Michael Farmer, the Director of Springfield’s Office of Planning and Economic Development, oversees a twenty-four million dollar budget committed to improving the quality of life for Springfield residents and the local business environment. He is responsible for promoting business expansion and employment, attracting new investment, maintaining and improving Springfield’s neighborhoods, encouraging and supporting home ownership, and protecting and preserving the city’s historic infrastructure. His job requires economic expertise, engineering and architectural knowledge, and political savvy. Farmer is an administrator and a liaison. As an administrator, he manages complex programs such as Tax Increment Financing (TIF), Community Development Block Grants and Enterprise Zones. As a liaison, he interacts with city, state, and federal departments, districts, neighborhood associations, special interest groups, business owners and individual citizens. “There are a lot of players involved in this job,” he says. “In this department, we handle everything from qualifying emergency home repairs and housing rehabilitations to the development of major industrial locations; in the same day, we could be talking with the CEO of a corporation and someone who is homeless.  We must be able to work with those various entities, the public at large and individual citizens.  For services that we do not provide, we must be aware of the local resources to refer individuals or entities to. It’s really the full range of society we’re working with. “

Farmer has more than thirty years of experience in economic development, including administrative positions with the State of Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce and AT&T. He attended Springfield College, Southern Illinois University, Sangamon State University, the Economic Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma, and Boston College Public Affairs University. He now lives in Springfield with his wife, MaryBeth, who works for the State of Illinois Department of Human Services. Their son, Nicholas, is a graduate of Marquette University and is now attending UIS and working towards his master’s in Accounting.

Now that they are “empty nesters,” Farmer’s free time is often spent at home, relaxing on his deck. He enjoys watching birds and various wildlife in the backyard and tending to a small ornamental pond stocked with goldfish. He calls the deck his “decompression chamber,” a place where he can quietly have a glass of wine and read a book; he reads everything from John Grisham to historical biographies. Outside of home, Farmer fishes, golfs, travels, and has his private pilot’s license. “I even considered it as a vocation,” he says. “I was in the Civil Air Patrol as a kid and I’ve always been fascinated with aviation.” Several years ago, his wife, MaryBeth, bought him some flying lessons as a Christmas present. “She told me to quit talking about it and do it,” he says. Now he flies a Cessna and Piper as time and weather permit, and is a member of the Springfield Flying 20 Club. He also enjoys watching college and professional sports. On the day we met, he was planning to attend a Cardinal’s game.

Farmer describes the three main roles of his Office as community and neighborhood development, business development, and central area revitalization. “Attracting new investment, wealth and employment to the city is really our critical function and one of many parts of our mission,”he says,

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