By Mike Gregory
On a Thursday afternoon you can find city manager Guillermo Ferrero sticking to his weekly routine of dining out at a local restaurant.
Ladysmith’s new Chief Administrative Officer is five months into his new role this week and riding high on the town’s potential with its heritage and character.
“It’s an old mining town that has a lot of opportunity for employment and tax diversity,” Ferrero said.
“Without a doubt one of the things that this town needs is to get more people to stay here overnight, open more businesses and bring more families.”
Attracting that tax diversity is one of town council’s strategic priorities from now through to 2019 and it’s Ferrero’s role to help to see it through.
“The challenge is this is a great document that’s going to guide us through the process, it’s going to guide the budget process….and my job is to create an action plan that is going to get them there.”
Ferrero’s background is in information technology and he moved to Nanaimo with his wife Maisa from Fresno, Calif., back in 1999.
The couple moved to the U.S. to study English from their native country of Argentina where Ferrero had worked for Mercedes Benz and grew up as an avid sailor, even racing in his 20s from Buenos Aires to Brazil.
He held a position with Island Internet before joining the City of Nanaimo where he worked for 10 years, most recently as director of legislative services, communications and information technology.
In 2013 Ferrero was awarded the Bronze Innovation Management National Award from the Institute of Public Administration in Canada for eTown Hall implementation.
He joined the Town of Ladysmith in June 2016.
Ferrero said the town is heavily invested in a partnership with the Cowichan Valley Regional District to bring tourism to Ladysmith and he sees potential in making it into a “destination town.”
“One of the main challenges that we have is people drive by the town but they really don’t know that we have a 1st Avenue and we have so many cool things going on there,” he said.
“We have an open canvas for us to do a lot of things here.”
But while town council works on attracting new businesses, it must also make the necessary investments in maintaining an aging infrastructure.
“We have an older infrastructure and we have to maintain it and without a doubt we need to protect it,” Ferrero said.
Even a new facility like the $8.8 million water filtration plant is a major project requiring special attention from the town’s public works department.
“I’ve got to adjust my team, I’ve got to adjust my resources to make it happen,” he said.
It’s a heavy workload but one that Ferrero makes sure to balance with hobbies he enjoys outside of the office such as scuba diving, surfing and mountain biking, a sport he participates in almost daily.
Riding the peaceful singletrack trails gives him an opportunity to ponder the long term and bigger picture issues facing Ladysmith as the town aims to promote sustainable growth.
The waterfront plan will play a big part in Ladysmith’s future, he said.
“We still have a pretty (large) green area right there that we still don’t have a real understanding of what the community really wants,” he said. “For me that’s huge because we’re going to be participating in a design process with the community.
“They’re going to tell us what the vision is they have for that place and that’s going to shape the next forty years of this town.”
Ferrero said the one thing that he didn’t know about Ladysmith prior to working here was the degree to which it’s success is driven by volunteers and is rooted in community.
“The Light Up is a good example of that. We’re famous in Ladysmith for that and we want to make sure we keep raising that bar higher and higher,” adding that even the degree to which council members are asked to volunteer changes the course of business.
“It influences my way to do business and understanding how we can fit in those volunteers.”
Upbeat about the town’s future and the possibility of attracting new business and tourism, Ferrero sees a bright future ahead.
“When I walk through Ladysmith all I see is potential,” he said.
