Can't Ray Wells Hold a Job?
Here is Ray Wells' job history before he started his current company:
1981-1983 General manager of the Denver Technological Center
1978-1981 Owner of Wells Consultant Consortium
1978-1978 Ggeneral manager of National Western Capital Co.
1974-1978 Lakewood city manager
1972-1974 Iowa City manager
1969-1972 Muskegon County, Mich., administrator
1964-1969 Lawrence, Kan., city manager
1963-1964 El Reno, Okla., city manager
1960-1963 Lawrence assistant city manager
1958-1960 Wichita, Kan., city manager
I spent a number of years in industry and I know how this resume would be viewed. A manager would count 10 jobs in 25 years time. Average stay 2.5 years, not a good prospect. He went through three jobs in 1978, what happened there? He was general manager of a company for less than a year...something's wrong.
Despite this leapfrog history Wells claims a couple of major accomplishments in those years. One was building the first integrated swimming pool in Lawrence, Kansas. Read what a historian of that era had to say: Lawrence Pool.
Wells was in Muskegon, MI from 1969 to 1972. A Denver Post article said "He built a massive wastewater-treatment facility in a politically divided Rust Belt county that now counts the project as key to its rebirth." Within three years of arriving in town he'd have us believe he was able to determined how the highly polluted Muskegon Lake could be cleaned up. Then he sold the county on the plan, got financing and completed construction. Yeah right!
The Post article says "The idea was to pump millions of gallons a day from a lake nearly ruined by industry into immense open ponds and then spray the wastewater over nearby Michigan cornfields." Just one problem. The system doesn't pump water from the lake. It treats city sewage and factory effluent to keep it from flowing directly into the lake. It looks like Wells doesn't even know how the system that "he built" works. And I can find nothing that says Muskegon considers it to be the key to their rebirth. The plant went into operation in 1974, two years after Wells left. He'd gone through one or two more jobs in that time. I will be contacting people in Michigan to see what they have to say about Wells' claim.
Under education Wells claims a "Doctorate, Public Administration, Program Classwork Complete." What that means is that HE DOES NOT HAVE A DOCTORATE. He probably never did a thesis which is the most important and difficult part. It's one more example of Wells making exaggerated claims about his experience.
For more about Ray Wells career see: