WHITNEY – The Township of South Algonquin’s new CAO/clerk treasurer feels like she is finally home.
Holly Hayes, who was recently hired to the township, replaces Sue Klatt, who accepted a CAO position with Horton Township.
Hayes was born at St. Francis Memorial Hospital and grew up in Whitney. She attended North Hastings High School and moved away in 1996 to attend college. She had the option to stay for Grade 13, but decided against that because she didn’t like the long bus ride all the way to high school.
“At the time, I felt like the bus ride was the most horrible thing in the world, and I just needed to get out of here,” she said. “Later, I found out that a daily commute on Highway 400 was much worse than being able to sleep your way to Bancroft on the bus.”
She took environmental engineering technology in Barrie and then obtained her Bachelor of Science from Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia.
During her career, she has worked with the Ontario Clean Water Agency as an operations applications specialist, and then with the Township of Tay in public works administration. She then moved on to work with Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority with planning and hydrogeology, and then at the Canadian Forces Base Borden as a team leader – construction and contract management.
Before returning to Whitney, she worked with the City of Barrie as a supervisor of policy and standards.
“Having worked in all levels of government as well as private sector, I find being at the municipal level very rewarding,” Hayes told the Gazette. “In this position, there is amazing opportunity for the work that I do every day to positively impact my local community. This is something that I have been searching for over the past few years of my career; to me success is doing something that you genuinely care about every day and this job gives me so many reasons to want to do great work.”
Get your October 12, 2016 edition of The Valley Gazette to read the full story.