Gaston County's first DEI officer retires

Gaston County no longer has a single employee designated to handle issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Pearl Burris-Floyd, formerly Gaston County's equity and inclusion officer for the county government, retired at the end of 2023, according to Adam Gaub, Gaston County's public information officer.

Burris-Floyd will not be replaced, but her duties will be reallocated to others, including a point person in Gaston County's Human Resources department, Gaub said.

"Pearl did an amazing job for us and kind of set the table really well. I think we can continue to do the work that she was doing with some of the folks that we have in place. We've got folks… in a variety of different departments that kind of operate under similar lenses," Gaub said.

Burris-Floyd was hired in 2020 as the first diversity, equity and inclusion officer for Gaston County.

In a February 2021 interview Burris-Floyd said her purpose is to make it easier for Gaston County's 1,700 employees to respect one another's differences and to be sensitive in how they communicate with each other.

"We are a diverse county," she said. "And we are growing more diverse. We should be able to live together. To do that, we need to dispel stereotypes and open up lines of positive communication."

Burris-Floyd, a Republican, previously served seven years on the county board of commissioners and was the first African-American to do so. She then ran successfully for a seat in the N.C. House of Representatives, where she served representing the 110th district from 2009 until 2011.

This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Gaston County's first DEI officer retires