Navigator Award Finalist: Omar Masry, Senior Analyst, City and County of San Francisco
Taking "the road to implementing new and innovative solutions" in the City by the Bay.
This is the 39th in a series of profiles on the 50 finalists for Route Fifty’s Navigator Awards program. The first 10 finalists were from the Government Allies and Cross-Sector Partners category. Finalists 11-20 were from the Agency and Department Leadership category. Finalists 21-30 were from the Executive Leadership category. Finalists 31-40 were from the Next Generation category. Finalists 41-50 are from the Data and IT Innovators category. Explore our complete list of 50 finalists.
In municipal government, employees are used to wearing multiple hats or the need to shift gears according to the current challenges at hand. That’s especially true in San Francisco, a city that’s been impacted by new innovations and technologies where the local government has needed to adapt accordingly.
Omar Masry, a Navigator Award finalist in the Next Generation category, is someone who has had to rise to respond to evolving challenges involving technology and innovations. Masry, currently a senior analyst, works for San Francisco’s Office of Short-Term Rentals, which was created last year by Mayor Ed Lee to be a one-stop shop to make it easier for hosts to register their short-term rental units and coordinate enforcement of the city’s rules for Airbnb and similar rental services. (Masry and his colleagues have their work cut out to them as only a small fraction of hosts have registered thus far and the topic of short-term rentals remains contentious in San Francisco on a variety of fronts.)
Masry’s previous experience in San Francisco government came as the city’s wireless planner, overseeing the roll-out of infrastructure for small cells on city-owned utility poles, which had to be done in ways that were aesthetically sensitive.
That work, which required collaborating across multiple city agencies and with private wireless carriers, proved to be important earlier this year when San Francisco hosted some of the festivities for Super Bowl 50 and wireless networks in the city saw increased data usage. That investment has left wireless infrastructure in the city in good shape to handle the next large-scale event.
According to a nomination submission, Masry has “taken the road to implementing new and innovative solutions.” That’s certainly true and Route Fifty is pleased to include him as a Navigator Award finalist.
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty and is based in Seattle.
NEXT STORY: Navigator Award Finalist: Andrew McCreery, Finance Director, Mt. Lebanon, Pa.