Morris Chosen to Head CCC
ANDY MEEK | The Daily News
Morris Daily News File Photo/Lance Murphey
Center City Commission board members used a host of adjectives to describe Martin, Tate, Morrow & Marston PC attorney Paul Morris before naming him the Downtown agency’s new president and CEO Friday morning. Bright. Passionate. Plugged in to the right area stakeholders and decision makers. Memphis Mayor AC Wharton Jr. wrote a letter of recommendation to Dave Smith, the CCC’s search consultant, plugging Morris as perfect for the job. Among other things, Wharton revealed something he’d not shared publicly before – that the new city mayor considered Morris for two leadership positions in his administration. Morris – with whom the CCC board will now begin contract negotiations for the $155,000-a-year job – also served on Wharton’s transition team. “In rounding out the transition team and the personalities to include, I must say that it was a foregone conclusion from the start that Paul would be a leading member of this group,” Wharton wrote.
In the end, it was those local ties that gave Morris an edge over Thomas Chatmon, executive director of Orlando’s Downtown Development Agency and Community Redevelopment Agency. The CCC’s search committee – which put in about 40 hours in the hunt for a new president – praised Chatmon’s background, but said Morris would be better able to hit the ground running on day one. Morris “has fire in his belly for the future of Downtown,” said current CCC president and CEO Jeff Sanford, who’s stepping down at the end of June. At Martin Tate, Morris practices general corporate law and specializes in intellectual property cases. Smith said the search for Sanford’s successor garnered interest from almost 90 candidates. And he said that was a testament to the number of people around the country who want to be in Memphis. “That means a lot of people think very highly of Memphis,” Smith said.