Mr. Cook has 29 years of experience in local government. He retired in 2017 after serving as Executive Director for the Ogden City Council for 15 years. In 2003, he became certified as a professional facilitator by the International Association of Facilitators. He has facilitated more than 1,000 meetings, workshops, and retreats. He is the author of five books, including Facilitating Your Own Meetings: Essential Skills for Managers and Supervisors. Mr. Cook is known for his collaborative leadership style and ability to effectively engage citizens. At Ogden City, Utah, he co-led three community engagement initiatives – the College Town Initiative, Diversity Connections, and Branding Ogden. At the national level, Mr. Cook organized and co-facilitated the first ever Community Engagement Summit in 2017. This summit brought together 16 national organizations from higher education and local government to discover where collaboration is possible between the organizations. Internationally, Mr. Cook recently advised the central government of Tanzania regarding a roadmap to create a Comprehensive Local Economic Development Strategy to eradicate poverty in the country. He also presented at the 2017 International City Management Qingdao Forum in Qingdao, China.
“We work with consultants, obviously, all the time, but the work that Citygate did on this report is some of the best I’ve seen in my tenure here.”
Retired Chief Administrative Officer San Diego County
“I think Citygate has done a great job. It seems like you’ve been most thorough and even-handed in your evaluations and you’ve given us certainly a lot of suggestions and guidelines to work with.”
City of Vista, CA
“I really, really enjoyed reading your Word product. I appreciate the fact that it was direct, it was constructive, and . . . it wasn’t finger-pointing, it was just . . . the facts. And I think that the money was well spent.”
Salt Lake City Council Meeting
“I am very much appreciative of Citygate’s comprehensive view of all the issues. And you have been very candid and very forthright in the problem areas that you have identified and we appreciate that. Quite often sometimes people choose to gloss over those issues and therefore we never can get a real good handle on the problem to resolve it. And I very much appreciate your insight and your intuitive natures that you have all experienced in your government services and trying to identify where our problem areas are so we can identify for the public. I very much appreciate the idea and the comments that you made that we are talking about the citizens who come to the planning Department as customers. And so you’ve done a great service for us and we are certainly appreciative of all your efforts.”
Commissioner Jackson County
“I really want to express my appreciation for this work that’s been done in a collaborative way in which the study was put together. . . . I’ve seen a number of studies start in the fire department and this is the first one I can remember that has actually been fully completed and brought to the council, and it was done in a very thorough fashion. This is the best assemblage of comprehensive information about the fire department today, as well as what our needs might be in the future, that I have seen. So thanks to everyone. Thank you, Stewart, for giving us our money’s worth on our consultant contract with you.”
City Manager City of San Luis Obispo
“Thank you so much for this training. This was the best PIO training I’ve ever received.”
S-403 Information Officer class participant
