For the past three years, Manny Gomez has been the acting City Manager of Hobbs following the retirement of J.J. Murphy. On Monday, April 19, the Hobbs City Commission voted unanimously to appoint Gomez as the official City Manager based on his dedicated service and his vision for the community.

“It is an honor to be entrusted with this new opportunity,” Gomez told the Lea County Tribune. He describes how he began his public service career as a firefighter in 1985 because he wanted to “help people and make a positive difference,” and in the time since then, he’s learned that “you can help people and make a positive difference in any public servant capacity.”

Becoming city manager and presiding over the entire municipal organization of Hobbs gives Gomez the ability to make a profound impact on the community. “I am very grateful,” he exudes.

Gomez views the City’s response to the twin challenges of COVID-19 and the downturn in oil and gas as a “confident one,” and has clear goals on where he would like to see the City in five years. Gomez aims to create a “a developed, implemented and funded comprehensive plan that addresses all of our critical infrastructure sectors” to boost the City’s future resilience.

Organizational cooperation is a key factor in Gomez’s vision to tackle existing structural and systemic problems. As such, he would like to see “all levels of government working together and being proactive to address depleted infrastructure and institutionalized racism.”

Fostering forward-thinking in the City’s officials and personnel will help resolve additional issues and create a more robust community, Gomez believes. A third goal of his is “to have people in positions of power recognize the past mistakes of inaction and understand we cannot [wait to] solve our problems until the worst is already here.”

Declaring 2020 to be an “historic year,” Gomez sees several challenges facing Hobbs. Among the greatest challenges is the need to recover from the pandemic and the ongoing state mandates, which Gomez intends to be as proactive as possible about. “The City of Hobbs knows our local businesses are hurting and we stand with them,” Gomez said. “Their success equals our success!”

A second major challenge Hobbs is contending with is employee burnout in the public and private sectors, Gomez shares. “It is a real systemic challenge, and we must develop tools to help. We can’t change overwork or low pay easily, but we can change levels of belonging and social support.”

In line with the need to provide support to employees, Gomez views the City’s people as its greatest asset. “The City of Hobbs organization and our citizens are more adaptable than one might realize,” Gomez said, citing the community’s demonstrated resiliency in both its personal and professional life. “The fact that our community is still standing, and leaders continue working in order to guide our community through a pandemic coupled with economic downturn is a testament to that resiliency.

“It is our citizens who continue to charge forward, together, through whatever challenges or opportunities lie ahead,” Gomez concluded.