Bryant Powell ('96)
SUU to City Manager
Originally published on January 07, 2026.
Bryant Powell, who was known to some at SUU as “Flaco,” came to campus from Safford, Arizona, and now serves in his home state as the city manager of Apache Junction, a medium-sized city near Phoenix.
A Spanish major and political science minor, he was pursuing a degree in teaching secondary education and as a Spanish teacher when he stumbled upon this career on campus after a BYU professor visited and told of the MPA program there.
“I caught the bug. The next week, I got with my professors to adjust my courses toward that goal.”
He served an SUU internship with Cedar City Corp. and now has worked in Apache Junction since 2001, the last 10 years in his current post.
“I love working for local government because I work very closely with the local city council to provide tax policy analysis and work with them to strategically lay out and then implement their vision of their city. My position is very similar to the CEO of a business, but in a city, overseeing the major component units to a city; Public Safety, Street and Roads, Parks and Recreation, Library, Development, Code Compliance, Water and Sewer utilities and Internal Services functions.”
He credits two SUU students—Troy Blanchard (’98) and Jared Chisholm—for sending him SUU’s way, as the pair served on a church mission with him in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and encouraged him matriculate here.
“In the fall of ’93, I walked on and tried out for SUU’s baseball team and made the squad. I played two seasons for the T Birds. “I am so proud that one of my daughters attended SUU for two years, and that my wife, Jenny—now a local high school counselor—and I continue to work with our community youth to consider SUU for their higher education,” he says.
The couple are parents to a trio of daughters.
Bryant credits a number of SUU individuals in helping him reach his goals. Sage Platt (’70) aided him greatly through her public speaking class, he notes. And, he adds, “My Spanish professors prepared me very well to recognize and learn about different cultures and how they would give so much to the social network.”