In a turn of events that has not happened in several years at Town Hall, three new employees started their first day of work the same day -- Monday, Jan. 6.

They include Economic Development Administrator Scott Cooper, Accounting Supervisor Craig Rudolphy and Mike Fenzel, events and operations supervisor for the Community Center.

Cooper is filling a position that has been vacant for about 18 months, emphasizing the town’s focus on economic development.

Rudolphy has been a volunteer in the finance department for a few years, but is filling a job vacated recently, and Fenzel is taking over at the Community Center for the retiring Rino Ghetti.

Scott Cooper

Cooper is actually fairly familiar with Fountain Hills. His parents were living here and this is the first place he lived when he moved to Arizona from Iowa in 2002.

A graduate of the Iowa State University in community and regional planning and urban design, Cooper accepted a job with the City of Scottsdale after working in smaller communities in Iowa.

He worked in Scottsdale for five or six years before moving across the Valley for a job in Peoria, where he worked about eight years.

After about 14 years in the public sector Cooper, took a job with MCM (Municipal Capital Management) developing new markets outside Arizona, a job that gave him some experience working internationally.

Cooper said it is great to be working in Fountain Hills with its great potential.

“The greatest asset Fountain Hills has is its quality of life,” Cooper said. “The challenge is letting the business world and future residents know who and where Fountain Hills is.”

Available space for new business is a challenge in the community, according to Cooper.

“We will focus and target the areas of opportunity, businesses with fewer employees but good professional jobs that will sustain the next generation,” he said. “I’m very positive that we can have success.”

Cooper said he also believes the people of Fountain Hills are a tremendous asset.

“They really care about the community,” he said.

Cooper said he hopes to have the town’s economic development website up and running over the next couple of months, providing a single source for all the information about the town.

Fountain Hills has a good core of businesses and it is a lot easier to keep current business than recruit new ones, according to Cooper.

He said he will use a more one-on-one approach with both business recruitment and retention moving directly to assist businesses with specific needs.

It has been a difficult six or seven years for the economy and businesses, Cooper notes. But he believes Fountain Hills is positioned well.

“The town manager and the council have taken the right steps to come out of the recession moving forward,” he said.

Mike Fenzel

Fenzel has come on board as the events and operations supervisor for the Community Center replacing Rino Ghetti, who is retiring this week.

Fenzel came to Arizona with his parents in 1986 and attended Desert Mountain High School. He graduated from Northern Arizona University with a bachelor’s degree.

Working with the City of Chandler for a number of years, Fenzel was employed in the housing division and in the municipal court.

More recently he worked for Chandler as a recreation coordinator responsible for banquet hall rental, special interest classes, teen and youth programs and facility management.

For the past three years Fenzel has worked at Chandler’s state-of-the-art Tumbleweed Recreation Center.

With his new job with Fountain Hills Fenzel said he will be working to promote the Community Center with user groups, weddings and corporate events.

“There are a lot of things about the town to draw people in to use the facility,” Fenzel said. “We will try and promote that.”

Fenzel will begin this weekend at the Bridal Fashion Expo at the Phoenix Convention Center. He will be promoting Fountain Park and the Community Center as a venue for weddings and receptions.

Craig Rudolphy

Rudolphy has actually been coming to work at Town Hall two days a week since 2011, only as a volunteer.

“I’ve known Julie (Ghetti) through professional association for a number of years,” Rudolphy said. “When I read she was acting as interim town manager in 2011, I called her up to see if I could be of help on a volunteer basis.”

Ghetti was quick to accept Rudolphy’s offer.

It was 2011 when Rudolphy retired from the Arizona Department of Transportation as controller.

Rudolphy graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and received his MBA from the University of Chicago.

He went to work with the accounting firm of KPMG where he became a senior auditor and a computer audit specialist. In 1976 he went to work for the Ohio Turnpike Commission as comptroller where he remained until 1998 when he moved to Arizona to take the job with ADOT.

Rudolphy is certified as an accountant in Ohio and Arizona and is a Certified Public Finance Officer by the Government Financial Officers Association. He is also a Certified Government Financial Manager by the Association of Government Accountants.

The financial times are challenging for public agencies, according to Rudolphy.

“We do the best with what we have,” he said. “We live within our means and do our best to provide the citizens with the services they want.”

Rudolphy met his wife, DeDe, in Arizona and they live here in Fountain Hills. She works with The Fountains, a United Methodist Church.