Darnell Brown

Chief Operating Officer

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DARNELL BROWN, Chief Operating Officer for the City of Cleveland oversees the departments of Public Service, Public Utilities, Parks, Recreation & Properties, Health, Aging, Consumer Affairs, Community Relations, Civil Service, Personnel, and oversees the work of the Chief Technology Officer to ensure the highest quality of basic city service is delivered to Cleveland residents. He advises the Mayor on significant policy issues and strategic initiatives affecting the City of Cleveland. A 31-year veteran executive administrator, Brown has public service experience in government administration including operations, capital improvements, facilities construction and maintenance, budgeting, labor relations and organizational development.

Brown began his career with the City of Cleveland Division of Water as a Personnel Assistant and worked his way up through the ranks to Commissioner of Water Pollution Control in 1988. As Commissioner, he administered and controlled a division responsible for operation and regulatory compliance of the sewer system of the City of Cleveland. During his tenure Brown worked on rate studies and competitive assessment initiatives resulting in provision of high quality, low cost service. Specific accomplishments as Commissioner include:

• Implementing tighter budgeting and control measures that resulted in the elimination of a $10 million deficit and increase of revenues;
• Developing a comprehensive five-year capital improvement program that resulted in elimination of long existing flooding problem in the city, thereby improving quality of life for residents;
• Implementing management best practices for the operation and maintenance of the City’s sewer collection system that resulted in significant increases in performance of all measurable maintenance areas with no increase in staff;
• Implementing an IT Work Management System that significantly improved the ability to track customer complaints, schedule work, job cost, manage inventory control and generate management reports;
• Introducing Balanced Scorecard management process, which allowed the division to establish measurable goals and objectives at all levels of the organization and applied a structured approach to planning activities.

Brown served as Acting Director of the Department of Public Utilities for 11 months during the White and Campbell administrations overseeing a budget of $423 million—71 percent of the total enterprise fund budget—and 1,700 employees.

In 2004, Brown was appointed Chief Operating Officer. His departments then had operating budgets of over $728 million and 4,000 employees.

Brown’s civic involvement includes membership on the boards of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, and the Doan Brook Watershed Partnership and the Cuyahoga County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. He is the current president of all three boards. He also serves on the board of the Cleveland Foodbank.

A graduate of the Cleveland Public Schools, Brown attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He has two children, Danielle and Kenneth and is married to Terri Hamilton Brown who heads Corporate Diversity for National City Corporation.

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