Jeff Taylor started his job as Tantramar’s new director of Community and Corporate Services on April 14, filling a role on the municipality’s senior management team left empty when previous director Kieran Miller left in August 2024.
CHMA sat down with Taylor to find out more about him, and what’s involved in his new job.
Taylor studied both accounting and law, but moved on from both to his chosen field of business and economic development.
Taylor says he ran a business incubator in western Canada, and most recently, worked for nearly two years in Happy Valley, Goose Bay, Labrador, where he helped people start businesses.
Taylor is a New Brunswicker, born in Riverview and raised in Quispamsis, who spent the past dozen years in Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador.
He says he’s been amazed at how much the province has grown in the past decade. “There’s so much development everywhere,” he says. “Everything is so much bigger than when I left.”
Taylor will be bringing his business and economic development experience to bear on his work in Tantramar. He says he will focus on streamlining or simplifying the processes for opening a business or building new housing in Tantramar. “I want to make it easier to do the things we want done,” says Taylor. “I want to try to work on removing some of the barriers and streamlining things when it comes to things like building housing, opening a business and that kind of thing.”
Taylor says he’d like his department to be a “one stop shop” for potential business operators, to guide them through various processes. “Right now, you have to go to a whole bunch of different places and figure things out, and there’s no real direction on what you do,” says Taylor. “I would like to have it set up so if you want to open a business here, you come see us, and we’ll help you navigate through the system and the obstacles.”
Taylor says he believes that support can happen with existing staff in his department, which included manager of tourism and business development Ron Kelly-Spurles and communications officer Jeremy McLaughlin.
Taylor says the job of director of Community and Corporate Services “entails a lot of little things, most of the things that don’t fall under one of the other departments.”
“Our job is to take on the projects set out by the Council and the municipality, and work on making them a reality,” says Taylor. “So each little thing that doesn’t fall under public works, finance, active living and culture, all of these projects, big or small, that’s where we come in.”
Taylor’s predecessors Kieran Miller, and before her, former Sackville CAO Jamie Burke, both worked extensively on the Lorne Street Stormwater Mitigation project, which recently wrapped up. Miller also helped set up the municipality’s Climate Change Advisory Committee, and managed the short-lived Climate Change coordinator position.
Taylor says there may very well be another large scale project in the municipality’s future, but he’s not sure what it will be. “There’s always something that needs to be done,” says Taylor. “I know usually you can only take on one of those big projects every so many years, but I imagine we’ll have some more coming up.”
