The City of Knoxville is holding a retirement open house for City Economic Development Director Glenn Lyons and Community Development Director Marilyn Arber on June 26th.

Lyons and Arber have had lengthy successful careers in the development field and spent their last several years before retirement as a dual position in the Knoxville community. Lyons has been a key piece and pioneer of the development and undertaking of developing the Knoxville VA campus to the residential and economic hub that it is now. Both Lyons and Arber have spent significant time in their careers working in big cities but Lyons tells KNIA/KRLS that their work in small town Iowa and the VA project has been a highlight of his career. 

“It’s a swan song. I’m 71 and we’re moving into retirement mode and we wanted to do something different. We enjoyed the idea of working in rural Iowa but this is the one where everything came together. It’s great, I’ve done other things in my career in big cities that are pretty significant but this is one to write home about.”

The open house will be from 2:00-4:00 pm in the City Hall Community room and will be an opportunity to celebrate Lyons and Arber before retirement. Also in attendance at the open house will be Christopher Watkins who will take over the economic development role. Watkins is the current interim economic development director for Marion County.