ENFIELD — The town has reached out to Plainfield by way of Lebanon to help shape its future.
Enfield has hired Rob Taylor, executive director of the Lebanon Area Chamber of Commerce, for the newly titled position of land use and community development administrator. He fills the vacancy created when former Planning and Zoning Administrator Scott Osgood left last year to become Claremont’s city planner.
Taylor starts Monday with an initial salary of $57,500.
The 48-year-old Meriden resident, who has headed the chamber for the past three years and is a member of the Plainfield Selectboard, will assume the traditional planning and zoning responsibilities of Osgood’s former position but also is taking on an expanded role in economic and community development.
When the job opened up six months ago, “it presented us with an opportunity to integrate new elements into the position” beyond simply the “technical aspects” of planning and zoning matters, said Town Manager Ryan Aylesworth.
He said one of Taylor’s first big tasks will be a “complete rewrite” of Enfield’s master plan, which was last adopted in 1995.
Aylesworth, who was hired as town manager in 2017 from Massachusetts and gradually began putting his mark on the town, said that Taylor’s experience in leading the Lebanon Chamber and his longtime profile in the Upper Valley community make him an ideal choice to step into the new economic development role for Enfield.
“He brings a wealth of experience in both economic development and ties to the key players in the Upper Valley,” Aylesworth said, explaining that Taylor’s job will “include helping shape the message to the outside world (in) what Enfield is all about and helping businesses to relocate here.”
He said the role calls for leveraging the town’s ample outdoor recreational and cultural “assets” such as Mascoma Lakeside Park, public forest lands, Enfield Shaker Museum and La Salette of Enfield shrine and retreat into a “central component of our broader community and economic development strategy.”
Taylor, who previously served on Plainfield’s planning board, said updating Enfield’s master plan “will be the big priority” but he expects to be tackling everything from the town’s municipal building requirements to housing and transportation needs in addition to “trying to get some new businesses to open up out here.”
Taylor, who worked at his family’s Meriden dairy farm and sugarhouse business before taking the Chamber job in 2016 and earlier had been a federal accounts manager with Red River Computer in Claremont, will see a familiar face around town: younger brother Jim Taylor runs Enfield’s Public Works Department.
Taylor also had a good handle of what the town was looking for in a candidate to fill the position. Aylesworth earlier had reached out to Taylor to join the three-member panel that was to review the final candidates under consideration.
Asked if that presented any conflicts of interest in the hiring process, Aylesworth said he didn’t think so because Taylor had only raised his hand as a candidate after all three of the final candidates had to withdraw from consideration for a variety of reasons before they even went before the review panel.
Taylor led the Lebanon Chamber during a period of transition and retrenchment for the business-booster civic group.
Succeeding Paul Boucher, who retired as executive director after 16 years, Taylor managed the Lebanon Chamber as it pulled back from its two signature productions: the Wings and Wheels event at the airport, which it had to abandon after losing the lease to its space and the annual HomeLife Expo show held at Leverone Field House in Hanover. The expo was scrapped in March after 40 years because of declining exhibitor participation and attendance.
Although Taylor initiated the launch of the Lebanon Chamber’s “Upper Valley Institute” program designed to educate Upper Valley businesses on workplace trends and issues, Taylor said the role of the chamber — like small town chambers everywhere — is being challenged by the rise of online shopping and the ease of access the internet provides to information about local communities.
“The trend in chambers everywhere has changed. Before the internet, the chamber was an invaluable source of business information in the local community. Now all that is available free online. So chambers have had to retrench and refocus and find a new role,” he said.
Taylor said the fact that he could get health insurance through the job in Enfield, but not at the chamber, was also a factor in his decision to leave.
Rich Wallace, chairman of the Lebanon Chamber and advertising director of the Valley News, praised Taylor for his service and dedication to the Upper Valley business community.
“Rob has been a great asset to the Lebanon Area Chamber and we are going to miss his enthusiasm and the passion that he brought to the Executive Director position and the Lebanon area business community,” Wallace said.
The chamber’s board of directors plan to begin a search for Taylor’s replacement “in the near future,” Wallace said.
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.
