Succession Planning for PHAs: If a Key Employee Left Tomorrow, What Would Break First?
Session Description:
Many housing authorities are approaching a critical turning point as long-time employees retire, leadership transitions accelerate, and institutional knowledge quietly disappears. Yet in many agencies, essential workflows, operational decisions, compliance practices, and critical organizational knowledge still live primarily in people’s heads rather than in structured systems. The result is longer onboarding periods, repeated mistakes, stalled initiatives, and growing operational fragility every time key staff leave.
This session explores succession planning from an operational perspective, not just a staffing one. We’ll discuss how agencies can preserve continuity by strengthening documentation, workflows, institutional knowledge, and organizational structure before turnover occurs. Attendees will learn why many agencies struggle during transitions, what operational resilience actually looks like in practice, and how to reduce dependency on individual employees over time.
We’ll also examine practical strategies for capturing critical knowledge, creating repeatable processes, improving onboarding readiness, and building systems that allow agencies to remain stable and effective despite retirements, promotions, or unexpected departures.
By the end of the session, participants will walk away with a clearer understanding of how to prepare their agency not only for the next leadership transition, but for the next generation of employees altogether.
Special Guest Expert:
Dr. Michael C. Threatt, former CEO of Sanford Housing Authority and Principal & CEO of Elevate Housing Solutions, will join the session to share practical insights from more than 20 years in affordable housing leadership. Dr. Threatt has led modernization and operational improvement efforts across multiple PHAs and is a strong advocate for technology adoption, institutional knowledge preservation, and building resilient housing organizations prepared for the next generation of staff and leadership.
Learning Objectives
• Understand the operational risks created by turnover, retirements, and undocumented institutional knowledge
• Identify common gaps that make onboarding and leadership transitions difficult within PHAs
• Learn practical methods for documenting workflows, preserving operational knowledge, and reducing dependency on individual staff members
• Discover how structured processes and centralized knowledge improve continuity, accountability, and long-term organizational stability
• Walk away with a practical framework for strengthening succession planning and operational resilience within your agency