Roe O’Donnell Hired as Temporary Assistant City Manager

The City of Goldsboro has hired Roe O’Donnell as temporary assistant city manager while searching for the next assistant city manager. The previous assistant city manager, Randy Guthrie, retired Jan. 1, 2022. O’Donnell’s start date was Jan. 26. He will be paid an hourly rate of $62.50.

O’Donnell retired as deputy town manager for the Town of Wake Forest in 2016. He helped oversee the explosive growth of Wake Forest from a town of 5,800 when he began employment there in 1992 to one of 47,000 at his retirement. He also served as interim town manager in 2015. Before becoming deputy manager in 2001, O’Donnell worked as Wake Forest’s director of Public Works and Utilities. Prior to that, he worked as a civil/structural engineer in both the private and public sectors, serving as manager of the Wilmington, N.C. division of what is now Atkins, a London-based multinational architectural/engineering company, city engineer for Rocky Mount, N.C., and design engineer for G. Edwin Pidcock Co. of Allentown, Pa.  

O’Donnell graduated from the Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1978 with the U.S. equivalent of a Master of Science in civil engineering. He is licensed as a professional engineer in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.