Jeff Shoobridge speaks at the October monthly meeting of the Tifton-Tift County Chamber of Commerce, just weeks after his appointment to the position of city manager. While feeling a bit underprepared to speak in front of his new community so soon after joining it, he expressed how happy he was to call Tifton his and his family’ s new home and asserted he would serve it to the best of his ability.
community, familiarizing himself with the city’ s municipal codes, getting to know city staff and local figures, and developing plans and courses of action for how best to support the city’ s government through his position.
At the moment, he’ s hard at work developing a framework to effectively and efficiently address the needs of the city’ s workers and individual departments, assisting with an ongoing pay study that will ensure Tifton’ s pay rates remain not only competitive, but high-priority for potential job-seekers, and collaborating with city contractor ESG Operations to identify and plan out ongoing capital projects.“ I’ ve always tried to be a strategic, forward-thinking type of a manager,” he said.“ I try to instill that proactivity into staff and operations instead of reacting.”
The new city manager has also been familiarizing himself with Tifton from beyond his desk and duties, hoping to grow closer to Tifton as a member of its community as well as its city manager.
Since coming into town, Shoobridge has made an effort to patronize locally owned shops and restaurants over chains and superstores, while each weekend he and his wife have attempted to find something to do in the community, using the fun outing, errand list, or quick bite to eat as an opportunity to learn a little more about the Friendly City.
Tifton’ s small town spirit is what ultimately drew Shoobridge to the city, and the longer he’ s lived here, the more he believes he and his family have fallen in love with it— a sentiment he feels he isn’ t alone in experiencing, especially among his colleagues at City Hall.
JANUARY 2026 | TiftonScene 15