Over the past several months, the City of Burien has successfully brought on three new directors to lead City departments. The combined experience, passion, and expertise each brings to their role ensures staff can continue excelling in their work.
Community Development Director Liz Stead joined the City on April 22, 2024. Stead comes to Burien after 16 years with the City of Bellevue. Stead has a Master of Public Administration degree from University of Washington, a Master of Architecture degree from University of Illinois Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts degree from The Evergreen State College.
“Burien is an amazing community with so many strong neighborhoods and is thriving with the diversity of the community,” said Stead. “I’ve been coming to Burien for years to take advantage of the wonderful restaurants and great festivals, it’s a pleasure to know that I can be a part of continuing to help the community grow and thrive.”
While Stead’s immediate priority is to steward the adoption of the City’s 20-year Comprehensive Plan and the related code amendments necessary to achieve its vision, she is also working every day to create a department “that is ready to assist Burien and its residents with all of their needs around growth and development. As a collective, the department will be focused on strengthening our review processes, training our staff, and being as customer oriented as we can be.”
Burien’s public works department welcomed new director Rod Steitzer on September 16, 2024. Steitzer brings more than two decades of experience with the City of Kirkland and three decades of experience in the public works field overall. He credits his civil engineering education and strategic work planning experience as key elements in being able to galvanize and encourage high-performing teams in engaging the community, elected officials, and partner agencies to advance infrastructure needs.
Steitzer sees Burien as a vibrant and growing community whose cultural diversity and unique location create an exciting opportunity to make an impact. Steitzer’s first order of business is to ensure his department has what it needs to provide a high level of service for the community.
“Our team has identified key goals of collaboration, respectfulness, dependability, and innovation,” said Steitzer. “All of which will support community engagement, provide equitable opportunity for the community, strategic thinking, and effective stewardship of public funds.”
Fernando Llamas Jr. was promoted to administrative services director on September 16, 2024, after 17 years of dedicated service within the department, most recently as the City’s information systems manager. Llamas has previous experience in federal and state organizations in addition to the private sector.
Llamas combines his wealth of experience with a belief in “innovation, positive change, continually improving and learning, unlocking potential amongst the team, and celebrating successes and failures” as he strives to create a workplace that is both welcoming and exciting to be a part of.
“I support creating an organization that can be effective, efficient, data-driven in its decision-making, and fun to work in,” said Llamas. “We spend a significant part of our lives at work. I want the City team to feel that, despite the ongoing challenges, each day presents an opportunity to achieve great things and return feeling empowered and satisfied. That has kept me coming to work for Burien for the past 17 years, and I want to share that with all of the team.”
All three directors have set bold new goals to improve processes, support City employees, and better serve the Burien community. Their efforts are supported by Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon. “I cannot overstate the value these new leaders have brought to the City of Burien,” said Bailon. “Their experience, dedication to public service, and fresh energy will certainly lead to very positive outcomes for our city.”
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