A moment that’s been months in the making, Chatham-Kent’s Chief Administrative Officer is stepping into retirement.
Don Shropshire attended his final virtual council meeting last night after 10 years in the CAO position and gave a special thank you to municipal staff.
“Any of the accomplishments we made over the past 12 and a half years have been the result of an incredibly dedicated team that wants to serve this community and make it better,” Shropshire said.
“We have an incredibly large geography that has lots of challenges and notwithstanding all the emergencies and things we’ve had, people have done a phenomenal job to step up and do that in a way that makes our community better and better.”
First hired as general manager of community development in 2009, Shropshire took over the CAO role in 2012.
Shropshire had hoped to retire at the end of 2021, but issues with finding a replacement kept him on the job longer than expected.
Mayor Darrin Canniff paid tribute to his colleague, calling Shropshire a fantastic ambassador for the community.
A veteran administrator in the region, Tony Haddad is stepping into the position on an interim basis until a permanent replacement can be found. An executive search, currently underway, is expected to take about three months.
