[Music] the city's new diversity equity and inclusion manager began work earlier this summer Thomas Brooks will continue the work needed to follow through on the city's vision of providing a high quality of life for all its residents Edina TV shows us how Thomas is approaching his new role in any Community change is unavoidable but how a city views and reacts to that change takes intention Thomas Brooks has been on the job as the new diversity equity and inclusion manager for only a couple months but he's taken that time to learn and gather data it's a great way for me and for staff to one make sure that we understand the community um who's actually in the community and who's actually accessing City programs and services Brooks arrived at the city after working for the state of Minnesota a move he says brings him closer to both employees and residents on a day-to-day basis I look at a city like Adina and certainly something special has been built here in the city but I also look at a city like Adina and there is so much potential and opportunity particularly when we start to leverage um an inclusive and and an equity lens in the work that we're doing work that includes looking at guiding documents one of the things that Thomas and I will be working really closely on and also having the opportunity to engage the community in is as we look at our Equity strategic action plan to how can we move our community forward and follow the data in order to be able to make changes to best serve the rest of our residents Services accessible to anyone regardless of need which goes hand inand with recruiting and retaining a diverse Workforce some of those hard to fill jobs that we have within the city that maybe aren't getting as many applications as we'd like or are particularly harder to diversify because there are so uh limited applications and like what can we do to create ideas taking City operations into sharp focus with the help of a new and experienced point of view Thomas is a thoughtful Problem Solver I'm super excited for the opportunity to work alongside him to learn from him and to grow with him from Edina City Hall I'm Scott Denfeld Edina TV Brooks resum includes a bachelor's degree in Business Administration and a master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology he also serves on the Minnesota Board of Social Work where he aims to reduce barriers for social workers especially those working with diverse communities