When Ed Driggs, Charlotte City Councilperson for District 7, sat down for our interview, he elaborated on many civic issues. But woven in between the answers, we heard him speak of two important principles that he uses to facilitate the positive outcomes he's known for. One. Make sure the people in the room feel comfortable. And two, never stop learning. These words offer sage advice to not only anyone reading this but stands as a key to his results-driven municipal leadership that has stood the test of time. Representing Charlotte's District 7 since 2013, we may think his task has grown easy. But he represents an engaged, vocal, and passionate segment of the city. It is in the crosshairs of the nudge of growth that is demanding big neighborhood changes. Many of those changes feel uncomfortable and are accelerating. That being said, District 7 is almost a test zone for the way our region is learning to balance tradition with revision. No one has a better view of those changes and their impact than Councilperson Edmond Driggs.
With the experience needed to inform outcomes across all segments of policy making, he serves as the Chair of Transportation, Planning and Development Committee and serves on the newly stand-alone Safety Committee. With the ease of a man who offsets the stress of his leadership job with his love for music and playing his guitars, (He has a lot of them. Many are classics!), he explains in detail how delicately balanced we are in regulating our current prosperity and how little it would take to throw us off our envious status as a vibrant and economically growing city. Always in flux, city councils often bring new members with strong opinions and sometimes no perspective or experience. The goal is to keep real needs in focus, so all citizens are served and nurtured.
This podcast is one you sit and listen to with eagerness and curiosity. You'll learn a lot.
In his professional life, Ed was a banker and analyst at Bankers Trust Company in New York, Frankfurt, and London, and then worked at Goldman Sachs and Company in New York until his retirement in 2001.
Since retiring, Ed has been active in various community roles and has served on the boards of Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont, the North Carolina League of Municipalities, the Mecklenburg County Boy Scouts of America, WTVI, The Association of Public Television Stations well as on the Central Piedmont Community College President's Council.
Ed received an AB degree cum laude in Economics from Princeton University and pursued graduate studies in mathematical economics at Berlin University and the University of Oxford. In 1971, he received a commission in the U.S. Army Reserve, from which he retired in 1987. He and his wife Caroline live in South Charlotte and have two adult children.
