Thurs. January 7, 2010
WASHINGTON, DC – Frank Russo, founder of the Downtown Business Improvement District’s (BID) red-and-blue-uniformed Downtown “SAM” (Safety, Hospitality and Maintenance) Program, has announced his retirement effective January 15, following more than a decade at the Downtown BID.
Russo, deputy executive director of programs and services, joined the Downtown BID in 1999, following a 25-year career in the Baltimore Police Department and six years at the Downtown Baltimore Partnership, an organization similar to the Downtown BID.
Today, the Downtown BID employs more than 100 SAMs, who maintain public spaces and offer friendly faces to Downtown’s employees, residents and visitors. Downtown advocates have credited the Downtown SAMs with improving people’s perceptions of the area as a place that is “clean, safe and friendly.”
“Frank has been an invaluable resource since the Downtown BID’s inception,” said Richard H. Bradley, executive director of the Downtown BID. “We patterned the SAMs on a program that Frank had developed in Baltimore. In addition to developing the SAM program here, he has advanced the concept throughout the world, and has served as a consultant to hundreds of such programs throughout North America and Europe. Though Frank is retiring from full-time employment, his 20 years of BID-related leadership will enable him to continue serving as a consultant worldwide, and to be available as a resource to us as we move forward.”
In addition to leading the SAM program, Russo developed partnerships with city and federal agencies—especially the Metropolitan Police Department, the District Department of Transportation and the National Park Service—that have helped result in millions of dollars of physical improvements to the one-square-mile Downtown BID area. More recently, he has been instrumental in positioning the Downtown BID’s “Greening Downtown DC” sustainability initiative.
“I believe I have much to be proud of during my tenure with the Downtown BID,” said Russo. “Downtown DC has become the benchmark for business improvement districts across the country and around the world.”
“I have enjoyed my time at the Downtown BID and consider it one of the highlights of my career,” he continued. “I have welcomed the chance to be engaged with so many talented and committed people as we have worked jointly to assist in transforming Downtown Washington to become the vibrant center of the region.”
Bradley remarked further that the Downtown SAMs have been largely responsible for remarkable improvements in people’s perceptions of Downtown DC over the past decade. Each month, he noted, the Downtown BID receives numerous letters, emails and telephone calls thanking SAMs for assisting lost, anxious or distressed pedestrians.
Building upon the “clean, safe and friendly” legacy, Bradley said the Downtown BID has convened an advisory group of Downtown property owners that will examine future strategies for continuing to improve placemaking strategies for Downtown DC.
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