City Of Milton: Sara Leaders Promoted To Become Milton's Public Works Director

Press release from the City of Milton:

09/08/2021 4:54 PM

Sara Leaders -- a long-admired City stalwart and leading force behind many of Milton's transportation improvements -- has been promoted to Public Works Director.

The new role should be a natural for Leaders, who has served as the City's Acting Public Works Director since Robert Drewry's departure last spring. She brings nearly 19 years of professional experience to the job, the vast majority of that with the City of Milton.

"Sara has earned this position thanks to her impressive work ethic, intelligence and calm, methodical, effective approach to tasks big and small," said City Manager Steve Krokoff. "She's a great leader and great team player, and we're extremely fortunate to have her on Team Milton."

After graduating from Southern Polytechnic State University, where she was Civil Engineering Student of the Year and Georgia Engineering Technology Student of the Year, Leaders worked as a Project Manager with Lowe Engineers for four years. During that time, she tackled projects related to land development design, roadway design and more.

Leaders joined the City of Milton in 2007, months after its incorporation, as Transportation Engineer. As such, she's overseen all steps in a wide variety of road projects such as numerous roundabouts around Milton that have improved traffic flow while maintaining the city's rural character. Leaders has been deeply involved in budgeting, ensuring the City's efficient use of taxpayer funds (including through TSPLOST) from quick fixes to major capital improvements. And she had the opportunity to spearhead traffic studies and calming programs, work with private contractors and public entities such as the Georgia Department of Transportation, and make presentations at dozens of official meetings.

For the first eight months of 2019, Leaders was tapped as the City's Acting Public Works Director. She got thrust again into that role in early April at a time when several City projects were in the works or about to kick off. Since then, two roundabouts along Hopewell Road (at Hamby and Thompson roads) finished months ahead of schedule, work on another one at Hopewell and Bethany Bend began, and construction kicked off on new trails at the City-owned former Milton Country Club property.

So far in 2021, Leaders has been at the forefront of the City's transparency efforts through her creation and upkeep of ClearGov project pages (which can be viewed at https://cleargov.com/georgia/fulton/city/milton/projects). And she's become involved in other aspects of the Public Works Department such as the management of City facilities, planning for greenspaces, the ongoing development of a Local Road Safety Plan, and more.

Leaders lives in Milton with her husband and two children.

"I know and appreciate what makes Milton special, and I'm humbled to be part of it," said Leaders. "And I'm grateful to have an outstanding community behind us as well as a terrific staff here in Milton's Public Works Department."

This press release was produced by the City of Milton. The views expressed here are the author’s own.