‘He Has Done a Phenomenal Job’: Tiger Mann Promoted to New Canaan Public Works Director

New Canaan’s highest elected official has confirmed that Tiger Mann, longtime assistant director and senior engineer of the Department of Public Works, has been promoted to take over the key municipal agency.

Tiger Mann of the Department of Public Works. Credit: Michael Dinan

First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said that an email went out Friday to Town Hall employees regarding Mann’s promotion.

He was selected unanimously from among nine final candidates by a search committee that included Mallozzi himself, New Canaan Human Resources Director Cheryl Pickering-Jones, Town Council Chairman Bill Walbert, Administrative Officer Tom Stadler and former Town Hall Building Committee Chairman Michael Avgerinos.

“Like others on the committee I am delighted to be able to move Tiger Mann up to the position of public works director,” Mallozzi told NewCanaanite.com.

“He has done a phenomenal job for the town for the past 17 years and his customer service, his professionalism and all his accomplishments in town made him the absolute best person for this job. He has proved to all of us that he is the right person.”

The change will not be made official until the Board of Selectmen vote on it during a meeting next week.

Hired as an engineer for the town, Mann has earned a reputation for his affability, responsiveness, diligence and vast knowledge of New Canaan’s infrastructure, working closely under DPW Director Michael Pastore through big projects including the renovation and expansion of Town Hall.

Pastore, a highly respected and well-liked figure at Town Hall in his own right, is to retire at year’s end. Mann said that in succeeding Pastore’s looking at “a huge set of shoes to fill.”

“Mike has been a terrific boss and a terrific asset to the town and I am just hoping to continue his legacy, so to speak. Frank Denicola hired all the supervisors who are in place, Mike Pastore kept them together and helped them grow in their jobs, and I am hoping to do the same.”

Asked how he felt about becoming DPW director, Mann said: “I’m excited. It’s a great town. I love working here, I love the people work with and work for, both in Town Hall and the residents themselves, and I am excited for this opportunity. I think we have a fantastic department, filled with very hard-working men and women.”

A Cheshire resident who has been known to sleep in his office during severe snowstorms, Mann studied civil and environmental engineering at the University of Vermont.

A department that identifies itself during budget season presentations as the “Keepers of the Aesthetic,” the DPW is responsible for creating and preserving much of what New Canaanites love about their town. Its workers maintain all public buildings (outside of the school district), parks, sidewalks and roads, including snow plowing in the winter. The DPW works closely with fellow town departments as well as nonprofit organizations to carry out their own projects—such as watering the New Canaan Beautification League’s hanging baskets from the lampposts downtown and working with the New Canaan Garden Club on planting the new wildflower meadow at Irwin Park.

Mann himself for years has helped lead a public-facing administrative team known as the “Traffic Calming Work Group” that fields requests for traffic-calming measures in town and makes recommendations to the Police Commission or other town body.