The podcast Guiding Growth: Conversations with Community Leaders from the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, event and meeting venue Modern Moments and the Gilbert Independent/yourvalley.net explores the human journey of leaders. There are stories of humility, triumph, roadblocks, and lessons learned. This partial transcript of the most recent podcast with Cynthia Dunham has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Cynthia Dunham grew up the daughter of a Green Beret, and her upbringing took her from Utah to North Carolina, to Germany, and then to Washington. She returned to Utah as a college dance major, but life and love led her to Arizona, where she transitioned into accounting, eventually founding her own firm. Her journey into public service saw her elected as a council member and then as mayor of Gilbert, where she championed sustainable neighborhoods and balanced growth. Her tenure saw Gilbert grow from a town of 100,000 to 170,000 residents, all while fostering community engagement and collaboration. She and her husband have together raised four children and are the proud grandparents to seven.
So you were moving around all the time. Did you ever feel like you had a home school? You felt like this was school or just when you got comfortable, you were often at a location or how was that?
You got used to making friends, so you do that right away so that you can engage with other kiddos of your age. And we walked to the Mormon church and there was always that Mormon church. We sometimes had to drive a ways to get to it, but we would do that. So there was some connections that direction. When we were in Germany, I actually swam on a German swim team. Augsburg was the name of it, and that was an interesting experience because we would go from town to town to town, and usually I would stay in an old castle. So it was cold, but we got to tour and see a lot of the country by doing that. And then of course I got to meet other kids my age. That was a neat opportunity. I was very fortunate to have those experiences.
Looking at that time and those opportunities, I wonder how much of that carried into the things you did later in life and just taking some chances, being comfortable in that.
It helped in that I was used to being uprooted. I didn't have to stay in one place and have that as my security blanket for life. And you learn to communicate with people. You wanted to make friends. We would go to a new assignment, and you leave all the friends that you've had and now, OK, well you got to have somebody that you can get to know and have some fun with. So it was a great way of expanding your horizon and learning about other people.
When you look back at your time as mayor, what are some of the fondest memories or points of celebration for you?
Oh wow. There are so many amazing people that I got to meet. When you're going around in neighborhoods and knocking on doors and talking and listening to people, it's amazing what you can learn and the friendships that you can develop and hopefully the engagement that you can help them so that they can become involved in what is going to affect their lives and their families. So it can be a huge win.
What's your take on Gilbert now looking back from when you were helping run it to what it is today, what comes to mind?
Well, I love to see the new development. I love to see the jobs that are coming in, and I'm concerned about all of the high density that it is coming in. And I don't control everything and I certainly control less now, but it all comes down to balance. And when you have too much of anything, I mean whether they're mansions or whether they're apartments, you need to have balance. And what I see occurring is not I balance. ... It's a tough thing, but it's important.
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