City of Austin Appoints New HR Czar

The City of Austin, Texas has tapped Mark Washington, assistant human resources director for the city of Fort Worth, as its new Director of Human Resources.

Washington will begin on August 1st. The city’s previous HR director, Cathy Rodgers, retired in 2008. Assistant Director Tommy Tucker has served as acting director in the interim.

Washington will head up the city’s 100-person HR department, managing HR functions for Austin’s 12,000 civil service employees. He was chosen from a field of 11 finalists.

Austin is the capital of Texas and the county seat of Travis County. It the fourth-largest city in Texas, and the 16th-largest in the US. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in the nation from 2000 to 2006. According to the 2007 US Census estimate, Austin has a population of 743,000.