Ross Valley Sanitary District Picks New Interim General Manager

The Ross Valley Sanitary District Board has selected Greg Norby, a water district general manager from Mammoth, to serve as the new interim general manager for the Marin agency. 

Norby already had plans to move from Mammoth, where he spent four years as the Mammoth Community Water District general manager. He will move to Tennessee Valley in Mill Valley on Jan. 31. 

Finding an interim general manager took nearly six months for the sanitary district, which didn’t hire a head hunting consulting firm for the search.

The district’s last general manager, Brett Richards, abruptly resigned from his position on July 25, 2012, after the Marin Independent Journal questioned if he had properly used a $350,000 housing loan when a search of California’s county recorder databases yielded no evidence he owns property in the state.

Norby has worked in water and wastewater collection and been a transport and treatment manager for the 18 years, according to RVSD Board President Frank Egger. Norby, who worked as water utility manager for the city of Redding, is also a specialist in fisheries, sustainability, conservation and alternative energy for both water and sewer transport systems, said Egger, a Fairfax resident.   

“Talk about getting lucky, Greg Norby was moving down from the mountains at the same time we were looking for a new manager,” Egger wrote in a press release. “Miracles can happen, even to the Ross Valley Sanitary District. This has to be an omen of good things to come.” 

Norby is a licensed civil engineer and surveyor. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from California State University at Chico in 1993 and his Masters in Civil Engineering with a Specialty in Water Resources from Utah State University in 1997.

He will start work here in the Ross Valley on Feb. 15.

Norby will make $172,000 a year and standard benefits, according to Egger. “No housing assistance loan, no paying off student loans, no special perks,” Egger wrote in an e-mail.

Norby will begin with a six and a half month contract and could become the permanent general manager, Egger said.

In September, Richards started writing first-person posts on the blog Ross Valley Sewer Truth. He was blogging while living off the radar, at a time when the Marin District Attorney had launched an investigation into use of the housing loan.

On Jan. 17, 2013, the site appeared to have been suspended.

Ross Valley Sanitary District business manager Wendy Martin-Miller has served as the acting general manager since Richards left.

The Ross Valley Sanitary District serves Fairfax, San Anselmo, Ross, Greenbrae and Larkspur.