Macon Water Authority (MWA) officials are pleased to announce two employees have been promoted into leadership positions.
Felicia Parks has been promoted to Vice President of Customer Care, while Arleen Samuels has been promoted to Controller. Parks had been serving the MWA as an Interim Vice President since June. Samuels is being promoted from her previous position as MWA Accounting-Purchasing Manager.
As Vice President of Customer Care, Parks will be responsible for the leadership and oversight of the MWA’s customer service, call center, field services, meter readers, business office, billing, and collections functional areas of the Authority. The focus of this position is to manage the financial assets and business systems for the MWA Customer Care Department.
Parks joined the MWA as a Customer Care Tech in 2012, before advancing to Business Office Supervisor and Customer Care Trainer in 2017. Three years later, she was promoted to Training Officer, where she served for two years before becoming Human Resources Manager in March of this year.
Prior to joining the MWA, Parks worked in various capacities in customer service and financial services for local businesses or Macon area operations of companies such as Quick Connect Telecommunications, GE (IKON Financial Services), Howard & Howard, GEICO, and others. She has 27 years of professional experience in customer service, including six years in management and 12 years in training.
A graduate of Macon’s Northeast High School, Parks was the 2016 MWA Employee of the Year.
As MWA Controller, Samuels will be responsible for financial compliance and reporting for the Authority, requiring knowledge of all aspects of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), as well as U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations and provisions. The Controller must manage and monitor all MWA accounts, ledgers, and reporting systems, ensuring compliance with GAAP standards and regulatory requirements, as well as the requirements of private contributions, loans, and government contracts. In addition, Samuels will be charged with maintaining internal control safeguards for the receipt of revenue, costs, and both team and organizational budgets and actual expenditures.
Samuels has been with the MWA since 1989, when she was hired as an Accounting Clerk. She advanced to the position of Accounting Assistant three years later, prior to being promoted to Assistant Accountant in 1996. She has served as the Accounting-Purchasing Manager since 1998, managing the daily operations of the Finance and Procurement staff.
Among her many additional responsibilities as MWA Accounting-Purchasing Manager, Samuels managed the construction accounting on all capital projects, handled benefits accounting and health insurance administration for MWA employees, as well as coordinated the annual audit, which has been awarded the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) for 25 consecutive years.
Samuels, who is a graduate of Macon’s Southwest High School, received her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Albany State University.
Media contact: Chris Wood, Ph.D.
P: 770-757-1681
E: chris@jwapr.com or john.wood@gcsu.edu