’t doing that, I was operating backhoes, plowing roads, and working on my graduate degree,” he told the Reporter.
“I’ve always known I wanted to be a public servant and one of my goals was to become a town manager. When I got the Proctor job I was thrilled, and we’ve been able to accomplish a lot in the past two year,” Ramsey explained. “But this is the greatest opportunity of my life,” he said of being selected to lead Killington. “I’m giddy! I just can’t wait to really show you what we can do,” he said Tuesday at the Sherburne Memorial Library after signing the agreement.
Hagenbarth, who’s 62 and has been the town manager for five years, said he is glad the town is getting more help as the projects and demands those projects grow.
“I’ll be glad to really get to focus in on the TIF and public works stuff. Right now there are like 15 different things that all demand all of my attention all the time. It’s just too much, as Jim said… I’m happy to be passing the town manager baton to Michael and be here to support all that we’ve put in place already.”
“We have a really good team here,” Hagenbarth said. “And that’s a great place to start from.”
Michael Ramsey.
