ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 15, 1997 TAG: 9704150093
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN THE ROANOKE TIMES
Isner was selected from 27 applicants to become the first full-time economic development director.
Montgomery County's new administrator, Jeff Johnson, announced two appointments to his senior staff Monday, promoting from within for one position and bringing in a former employee of his for another.
Carol Edmonds, Montgomery's finance director for the past 2 1/2 years, becomes the county's assistant administrator. Bob Isner, executive director of the Brunswick County Industrial Development Authority, becomes Montgomery's economic development director May1.
Isner was selected from 27 applicants and eight semifinalists to become the county's first full-time economic development director. He replaces Don Moore, who left in February to step into the private sector and run the New River Valley office of Hall Associates, a Roanoke-based commercial and industrial realty firm.
Edmonds, 41, is replacing Jeff Lunsford for the second time. Lunsford, who left Montgomery last month to become Louisa County's administrator, was promoted to assistant administrator in 1994 after nine years as the county's finance director.
Edmonds is a Christiansburg native who worked for 11 years on state budgeting in Richmond and earlier worked for the state Department of Information Technology. Edmonds was a semifinalist for the county administrator job that Johnson eventually landed. He replaced Betty Thomas, who retired March 31 after 16 years.
Isner, 53, worked for Johnson in Brunswick County for about 18 months. While there, he helped the county aggressively pursue a private prison project that is scheduled to open this winter as the state's first.
Isner said he found it very satisfying to help Brunswick develop an economic development program beyond courting the prison.
"I think the biggest success [was] participating in initiating a complete turnaround" in economic development planning, he said. The county "had been apathetic and now they're on their way to recovery. We've come a long way in that small county in just a two-year period."
He praised Montgomery County and the region for its "many success stories up and down the Interstate 81 corridor."
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