Meet the Staff

Randy Talifarro, Interim City Manager

Randy Talifarro has been serving as the interim city manager of East Lansing, Mich. since mid-February 2023. In this leadership role, Talifarro is working with the City of East Lansing’s professional staff to maintain quality municipal services for community members, while also helping with the Fiscal Year 2024 budget season and organizing the search process for the next city manager. 

Talifarro previously served for 20 years as East Lansing’s fire chief and, for six of those years, he served as the chief of both the East Lansing Fire Department and Lansing Fire Department under a shared fire chief agreement between the municipalities. Prior to his career in East Lansing, Talifarro also served with the City of Flint Fire Department (FFD), where he was awarded “Firefighter of the Year” and earned the Medal of Merit in 1993. He also received his State of Michigan Professional Emergency Manager designation in 1998 and received several promotions during his years with FFD, moving through the ranks to become assistant fire chief in 2000.

Talifarro has a Bachelor of Arts in public administration from the University of Michigan and completed the Master of Arts Homeland Security Program through the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security in Monterey, Calif. Additionally, Talifarro was a U.S. Fire Administration fellow at the Executive Education Harvard Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. Prior to his return to East Lansing in 2023, Talifarro had been residing in Arizona and working full time as a safety technician with Arizona State University.