Chief of staff finalist Greg Pridgeon

The Board of Commissioners introduced chief of staff finalist Greg Pridgeon at the Jan. 4 Monday evening work session.

Pridgeon was most recently the chief of staff for the city of Atlanta under Mayor Shirley Franklin. He was also a policy analyst for the Atlanta City Council, worked under three different mayoral administrations, was appointed to finish the District 1 Atlanta city council term in 1993, and was a liason to Rockdale County when he was director of Government Relations for the 1996 Olympic games.

BOC Chairman Richard Oden said the search for the Chief of Staff took about 120 days and had cast "the net as wide as we possibly can to find the best candidate we possibly can."

HR director Jeff Pogue said the county received 66 applications for Chief of Staff, with no internal candidates. The annual salary offered for the chief of staff position was $90,000. As Atlanta's chief of staff, Pridgeon reportedly received a salary of $166,361, according to a 2007 Atlanta Journal Constitution article.