Greenwood native, John Bailey, has filed as a candidate for the office of Mayor of the City of Greenwood. Bailey submitted the following candidate profile to the Greenwood Resident:
John is a life-long resident of the Greenwood area including during his 22-year Army career. His family has a tradition of community service in Greenwood, most notably three generations of his family have served on the Greenwood School Board. His father, Dr. Charles Bailey, served on the Greenwood School Board for over 20 years most of it as President.
John has used the knowledge he gained in the Army in financial management, infrastructure and water management to serve Greenwood on its Water Committee and Water/WastewaterCommission for a decade where he just finished three years as its Chairman.
He initially served as a platoon leader, executive officer and construction officer of the 515th Pipeline Construction Company. He next spent 7 years as a combat engineer, earning the Sapper Tab and commanding Delta Company, 588th Engineer Battalion for 26 months.
John planned, built, and maintained Army facilities and infrastructure in the United States, Asia, Central America, and Europe. For 3 years he served as the Director of Public Works (DPW) for the 235th Base Support Battalion (BSB)at Ansbach, Germany. He had responsibility for the facilities and infrastructure of four Army bases, two airfields, three housing areas and a training area. During those 3 years, Ansbach was twice named as the best Army community in Europe during the annual Army Community of Excellence awards beating out 15 other Army communities in addition to being named as the first runner-up for all Army communities worldwide. In 1996 the 235th BSB won a Department of Energy award for having the best energy conservation program in the federal government. For a year he was dual-hatted and served as the base operations officer with responsibility for all training facilities, airfield operations, and supporting the deployment of units into Bosnia. In this second position, he upgraded the radar systems, built the initial U.S. Army Fire Fighting Training Center-Ansbach, and worked noise abatement issues at the Katterbach Airfield and extended the runway at the Illesheim Airfield making it capable of handling fixed-wing aircraft.
After leaving Germany he was next assigned as the Deputy Commander and Deputy District Engineer of the Mobile District of the Army Corps of Engineers. In addition to overseeing all the District’s support activities, he oversaw flood control and water resources over a four-state area including Western Georgia, most of Alabama, Eastern Mississippi, and the Florida Panhandle. This included navigation on five inland waterways and twenty-three seaports as well as managing eight hydropower plants and ten reservoirs which provided drinking water to 5 million people. While stationed in Mobile and between deployments to South Korea, Bosnia and Kosovo he took evening accounting classes and passed the CPA exam just prior to retiring from the Army.
For his last six months at the Mobile District, he was dual-hatted as the Director of Resource Management overseeing the execution of the District’s $800 million annual budget while continuing his command and engineering responsibilities. He also served on Mobile’s Regional Economic Committee for a year.
He finished his Army career back as a combat engineer advising the 150th Engineer Battalion in Meridian, Mississippi, and helped prepare them for their deployment to Iraq in 2004.
John has been married to his wife Natalia for 26 years and they have one son Charles who is a Certified Public Accountant and works for Wal-Mart. He enjoys reading, bicycling, skiing and hiking often with Boy Scout Troop 54.
As mayor, he plans to focus on four areas which are:
1. Emphasize providing essential city services in an exemplary manner over mega projects.
2. Prioritize quality of life initiatives within the community.
3. Promote sustainable growth that reduces flooding and traffic problems.
4. Support Greenwood’s greatest institution and its main industry – our great public schools!
-John Bailey, candidate for Mayor of the City of Greenwood
