Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren has announced two appointments involving economic development.
One of them is to fill the vacant slot of Commissioner of Neighorhood and Business Development. Del Smith left that post last month for a position at a college down south.
Warren has appointed Baye Muhammad, who is currently the head of Parks, Recreation and Youth Programs for the City of Syracuse. Kate Washington, who had been interim commissioner, will continue on as Deputy Commissioner of that department.
Warren also appointed Neal Martin as the city's first Director of the new Office of Innovation and Strategic Initiatives. He previously worked at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Martin will lead a five member team tasked with developing bold new solutions to various issues facing the city.
That innovation team is funded with a nearly $2 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
