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Contact: Jennifer Bennerotte, Communications & Marketing Director
Phone 952-833-9520 • Fax 952-826-0389 • Web www.CityofEdina.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
City names new Assistant City Manager
Edina, Minn., June 29, 2011 – Karen Kurt has accepted an offer to become the City of Edina's
new Assistant City Manager.
Kurt is currently the Human Resources & Support Services Manager for the City of Eden Prairie,
where she has worked since 2002. Prior to her position in Eden Prairie, Kurt held human resources
leadership positions with Minnesota Technology, Inc., VERITAS Software and the City of Roseville.
Kurt earned her bachelor’s degree from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell
University in Ithaca, NY. She is studying for her master’s degree in Urban Studies at Minnesota State
University-Mankato.
Kurt will replace former Assistant City Manager Heather Worthington, who left the position in
October 2010 to accept the position of Deputy County Administrator for Ramsey County. The
Brimeyer Fursman consulting group led the initial search for the position, for which 130 people
applied.
“Karen has exactly the right skill set that I was looking for in an Assistant City Manager,” said City
Manager Scott Neal. “She is very bright. She knows how to create and implement a performance-
based, customer-centered work culture in a local government organization. That’s what we need
here.”
Among the initial goals for the new Assistant City Manager are to develop an orientation and
continuing education program for the members of the City’s advisory boards and commissions,
develop a new organizational performance measurement system and to improve the City’s systems
for collecting and using survey data and management information in the City’s policy-making
processes.
“I worked with Karen for eight years while I was Eden Prairie’s City Manager,” Neal said. “She is a
trusted advisor and in many ways acted as my de facto assistant city manager there. I am looking
forward to her joining our leadership team. She did great work in Eden Prairie. I know she’ll do
great work here in Edina as well.”
Kurt will begin work in Edina Monday, Aug. 1.
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