Ramona Lowery-Ferrell will be the next director of public works for the City of Shaker Heights. The announcement was made today on the city’s website. Her appointment takes effect on Aug. 19.
Lowery-Ferrell takes over one of the City’s largest departments, with 84 year-round and 10 seasonal employees responsible for managing animal control; forestry; ice and snow removal; public grounds and park maintenance; recycling, refuse, and other waste materials; sanitary and storm sewers; streets and sidewalks.
Lowery-Ferrell has been commissioner of the City of Cleveland’s Division of Water Pollution Control (WPC) since 2020; she served as deputy commissioner from 2015 until 2020.
“As a long-time resident of the Ludlow neighborhood, civil engineer, career public servant, and leader of a large and complex public utility department, Mrs. Lowery-Ferrell brings all the background, skills, and judgement needed to lead Shaker’s Department of Public Works,” said Shaker mayor David E. Weiss.
The appointment represents a return to Shaker government for Lowery-Ferrell, who served as sewer superintendent and project manager in Shaker from 2005 through 2008. In the years since, she has held positions of increasing responsibility and authority, including eight years at Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, where she started as administrative manager and was promoted to manager of operations and maintenance, a department of some 400 employees.
As deputy commissioner and later commissioner of Cleveland’s WPC, she oversaw a workforce of more than 180 employees, an annual operating budget of $30 million, and a capital budget of $8 million. She procured $35 million in bond funds for capital projects, closed a three-year backlog of 1,100 work orders and outstanding vendor payments in one year, and saved the WPC $100,000 annually by procuring equipment that was previously rented.
Lowery-Ferrell’s civic presence includes service as trustee of the Shaker Schools Foundation, and the Doan Brook Watershed Partnership. In 2021, she received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Cleveland State University. Last month she received an Unsung Hero Award from the Cleveland branch of the NAACP, in recognition of her mentorship of young engineers through the National Society of Black Engineers.
A graduate of Shaker Heights HS, Lowery-Ferrell earned a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from Cleveland State University and a dual master’s degree in business administration and public administration from the University of Phoenix.
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