Mayor-elect Jim Kenney this week appointed a lesbian and a gay man to two new top posts.
Anne Fadullon will serve as director of the Planning and Development Cabinet starting Jan. 4. Voters established the new cabinet in the City Charter in November to combine and oversee the city divisions of development services, housing, and zoning and planning.
“Having the planning and implementation functions together is great so they can inform each other,” Fadullon told PGN. “It’s great to have wonderful plans, but if we can’t ultimately implement them, we don’t want them to just sit on the shelf. And in the field, you’re often in the weeds and need help seeing the larger picture.”
Jeff Guaracino will become president and CEO of Welcome America Inc., the official producer of Philadelphia’s Independence Day celebration. Under the Kenney administration, the nonprofit is charged with expanding its focus to create citywide events year-round.
“The opportunities are boundless, quite frankly,” Guaracino told PGN. “The first step will be to plan what will hopefully be a tremendous Fourth of July celebration and re-engage stakeholders. It will precede the 2016 [Democratic National Convention], really kicking off the national attention for the city.”
Kenney said Fadullon and Guaracino each have decades of experience, making them ideal candidates.
Fadullon has worked in real-estate development, legislative policy and project management, which Kenney called instrumental in creating “the cross-department coordination that is much needed” for the Planning and Development Cabinet.
“Anne’s diverse accomplishments in both public- and private-sector development make her the ideal choice,” Kenney said in a statement.
Fadullon served as Philadelphia’s director of development at the Redevelopment Authority in the 1990s under then-Mayor Ed Rendell. She currently works with DALE Corporation, a construction management firm in Cheltenham Township. Her career has encompassed administration of 125 residential and commercial-development projects, which produced more than 1,500 housing units.
Fadullon said her first order of business in the new cabinet would be to address the housing functions because previous leaders from the division have retired or moved to other positions.
“This is a really interesting time to be in Philadelphia,” she said. “We have a certain skill set around declining. We’re newer to the growth side of things. We’re tooting our own horn now in ways we haven’t done before.”
Fadullon said the new construction and neighborhood developments in the city are happening at a moderate-enough pace for officials to get in front of the growth and manage it for the benefit of Philadelphia.
Guaracino serves as executive director of the destination-marketing organization Atlantic City Alliance. He will help the group move onto a new leader while slowly transitioning through January to his new role with Welcome America. He said his experiences in New Jersey taught him about perseverance.
“In Atlantic City, it was [a city] in crisis,” Guaracino said. “When you go through Hurricane Sandy or a casino closing, you think, Oh yea, I’ve learned something. I really have learned what a great privilege it is to be part of a city and its next great chapters.”
Guaracino, who lives in Society Hill, said he looks forward to working in Philadelphia again.
In the early 2000s, Guaracino spent 10 years with the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, now called Visit Philadelphia, and helped launch the award-winning campaign, “Get your History Straight and your Nightlife Gay.”
He wrote a pioneering book around that time called “Gay and Lesbian Tourism: The Essential Guide for Marketing.” Guaracino plans to follow that up with a book he co-wrote with Ed Salvato. Called “Handbook of LGBT Tourism and Hospitality: A Guide for Business Practice,” it’s slated for publication in the fall.
Kenney said Guaracino would contribute to improving the reputation of Philadelphia for visitors and residents.
“Jeff’s work both here and in Atlantic City demonstrates that he knows event planning and, just as importantly, how to successfully market big events inside and out,” Kenney said in a statement.