This week, Chris Ruberg joined the City of Knoxville as the City’s Real Estate Manager.
 
Ruberg, 49, brings a wealth of hands-on local experience to his new role. He served more than three years as the state Department of Transportation’s chief appraiser for highway projects in East Tennessee. Since September 2005, he’s been a TDOT right-of-way appraiser, responsible for complex appraisals and field inspections on hundreds of pieces of property.
 
“I saw the direction the City was going, and I really wanted to be a part of rejuvenating downtown and the great neighborhoods and corridors connecting from downtown,” Ruberg says. “I’m interested in revitalization.”
 
A native of New York state, Ruberg earned a degree in urban studies at Roanoke College in Salem, Va.
 
He’d worked as a project manager and master carpenter for a construction company in Longview, Wash., for five years before working as a real estate appraiser for a Knoxville company and a Maryville company from January 2000 to September 2005, when he joined TDOT.
 
Ruberg will be working with Judy Walton, the City’s real estate acquisition agent.
 
“Chris has a decade of hands-on experience at TDOT under his belt, and another decade of experience doing private-sector project management and appraisals before that,” said Christi Branscom, the City’s Chief Operating Officer and Deputy to the Mayor. “He’s hitting the ground running. We’re delighted to have Chris joining the City team.”
 
Ruberg and his wife, Helen, have two daughters, Tess, 8, and Lucy, 7, who attend Cedar Bluff Elementary School.