Tim Hanna served as the Mayor of Appleton, Wisconsin, from 1996-2020 and since then has been actively engaged in local government as a consultant with his firm Hanna Strategic Leadership Consulting (HSLC) and as the Executive Director of the Local Government Institute of Wisconsin. HSLC works with public and private sector organizations in mission and vision-driven strategic planning as well as individual and organizational leadership development and coaching.
After being elected in 1996, Tim started using strategic planning to set the future course of the City. He implemented performance-based budgeting in his first term, which he fully integrated with the City’s strategic plan. Using the strategic plan as a catalyst, Appleton was very proactive in its approach to governing. Among the many strategic initiatives that he implemented were having full-time police-school liaison officers in all city schools as a proactive measure; twelve years of flat city employee health care costs without requiring premium contributions from them; numerous regional partnerships and service collaborations; pandemic planning started in 2003 along with a continuity of operations plan and leaving office with fewer city employees than when he started (despite adding and fully staffing an additional fire station and expanding other city services and programs).
