October 24, 2007 - Mayor Bill Haslam announced today that Jason Woodle has agreed to become the first Neighborhood Coordinator for the city's new Office of Neighborhoods.

The creation of the new position of neighborhood coordinator stems from recommendations made earlier this year by the Mayor's Neighborhood Task Force.

The 15-member body, appointed by Mayor Haslam in 2006, was charged with developing ideas how the city could be more responsive to its neighborhoods.

The new office is part of the City of Knoxville's Community Development Division and Woodle will report to Madeline Rogero, director of Community Development.

Woodle - who was most recently membership services coordinator for the University of Tennessee's radio station, WUOT-91.9 FM, and spent a month last summer teaching English in China - will begin work October 29.

"Jason has a gift for working with different groups of people and we think that he will do a wonderful job in helping us to communicate and work better with our neighborhoods," Rogero said.

She said Woodle would increase the flow of information about the city's services, policies and resources to neighborhood organizations. At the same time he will be a liaison between the neighborhoods and relevant decision makers in city government.

Woodle, from Knoxville, graduated from Bearden High School before attending the University of Tennessee where he earned a degree in Religious Studies in 1999. He followed that with a master's degree in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University in Washington, D.C. in 2002.

He has also studied at La Sorbonne and L'Universite de Caen, both in France, and at Erasmus University, in the Netherlands. He has also served as a guest researcher and facilitator at the Training and Research Institute in Romania.

In addition to his work in Knoxville Woodle has worked in the past for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; the Associated Press' Broadcast News Center in Washington, D.C. and he was an assistant program specialists for the City of Knoxville's Parks and Recreation Division from 1996-2000.

Jason and his wife Emily live in the Oakwood Lincoln Park neighborhood where they are restoring a 108-year-old house. He is a member of the 2008 class of Leadership Knoxville and a board member and program chair of the Race Relations Center of East Tennessee.