Managing-director shift: Ramos out, lobbyist in

City Managing Director Pedro Ramos is leaving the Street administration to join a Philadelphia law firm and will be replaced by Loree D. Jones, who has been the administration's top lobbyist this past year.

Ramos, 42, a former school board chairman and city solicitor who has held the managing director's post the past two years, will join the law firm Blank Rome LLP as a partner working on employment, benefits and labor issues.

Jones, 38, will take over June 8 as managing director, coordinating the activities of the city's 16 operating departments. She has spent the last year as Mayor Street's secretary of external affairs, representing the administration in City Council, Harrisburg and Congress.

The mayor's office announced the changes yesterday, as Street heaped praise on both Ramos and Jones.

"Pedro Ramos has consistently distinguished himself in two extremely demanding Cabinet positions," Street said. "He performed with skill, determination and dedication, tirelessly working 24/7 for the citizens of Philadelphia."

Jones had previously served as a top deputy to Ramos, and to the two preceding managing directors, Philip Goldsmith and Estelle Richman.

A native of Philadelphia, Jones graduated from Girls High, and Spelman College in Atlanta, before getting a master's degree from Princeton, specializing in African history.

She ran the African Studies Association, a nonprofit organization associated with Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., before joining the Street administration as Richman's chief of staff in September 2002.

The mayor's office said Jones had played a major behind-the-scenes role in coordinating the city's efforts to help victims of Hurricane Katrina and pull off the Live 8 concert in summer 2005, which drew hundreds of thousands of people to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

In a brief telephone interview yesterday, Jones said she expects to focus on emergency preparedness, child-welfare issues, public safety, and environmental and neighborhood issues in the closing months of the Street administration. *