OLDS — The town’s new operations director is working to get to know town staff and the community as a whole after starting his job Nov. 1.
Scott Grieco was introduced during town council’s Nov. 1 policies and priorities meeting. He replaces Scott Chant. Chant and the town parted ways abruptly last spring.
Before coming to Olds, Grieco, 45, was manager of transit innovation and planning for the City of Lethbridge.
In that job, he worked closely with parks, recreation and transportation staff as well as those responsible for roads and planning and people involved in real estate and land development.
Among the large-scale projects he worked on were the city’s transit Park’n Ride system and a redesign of the Lethbridge Transit system (cityLINK).
“Scott’s experience in managing and leading high-performing teams has been a major accomplishment in his career in public service,” an email from community services director Doug Wagstaff says.
Wagstaff served as acting operations director after Chant left.
Grieco was born and raised in St. Albert. He came to Lethbridge to play major junior hockey with the Hurricanes and fell in love with the community.
He obtained a management degree from the University of Lethbridge and studied leadership at a business school.
Grieco said his experience in Lethbridge qualifies him to oversee major civic projects in Olds.
He said that experience taught him how to not only ensure a project is built smoothly but also how to obtain government grants for it and deal with other issues like cost overruns and shortages.
“There’s a lot that goes into operationalizing a facility,” Grieco said.
Over the years, Grieco has worked on several master plans – for mobility and accessibility as well as transportation.
He’s also dealt with lots of committees and hopes to be on many committees here in Olds.
Wagstaff said Grieco’s experience – especially his leadership skills – are what attracted town officials to him.
He also pointed out that staff and contractors will also be able to give Grieco the benefit of their advice, skills and experience.
“Our senior leadership team is just that – needing to take leadership and build our community. That was the main focus for bringing Scott in,” Wagstaff said.
Having just been hired, Grieco said his plan for the next 100 days is to get to know staff and the community.
“Every community’s unique and he recognized that it would take some time for him to both get to meet – but also get to understand – our community culture,” Wagstaff said.
Although Lethbridge is much larger than Olds, Grieco said he sees this job as a step up in his career.
“What really attracted me was this is my first executive leadership role,” he said.
“It’s a nice segway into growing the career further and given the community – it’s just super exciting.”
Grieco and his wife Renee, a personal trainer for athletes, have two boys: Dominic, 14, and Matteo, 11.
He said the long-term plan is for Renee and the boys to move to the Olds area but he said that may not happen for many months for two reasons: they live on an acreage and want to buy one here. That may take time.
Secondly, the boys would prefer to have Christmas in their Lethbridge-area home. For now, it’s easier to keep them in school there and perhaps move here in the summer.
So for now, Grieco will commute between the two communities.
“On the flip side of that, that gives me time to focus on partnerships. I really want to learn more about Olds College and what the community has to offer and how operations fits in on that,” he said.
“I want to warm up to the community and really focus on building those partnerships and relationships.”
As a former WHL player, Grieco is naturally a hockey fan. He said he’s been too busy to introduce himself to the Olds Grizzlys junior A hockey team, but said that may happen in time.
