Cabinet level, senior positions nearly filled
Mayor Justin M. Bibb has appointed Frank Williams as Director of Public Works, Angela Shute-Woodson as Director of Community Relations and Senior Advisor to the Mayor, James D. DeRosa as Director of MOCAP, and Calley Mersmann as Senior Strategist of Transit and Mobility.
Frank Williams
Angela Shute-Woodson
“I am pleased to share that our cabinet-level and senior team hiring is nearly complete and that we have been able to attract and retain such outstanding talent to serve our residents,” said Bibb in a prepared statement. “The four leaders we are announcing today all have experience working right here, in Cleveland, and are hitting the ground running on a wide range of important projects and initiatives.”
As the city’s first-ever Senior Strategist of Transit and Mobility, Calley Mersmann is charged with developing a transportation policy platform that includes advancing the implementation of several priority initiatives such as Vision Zero, Complete and Green Streets, Active Transportation planning, and the shared mobility program. Her appointment comes after four years with Cleveland City Planning Commission as the Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator.
Frank Williams is returning to Cleveland as the Director of Public Works, a department he worked in for several years before moving into a management role with the City of Columbus.
Angela Shute-Woodson will continue advising the Mayor on community and government affairs work while overseeing the city’s Office of Community Relations and Community Relations Board and James DeRosa is transitioning from interim to permanent director of MOCAP after serving for more than a decade as Cleveland's Commissioner of the Division of Real Estate.
In response to our inquiry, a spokesman for the city said that appointments to four remaining positions will complete the cabinet and the mayor's senior team: Public Health, Quality Control & Performance Management, Economic Development, and Sustainability.
James D. DeRosa
ABOUT THE NEW HIRES:
Frank Williams most recently served as the Administrator of the Division of Infrastructure Management for the City of Columbus where he was responsible for planning, coordinating, and directing the division’s operations and activities. His work included overseeing infrastructure planning, capital improvement planning, thoroughfare planning, right-of-way permits, addressing and mapping, zoning coordination, ADA programs, GIS asset management and 311 service requests for infrastructure needs.
Prior to his time in Columbus, he served the City of Cleveland for more than eight years in the Division of Street Construction, Maintenance & Repair.
Williams holds a Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) from Franklin University and a B.S. in Business Management from American Public University. He is currently working on his Doctor of Education (EdD) in Organizational Leadership.
Angela Shute-Woodson has spent two decades as a professional and public servant in state and county government and has worked with the faith community in civic and social justice engagement for over 25 years.
Shute-Woodson is one of the founders of the Greater Cleveland Voter Alliance, an arm of black civic engagement that has worked in the community under the Ohio Unity Umbrella/National Coalition of Black Civic Participation. She also leads Higher Heights, an organization promoting black women who seek to run for office.
At the state level, she is Political Action Chair and Board Member to the NAACP Ohio Conference and serves as the Executive Board Chair of the Cleveland NAACP. She is also the co-convener for the Black Women’s Roundtable Ohio Chapter.
Shute-Woodson served in the Ohio Governor’s office of Faith Based and Community Outreach and worked for 12 years as manager of MBE/SBE at the Cuyahoga County Office of Procurement and Diversity. She has numerous contracts — both locally and nationally — for community engagement and has worked with Global Cleveland, and the cities of Philadelphia, Columbus, Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit.
She holds a B.A. from Clarion University and a Master’s in Contract Compliance from Florida Atlantic University.
James D. DeRosa has served as the Commissioner of the Division of Real Estate for the City of Cleveland since 2011 when this division was created to manage real estate transactions for the City of Cleveland, including leading the team that completed the Towpath Trail project.
Previously, he was employed by the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority as its system-wide Property Manager and Deputy Project Manager of Real Estate for the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project. Other employment includes City of Cleveland, Department of Economic Development, Empowerment Zone Office as Acting Director and Attorney as well as staff attorney at Jones Day.
DeRosa holds an A.B. in International Studies from Kenyon College, a J.D. from Case Western Reserve University, and a Master of Urban Planning Design and Development from Cleveland State University’s Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs.
He was selected by the German Marshall Fund of the United States as a Marshall Memorial Fellow in 2009. His civic involvement includes Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry Housing & Shelter Board and past leadership roles on the boards of Ingenuity Festival and Fairfax Renaissance Development Corporation.
Calley Mersmann most recently served for four years as the Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator with the Cleveland City Planning Commission, where she coordinated transportation plans and initiatives, managed the creation and development of the city’s shared mobility program, and led the Vision Zero Action Plan process to develop a strategy to eliminate serious injuries and fatalities from traffic crashes. Prior to joining the City of Cleveland, she was the Safe Routes to School Coordinator with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and managed the establishment of a district-wide travel plan for students walking and biking to approximately 70 K-8 schools across the city.
From 2016 to 2018, Mersmann helped create the Open Streets Cleveland movement, which partnered with over 75 local organizations to produce 11 summer events on public streets in Cleveland, offering games, music, bicycle programming, and other resources to community members. She currently serves on the Ideastream Public Media Community Advisory Board and the Odum School of Ecology Alumni Working Group. She is also a founding member of the Radical Adventure Riders Northeast Ohio Chapter, a developing cycling group building an inclusive community for riders identifying as women, femme, trans, or nonbinary.
Mersmann attended the University of Georgia as a Foundation Fellow, earning a Bachelor of Science in Ecology, and received a Master of Public Affairs with concentrations in local government and sustainable development from Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
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