Herbert A. Marlowe, Jr. Ph.D. first choice for visioning facilitator

In late December, Historic City News reported that a Request for Qualifications for Professional Consulting Services for a Community Visioning Initiative Facilitator was published by the city and seven applicants responded before the January 17, 2014 deadline.

The seven applications were reviewed in accordance with the city’s purchasing procedures which included review and scoring by three staff members working independently of each other. The scores were tallied the top scorers identified.

The City Manager will direct staff to contact the highest ranked firm and enter into discussions and negotiations towards securing its services. If those negotiations are not fruitful, staff will then work with the second and then the third ranked firm if necessary.

The top ranked firm is Analytica Associates in Newberry, headed by Herbert A. Marlowe, Jr.

Education: Ph.D. University of Florida, 1984

Professional Background: Herb is a professional strategic planner and facilitator with extensive training and experience in a wide range of settings. While the term “strategic planning facilitator” may be used by anyone since it is an unregulated term, it is a distinctive field of study and profession. Herb began his career as a strategic planner while in the U.S. Navy when he was selected as one member of a 24 person team charged with developing a 25 year strategic plan under the direction of the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt. As a member of this team he received extensive training in the fields of strategy by some of the leading consultants in the field. Upon completing his naval service, including service in Vietnam, he entered graduate school at the University of Florida.

While completing his doctoral work, he did extensive coursework in various disciplines each of which enhanced his ability to provide high level strategic planning and facilitation services. This included counseling training which honed his listening and framing skills; classes in group‐work technique which built his ability to assist a group in problem‐solving and decision‐making; anthropology courses which developed his observational and qualitative data skills, organizational theory and organizational development courses which built his skills in organizational processes and advanced statistical courses which developed his capacity to interpret data sets for decision‐makers.

He completed his doctoral dissertation on social intelligence (i.e. the ability to work effectively with others), which was published in one of the field’s premier peer‐reviewed journals. While writing his dissertation he was employed as the Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South
Florida where he led an organizational and system change project that instituted a new therapeutic
model for mental health services. This project required extensive facilitation work as well as
organizational development services to build support for and skill in the new approach. Upon award of
his Ph.D. he took a series of positions at the University of Florida which gave him consulting privileges where he established Analytica in 1987. Having built his consulting practice to the point where a full-time commitment to consulting was feasible, he began a full‐time practice in 1991. Since that time he has provided strategic planning, process facilitation and other organizational development services to a wide range and number of public and third sector clients.

Herb has continued to refine and improve his skills as a strategic planner and process consultant. He
regularly publishes in peer‐review and professional journals and presents at conferences. He has most
recently published or presented on the topics of effective public participation, facilitating the
development of public management networks and the development of integrated management systems
as a tool to implement and manage strategic plans. His publications have appeared in such journals as
State and Local Government Review, Journal of Correctional Psychology, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Psycho‐social Rehabilitation Journal, Journal of Educational Psychology, Public Manager,
Public Productivity and Management Review, Evaluation Review, ICMA IQ reports, and the American
Water Works Association Journal. His article on strategy and organizational change was selected as one of the thirty most significant articles of the last thirty years in public administration
Herb is highly conversant with public sector topics and perspectives. With over thirty years of consulting experience, Herb has facilitated meetings and longer term processes on a broad range of topics in a wide number of public policy fields including: agriculture, health, mental health, human services, transportation, community redevelopment, economic development, downtown redevelopment, law
enforcement and criminal justice, school readiness, after‐school programming, library services,
recreation and culture, public utilities, tourism, race and cultural relations, and environmental issues.

In addition to his strategic planning work he has provided process consultation and organizational
development services for public sector entities on topics such organizational re‐structuring, succession planning, business planning, compensation and staffing studies, outcome and impact evaluation,customer satisfaction studies, stakeholder studies, and process redesign projects. In each of these areas he has applied his particular skills to assist groups to analyze the issue, develop alternatives, and prioritize an action plan to move forward toward some shared goal.

The two runners-up, The Florida Institute of Government at the University of Central Florida/FCRC Consensus Center located in Orlando and Marquis Halback, Inc. located in St. Augustine. Other submittals were from Diane L. Mataraza, Inc. (St. Augustine), Institute for Alternative Futures (Alexandria, VA), Northeast Florida Regional Planning Council (Jacksonville) and the Novack Consulting Group (Cincinnati, OH).

Staff is targeting having secured an agreement with a service provider by early March at which time the “2014 & Beyond Steering Committee” will hold its second meeting, one managed by the facilitator.