Civic Affairs / Infrastructure
New Orleans Finally Got This One Right.
The Sewerage and Water Board just hired a man who already ran a major American water system, delivered three billion gallons of environmental results, secured $500 million in federal infrastructure funding, and testified before the U.S. Senate. His name is Randy Hayman. Pay attention.
When this city announces a national search, the reflex is to roll your eyes.
We have seen this before. A search firm gets hired. A polished resume arrives. A press conference happens. And six months later, you realize the city hired someone who knows how to give a good interview but has never actually fixed anything at scale. New Orleans has been through enough of those cycles to make skepticism the rational default.
So let me say this clearly, because it needs to be said without hedging: the Sewerage and Water Board found the right person.
Randy Hayman is not a promising candidate. He is not a fresh face with potential. He is a seasoned executive who has already run one of the largest water and sewer systems in America, delivered measurable results under pressure, navigated federal regulatory environments that would break most administrators, and built the kind of legal and financial credibility that New Orleans’ battered infrastructure desperately needs right now.
This hire is different. And the people of New Orleans deserve to understand exactly why.
“New Orleans didn’t just hire an executive director. It hired a man who already did this job — and did it well.”
— Jeff Thomas, Black Source Media
What He Actually Did in Philadelphia
Hayman arrived at the Philadelphia Water Department in June 2019, selected through a competitive national search after years at the top of the environmental law and utility management world. He walked into a department responsible for delivering clean water to 1.6 million people every single day, managing 3,200 miles of water mains, 3,700 miles of sewers, 79,000 storm inlets, and 25,000 fire hydrants across one of America’s oldest and most complex urban infrastructure systems.
That is not a comparable job. That is a bigger job than what New Orleans faces. And he ran it for six years.
Under his leadership, Philadelphia achieved something that most utility executives only put in strategic plans: they reduced combined sewer overflows by more than three billion gallons per year, exceeding their ten-year environmental target by one billion gallons. To be precise about what that means — three billion gallons of pollution that would have entered Philadelphia’s rivers and streams every year did not. Because of decisions he made, systems he built, and a team he developed and trusted to execute.
That achievement earned Philadelphia’s Green City, Clean Waters program national recognition. It is not a press release accomplishment. It is an engineering, legal, financial, and organizational accomplishment that required sustained leadership across multiple mayoral administrations and a decade of implementation. Hayman did not start that program, but he drove it to its most significant results.
Related: Flush or Fail SWB Needs to Work Now
Beyond the environmental work, Hayman led a $100 million smart meter rollout to every home in Philadelphia — the exact kind of modernization New Orleans is in the middle of attempting right now. He improved billing accuracy and transparency, rebuilt customer trust in a department that had struggled with it, and kept water rates affordable while simultaneously investing billions in infrastructure. In September 2023, Moody’s assigned Philadelphia Water an A1 bond rating — with S&P and Fitch both rating its bonds at A+. That is what financial credibility looks like for a water utility. Hayman helped build it.
| What Randy Hayman Accomplished in Philadelphia • Ran Philadelphia Water Department for 6 years— serving 1.6 million people daily • Reduced sewer overflows by 3 billion gallons per year — exceeding the 10-year goal by 1 billion gallons • Led a $100 million smart meter rollout to every home in Philadelphia • Secured more than $1 billion in federal infrastructure financing – announced at a Presidential visit to the Belmont Treatment Plant • Testified before the U.S. Senate on implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law • Helped achieve A1 / A+ bond ratings for Philadelphia Water from Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch |
Before Philadelphia: The Career That Built the Man
What makes Hayman rare is not just what he did in Philadelphia. It is how he got there.
He grew up in St. Louis, the middle child of five, son of a teacher and a principal — parents who understood that education was the ladder and made sure their son climbed it. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. Also he began his career in civil litigation, worked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, served as an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Missouri, and built expertise across real estate law, environmental law, and public utility governance before most people his age had figured out what they wanted to be.
He then spent fifteen years as general counsel at two of the most respected water utilities in America — the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District and DC Water in Washington. At the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, he was the youngest and first African American to serve as general counsel in the organization’s history. Before taking the Philadelphia job, he had been elected partner at Beveridge & Diamond, PC — the nation’s oldest and largest environmental law firm.
Think about what that career arc means for New Orleans. The SWB’s problems are not only engineering problems. They are legal problems. They are regulatory problems. Yes, they are federal funding problems. They are governance problems. Hayman has operated at the intersection of all of those for three decades. He has argued before federal regulators. He has managed consent decrees. Also he has structured infrastructure financing. And yes he has testified before Congress.
He is not learning on this job. He has been preparing for it his entire career.
“His career arc reads like someone who was built specifically for the problems New Orleans is facing right now.”
— Jeff Thomas, Black Source Media
He Left Philadelphia. Philadelphia Noticed.
One detail that matters and should not be overlooked: when Hayman announced he was leaving Philadelphia for New Orleans, Philadelphia’s mayor did not let him go quietly. Mayor Cherelle Parker publicly praised his six years of service and immediately launched a national search to replace him — treating his departure as a significant loss.
Philadelphia Water, under two different mayoral administrations, reappointed him and fought to keep him. That is not the biography of a man who coasts. That is the biography of a man who produces.
When a major American city’s mayor says she will miss you and spends resources finding your replacement, that is the most honest performance review available.
What He Is Walking Into
Hayman arrives at the SWB at a genuinely critical moment. The system is losing an estimated half to three-quarters of its treated water to infrastructure failure before it reaches a single tap. Water main breaks have become a near-weekly occurrence. The department is in the final stages of constructing a new power complex, actively replacing lead service lines with a citywide expansion underway, and completing the installation of smart meters across the city — three major capital projects crossing the finish line simultaneously in a utility with a governance structure that has historically made execution difficult.
He also inherits the DPW transfer fallout — the SWB assumed responsibility for 72,000 catch basins from the city last year and absorbed a backlog of more than 5,000 outstanding work orders in the process. The agency is financially strained, publicly distrusted, and under scrutiny from every direction.
None of that is news to him. He has dealt with every version of this in Philadelphia — aging infrastructure, political pressure from multiple directions, customer frustration, environmental mandates, and federal oversight — all at once. Mr. Hayman did not just survive those conditions. He improved the system while operating under them.
One More Thing Worth Saying
Randy Hayman is a Black man from St. Louis whose parents were educators, who worked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who became the youngest and first African American general counsel at the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, who led one of the largest water departments in America — and who chose New Orleans.
He did not have to come here. Philadelphia wanted to keep him. He could have gone anywhere. He chose a city with a broken system and a community that has been failed repeatedly by the people entrusted to fix it. That choice says something about his character that no resume can fully capture.
New Orleans has seen leaders who talked about fixing the system. Hayman has already fixed a comparable one. The difference between potential and proof matters in this city more than almost anywhere else in America, because this city has been burned by potential before.
This time, they hired proof.
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of Executive Appraisers Louisiana, an MBE-certified real estate appraisal firm, and EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
Publisher — Black Source Media
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of Executive Appraisers Louisiana, an MBE-certified real estate appraisal firm, and EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu