Sam Dilena
Director City Works and Presentation
Building is in Sam Dilena’s blood.
A bricklayer’s son, Sam has spent his life building himself, his skills, his family, and his career. It’s this passion for not only creating but delivering and maintaining quality outcomes that makes City of Prospect excited to welcome Sam as our new Director City Works and Presentation.
As a young man he learnt to respect the value of hard work and for him, thought it was best applied in the classroom. He pursued and completed a Bachelor of Civil Engineering and then further complemented his degree with a Certificate IV in Frontline Management.
Sam comes to Prospect with over 21 years’ experience in South Australian Local Government from two very different councils. The challenged posed in planning, building, and managing infrastructure and assets for both inner metropolitan and peri-urban growth councils have forged his professional journey. Sam’s passion for building doesn’t stop at tools down. At present, he finds time to teach his family dog, a Lagotto Romagnolo named Pepe, how to hunt for truffles. He’s trained for and completed three marathons, ticks countries off his traveller’s bucket list, enjoys dangling a fishing line, loves to spend time on the River Murray in true Aussie style and actively raises his two sons.
In more than two decades in Local Government, Sam has both built and managed not only all forms of public infrastructure, but also strong relationships with communities he’s served, peers he’s worked alongside and private industry he’s collaborated with. Through this experience, Sam has learnt that community engagement is fundamental. He both understands the importance and values the opportunity to engage with the community he serves truly and effectively. He understands providing stakeholders with the opportunity to have their say, be heard, and be actively involved, whilst exercising professional judgment in decision making and acting with respect, integrity and transparency are fundamental pillars expected of Local Government. His appetite for bringing people together is a personal passion as well. At home, Sam has invested his time in becoming an avid home cook and passing this passion onto his children. His two signature dishes being risotto marinara and gluten free eggplant parmigiana, both influenced by his Sicilian heritage.
As the new Director City Works and Presentation, Sam plans to continue to deliver positive infrastructure outcomes in partnership with the community as well as care for the public realm of Prospect as sustainably as possible.