Brian D. Newby
Election Commissioner 
Brian D. Newby was first appointed Johnson County Election Commissioner by Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh on January 11, 2005, and sworn in for a four-year term on August 31, 2006. He is the 8th Johnson Countian to serve
as Election Commissioner.
Since his initial appointment, Newby has administered nearly
20 elections while earning national recognition for operational and technological innovation excellence.
In just his first full year as Johnson County Election Commissioner, the Office was awarded the prestigious
Best Professional Practice of the Year award by the National Association of Election Officials (the Election Center) for
Johnson County’s Text Messaging and Podcast Voter Notification initiative,
targeted at young, mobile voters. The program also received recognition as a winner for Outstanding Achievement in Local Government Innovation by the Alliance for Innovation and was highlighted on the front page of USA Today in November 2006.
The following year, Johnson County’s redesigned Election Office website was named a 2007 Best of the Web winner by the Center for Digital Government as one of the top five local Government-to-Citizen sites in the country. The award was Newby’s second Internet-related award after receiving the 2001 Frost & Sullivan Market Engineering Award for Internet Marketing Strategy Leadership for Wholesale Telecommunications while Newby was at Sprint, where he worked for 20 years in various operations, sales, public relations, marketing, business development, and strategic planning executive positions.
At Sprint, he led the sales initiative to sign three of Sprint’s 25-largest contracts, led the marketing of Telecommunications Relay Service from start-up to market share leader and annual revenues of more than $65 million, and was part of the wholesale executive leadership team that doubled annual revenue from $600 million to $1.2 billion in three years, from 1996 to 1999. His last position at Sprint was director-strategic planning and industry analysis while working as the business division's planning point person for Sprint's restructuring as it transformed from separate wireless and wireline divisions to business and consumer divisions.
While at Sprint, he also was elected to the City Council in Shawnee, Kan., (population 55,000), where he served as the chairperson of the Finance and Administration Committee (2003) and the Public Works and Safety Committee (2004) before resigning to join the Election Office in 2005. During his tenure in Shawnee, he was the city's representative with the Shawnee Economic Development Council and the Johnson County Stormwater Management Advisory Committee.
Nationally, he was a member of several National League of Cities committees, including FAIR (Finance, Administration, and Inter-governmental Relations), CED (Community and Economic Development), First-Tier Suburbs, and the Municipalities in Transition panel on Family and Communities. In March 2005, Newby was recognized by the National League of Cities Training Institute for the completion of the Bronze Certificate - Leadership Fellow in the Certificate of Achievement in Leadership Program. The presentation was made in Washington, DC at the annual Congressional City Conference.
Currently, Newby serves on the Election Center Legislative Committee, National Association of County Recorders, Election Officials and Clerks (NACRC) Board of Directors, and the Kansas County Clerks and Election Officials Association (KCCEOA) Training and Education Committee. He is a member of the faculty at the Baker University School of Professional and Graduate Studies, having taught MBA courses in leadership and in marketing.
A Kansas City, Mo., native, Brian holds a Master's Degree in Public Administration from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, with an emphasis in policy and planning, and a bachelor's degree in communications studies, with an emphasis in public relations, from the same school. He is a former board member of the Greater Kansas City Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. He moved to Johnson County in 1985 and lives in Shawnee with his wife and two children.
(Brian Newby is not related to Wyandotte County (Kan.) Election Commissioner Bruce Newby.)
Staff Members
Serving the public by administering the election process
and by promoting voter participation
As staff members, our goal is to provide excellent customer service! From a telephone request to a tour of our office or a virtual tour of our website, we focus on one thing - serving YOU!
| Brian D. Newby | Election Commissioner | (913) 715-6850 brian.newby@jocoelection.org |
| Karen Browning | Assistant Election Commissioner | (913) 715-6815 |
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| Jackie Boos | Election Coordinator | (913) 782-3441 |
| Alison Collins | Election Coordinator | (913) 715-6821 |
| Tom Freeman | Election Systems Manager | (913) 715-6819 |
| Sarah Horn | Election Systems Manager | (913) 715-6818 |
| Karen Jackson | Election Manager | (913) 715-6836 |
| Jennifer Landoll | Election Manager | (913) 715-6828 |
| Marilyn Murphy | Election Manager | (913) 715-6842 |
| Jeanie Nichols | Election Director of Registration | (913) 715-6810 |
| Tom Ray | Election Director of Voting Locations and Staffing | (913) 715-6814 |
| Sheryl Roederer | Election Manager | (913) 715-6843 |
| Melanie Shelton | Election Coordinator | (913) 715-6809 |
| Kathy Spann | Election Manager | (913) 715-6841 |
| Debbie Tyrrel | Election Director of Equipment | ( 913) 715-6827 |
Site last updated: July 22, 2008 6:21 PM
Please send any comments or questions to the developer at election@jocoelection.org or to the Johnson County Election Office 2101 E. Kansas City Road, Olathe, Kansas 66061. Phone: (913) 782-3441. Fax: (913) 791-1753.
Map to the Election Office
Office Hours: Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Relay Center: 1-800-766-3777 Nationwide: 711