Bob Halpin is an experienced, energetic and entrepreneurial leader connecting people, ideas and resources to confront problems and seize opportunities. His has over forty years of experience in local government management and regional economic development in Massachusetts. He is currently a Senior Associate at the Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management. He served as Town Manager of the Town of Framingham, Massachusetts, a community of 68,000 people in the Greater Boston from 2012 to 2018 and played an advisory role in that community's transition from a town government to a city during the first six months of 2018.. He has served as the first President/CEO of the Merrimack Valley Economic Development Council, created in 1999 to promote a more collaborative and cooperative approach to economic development across the twenty-four communities in the Merrimack Valley region of Massachusetts. In 2011, he served as President of the Newton Needham Chamber of Commerce prior to being selected as Framingham Town Manager.He is a former Town Manager in the Towns of Westford and North Andover, MA and similar positions in the communities of Pepperell and Gardner, MA between 1978 and 2000.Halpin holds a master’s degree in public administration from Suffolk University and a bachelor’s degree in community planning and management from the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Specialties: Leading, connecting, co-creating solutions, brokering and facilitating, goal setting, communicating, aligning.