HOLLYWOOD – The Seminole Tribe has a new executive director of operations – Randy Singh. His first day on the job was Feb. 6. Singh oversees operations and services within government departments that fall under the Executive Operations Office. Those include Seminole Media Productions, Buildings and Grounds, the Heritage and Environment Resources Office, Building Inspector Office and more.

He comes to the tribe after almost 25 years of experience in Orange County government in Orlando.

Singh grew up in Queens in New York City, where he also went to business school at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College in Manhattan. He earned degrees in accounting and finance and audio engineering. He is a certified government finance officer and a certified public finance officer.  The 1993 bombing in the basement of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan would be pivotal in his life and career.

“I was in tower one on the 69th floor when it happened,” Singh said. “I walked down 69 flights of stairs and saw what happened and it scared the heck out of me.”

Six people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured in the blast. Singh had been working in the building for a Wall Street firm as a junior executive at the time. His office operated out of New Jersey for two months while the World Trade Center was being repaired, but Singh never wanted to return. A few years later he left New York City.

“After the incident and the amount of attention it received, I realized it could happen again, just because of the global attention,” Singh said. “It was an attack on U.S. soil of a magnitude that had never been seen at the time.”

Not long after, a newly married Singh went on a honeymoon in Orlando and stayed at a Disney property.

“It was like paradise; especially coming from the hustle and bustle of New York,” Singh said. “You come to a location with green space, beautiful landscape and pristine rows. There was a vibe, an energy in Orlando that wasn’t in New York.”

The family eventually moved to Orlando and Singh began to work for a hotel management company, but quickly landed a less travel-dependent job for Orange County government in the budget office as a budget analyst.

“Orange County government exceeded my expectations. I quickly realized how important government services are,” Singh said.

Orange County is the fifth largest county in Florida and its government has about 10,000 employees. Singh worked his way up from budget analyst to one of three deputy county administrators – the equivalent of an executive vice president in a large corporation. He oversaw a multibillion-dollar budget.  In addition to budget and finance, he oversaw huge departments, like public safety 911 operations, social services, crisis assistance, real estate, parks and recreation, government facilities operations, risk management, human resources, information technology, economic development, marketing and promotions, procurement, capital projects, fleet services, arts, and more. He worked under five mayoral administrations.

“Everything involves the budget,” Singh said. “I was involved in a lot of high level decisions and that’s what propelled me up.”

‘Listen, learn’

While Singh said there were more good days than bad days at the job, he decided he was ready for something different, and the Seminole Tribe came calling.

In addition to large tribal departments, Singh oversees the SemFuel gas station and the shuttered Billie Swamp Safari on the Big Cypress Reservation. He’s currently working on a proposal to “bring it back to life in a new way.”

“The goal for me in this position is to work collaboratively with all the other executives,” he said. “I’m a data driven person. Good decisions are based on good data or you’re guessing, and I don’t like to guess. My goal for the first three months is to listen, to learn, and to ask a lot of questions, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”

Singh said the vibe of the tribe’s music-centric Hard Rock empire also resonates with him. He was in a band as a teenager and says music has been big part of his life.

“If I was to explain the music, it was like the Police or UB40 – some country rock,” he said. “Every week we played gigs in big clubs; I played Central Park twice.”

Singh played bass guitar for the most part, he said. The band’s name was Haze Venom. He and his band mates signed a recording contract and spent many hours creating over 50 original tracks in a recording studio in New York.

Singh has two adult children. His wife is a chief financial officer.  His daughter recently graduated with a Master of Business Administration from the University of Miami and works as an investment analyst. His son works in information technology and is launching his own startup company.