City manager receives international award

Mountain Brook City Manager Sam Gaston will receive the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Academic Award this fall.

In addition to his role as city manager, Gaston has taught at Regent University’s Robertson School of Government since 2014. Students in Regent’s Master of Public Administration (MPA) program and his former students at UAB, where he taught from 1999-2014, nominated him for the award.

 “His teaching and mentoring skills are so remarkable that, when I accepted the position at Regent University, I looked for opportunities to integrate my new MPA students with Professor Gaston,” said Regent MPA program director Dr. James D. Slack. “In my mind, Professor Gaston was uniquely and exceptionally qualified. His record of classroom excellence and mentoring success quickly convinced my colleagues of the wisdom in pursuing Professor Gaston for this new position. His colleagues, and his students, do not regret that decision.”

The ICMA award winner is chosen from hundreds of MPA programs across the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. Established in the name of the longtime director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government, the Sweeney Award recognizes a classroom instructor who has made a significant contribution to the formal education of students pursuing careers in local government.

“Professor Gaston’s students are fundamentally shaped by his seasoned practitioner experience, his outstanding teaching skills and his exceptional mentoring capacity,” said Dr. Eric Patterson, Regent dean. “Students benefit from his willingness to advance their goals from classroom dreams to the reality of actual careers at city hall. I am proud to have Professor Gaston on our MPA faculty.”

Gaston’s expertise and teaching focus on city/county management and public administration leadership and ethics. He is past president of the 9,000-member ICMA, past regional vice president of ICMA and past president of the Alabama City-County Management Association.

Gaston has served as Mountain Brook’s city manager since 1993. He is the recipient of the Outstanding Public Official award from the Alabama Urban Forestry Association, the Vocational Excellence award from the Alabama City-County Management Association and the Administrator of the Year award from the Greater Birmingham Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration.

While at UAB, Gaston helped establish the nation’s first ICMA student chapter and has formed one at Regent. He earned an MPA degree from Auburn University at Montgomery and an undergraduate degree in public administration from Auburn University.

Gaston will be formally recognized with the award at the 2015 ICMA annual meeting in September.