BY JOHN HENNEBERGER
Readers will recall Governor Perry passed responsibility for the Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Dolly disaster recovery programs to Texas General Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson effective July 1. This afternoon I met with Gary Hagood, Deputy Commissioner of GLO and the new man responsible for overseeing the program.
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| JERRY PATTERSON |
Also present were two of Hagood’s key lieutenants, Sandra Dodd and Jorge Ramirez. Hagood has been at GLO 25 years. He impresses me as someone ready to shake things up and get the disaster relief flowing. He now serves as Deputy Commissioner for Financial Management overseeing 100 GLO employees. Hagood allowed that he is used to managing big projects. While still in his 20′s Hagood says he oversaw the transfer of child support from DHS to the Office of the Attorney General. More recently, he oversaw the $40 million GLO effort to clean up Texas beaches after Hurricane Ike. He got that done quickly.
The $3.1 billion CDBG disaster recovery program is many times the size of those programs.
Like his boss Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, Hagood is a genuine Texan. He expresses himself emphatically and makes clear he is prepared to make decisions and shake things up. It appears the Governor has given Patterson the authority to run the CDBG disaster recovery program how he thinks best. That means Hagood will have a chance to make good on his promise of change and efficiency. Read More
