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The vast bureaucracies of
Atlanta and Philadelphia grind slowly, he suggests. So
slowly that it’s much more difficult in such places to get
to the point of his chosen career – helping people.
“I’m about people and it’s
a people business,” he says of a housing authority. “It’s
making sure people have quality dwellings and giving them a
chance. I understand because I did not grow up with a silver
spoon in my mouth and my heart goes out to people who say ‘I
don’t know how to get through the day.’”
LaMar arrives in Toledo
during a time of great change within LMHA and, he is
convinced, within the region as a whole.
LMHA, under the guidance
of LaMar’s boss, Executive Director Linnie Willis, is in the
midst of a three-phase building project that will create
almost 200 new units at a cost of more than $33 million.
However, the agency, one of the oldest of its type in the
nation, faces some challenges, says LaMar.
Among the top challenges
he faces as deputy director are updating technology
operations, collecting data and marketing the agency.
“We are a little behind,”
he says of the technology issue. “In our basic IT functions
we are utilizing 21 centers.” LMHA, says LaMar needs to
increase communication efficiency and face the challenge of
doing more with less.
“With our funding
seemingly getting reduced every year, technology can affect
our bottom line,” he notes. LaMar conducts monthly
leadership meeting during which the topic of technology is
of paramount importance.
Collecting accurate data
about LMHA’s residents will be critical to enhancing the
agency’s services going forward, says LaMar. “This will
allow us to affect more households as we learn who’s under
what roofs, who’s the head of the household, who’s a
veteran, for example. That way we can align people with what
they need. I’m big on that because we come from a community
that doesn’t network the way other communities do.”
As a third important
challenge, LaMar speaks to the need of “getting out the word
of what we do as an organization.” The importance of this
self-promotion he says is to foster networking and develop
partnerships within the community and region.
As LMHA is in transition,
LaMar says, so is the region. “Toledo has elements of what
Atlanta was like before it became an international city,” he
says. “I was raised in Atlanta and saw people create
opportunity, particularly during Mayor Maynard Jackson’s
time. The 21st century is awaiting Toledo’s
arrival and LMHA is part of that future.”
LaMar is bullish on Toledo
because he sees the “ripple effect” of things that are
already happening – LMHA’s projects, for example,
Neighborhood Health Association’s Jefferson Street project
and ProMedica’s move into the downtown area. “We are on tap
for a revival. We are in the infancy steps of rebirth. We
are already a hub for higher education. We are going to see
people taking note of what Toledo can be,” he says brimming
with optimism.
LaMar earned his
undergraduate degree in finance from Alabama Agricultural
and Mechanical University where he was a scholar and an
athlete. He earned a masters in business administration from
Brenau (GA) University and a masters in social work and
public administration from the University of Washington.
He is a member of a number
of professional and civic organizations such as the Rotary
Club of Toledo, the board of the Boys and Girls Club of
Toledo, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. In 2012, the
Atlanta Business Chronicle included LaMar in its annual “40
Atlantans under 40” class.
The fact doesn’t escape
the Atlanta native that he has arrived in Toledo during a
period in which the traffic is headed almost entirely the
other way as Toledoans flee the Glass City in droves seeking
to move to the booming Atlanta metropolis. He is, however,
unfazed by the irony.
“Economic growth is
inevitable and everybody who fled will be clamoring to come
back,” he confidently predicts. |
