Wayne Herron, 51, will stay in his job right now as Planning Director for the Town of Cornelius, but he is moving up to Assistant Town Manager, a position held for more than a dozen years by Andrew Grant. Grant is expected to move up to Town Manager early in June, replacing Anthony Roberts who becomes Huntersville town manager.

Herron, an Appalachian State University graduate who majored in Geography & Planning with a minor in Business Administration, will be staffing up the planning department while also functioning as assistant town manager. Everyone around him says the former Monroe City Manager has been an astutemanager of the builders and developers who come before town even as it approaches build-out. Planning is one of the key functions in Town Hall.  

Herron says traffic impacts every facet of our lives in Cornelius and has a direct impact on land use planning.

“Residents want to reduce density and intensity of development and of course, developers want to maximize. Our challenge is to balance the growth knowing we have so many road projects in the next five years that will bring traffic capacity to our area that is greatly needed,” he says.

The Charlotte native graduated from Freedom High School and went on to the planning department in Boone after college, then Monroe where he joined the planning department in 2001, then became City Manager in 2009. He joined the Cornelius Planning Department in 2012.