Downtown Smithfield welcomes new leader

SMITHFIELD — Heidi Gilmond didn’t set out to become the new executive director of the Downtown Smithfield Development Corp.

“So interestingly enough, it was not on my radar,” said Heidi Gilmond, 54, of Goldsboro. “I knew that they (the DSDC) were looking for a director, but I guess I didn’t think anything more about it than that.”

Gilmond and her husband had relocated from Montana to Goldsboro for another reason.

“My son-in-law was working on trying to buy a business and build a business,” she said. “We had the idea that we would move here to help him get his business going.”

Gilmond quickly offered a hand to her son-in-law as he set up shop in Smithfield. “I was working full-time for him,” she said. “I began to start networking. I joined the chamber and joined everything that I could. I just did everything, and so I got to know a lot of people in the area.”

Gilmond was attending an Activate Selma meeting when someone mentioned the downtown Smithfield job.

At first, she didn’t know if she would be the right fit for the position. But “the more I learned about it and the more I thought about it, seemed like a great idea,” she said. “It seemed like a great opportunity for me, with my background and experience.”

Gilmond brings a wealth of knowledge to the job from her time in similar organizations and in the corporate world.

In Montana, “I was an executive board member for the Kalispell Downtown Association, which is a very similar organization,” she said. “I also was on our tourism and business improvement group … so I know and understand how these groups work.”

Gilmond had also worked in the credit industry and in international sales for a manufacturer. The experience in manufacturing allowed her to understand both frontline workers and senior management, she said.

“When you’re working in a manufacturing setting, you see the start to finish of a product and you see the hands that are involved in that start-to-finish process,” Gilmond said.

Frontline workers can think management isn’t listening to their concerns, she said. “You hear from the guy who’s at the low end of the totem pole … and he thinks that the CEO is just completely unattainable,” she said.

Gilmond helped bridge the gap. “I jumped in with both feet with the idea that we need to work together as a collective team,” she said. “And the most rewarding piece of that for me is talking to every single person to figure out what’s important to them and why is it important to them and how do we make this situation better?”

Change didn’t happen overnight, Gilmond said. “But by the time it was all said and done, it was such a beautiful experience for all of us,” she said. “It wasn’t easy and it was stressful, but we were able to accomplish it.”

“Those experiences gave me the ability to see businesses from the whole perspective,” Gilmond said. “I believe that gives me a really good foundation for what has to happen here too. There are some business owners that feel like maybe they don’t have a say while the town’s over there saying, ‘We have these initiatives and we’re trying to accomplish them.’ ”

Her job is to help bridge that communication gap, Gilmond said. “It is all about asking, ‘How do we get them talking to each other? And how do we get them to understand each other?’ ” she said.

That effort began last week with a joint meeting of the DSDC and the Smithfield Town Council.

“Smithfield has its own identity, and it’s beautiful,” Gilmond said. “I just want to see that really demonstrated so people from everywhere can come and say, ‘This is a cool place.’ ”

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