Photo by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
Aspen Collins is the new chief financial officer for the city of Homewood.
Homewood’s new chief financial officer said her parents made a deal with one another when it came to naming their offspring.
“My mom and dad had two girls, but they had a deal that my mom would get to name any boys they had, and my dad would get to name any girls they had,” Aspen Collins said. “He picked both names. On the way to the hospital, they were listening to a ski competition in Aspen. That’s how I got my name. My sister’s name is Randi. She was named after his poker buddy, so I feel like I got the better end of the deal in the naming convention.”
Collins’ Colorado name aside, she was raised near Bessemer, across from McAdory High School.
“Where Target and that shopping center are now, Meadow Lane Drive, that was the road that most of my family lived on,” the Oak Grove High alumna said. “That is where I originally was from. When I got to be an adult, I moved to Tuscaloosa. That’s where I spent a good bit of my adult life until I moved to Nashville.”
Collins said she took “the hard route” after high school.
“I went to tech school at Bessemer Tech and got my two-year accounting degree there,” she said. “Then I went to Athens State University in Athens, Alabama, and got my bachelor’s there. Then I went to Auburn for my master’s in accountancy. But I went online because I was working from the time I was 19 years old. I worked my way through college. I went to school full time and worked full time.”
Collins’ first job was as a maintenance clerk for the Bessemer Housing Authority, the same entity where her grandfather worked for 35 years.
“He worked for Hillside Homes in Bessemer,” she recalled. “He was a maintenance mechanic there. He found bicycles for kids and fixed them up and took them to them. He treated everyone in his community like his family. That’s kind of where I got my heart for public service. I’ve always worked in public service, either at a housing authority or at a city.”
Collins might have pursued a career in the culinary arts, were it not for the 80-hour weeks required in that field. She still likes to bake and cook, though.
“I really like to do cheesecakes, so those are generally my favorite thing to cook,” she said. “But I like to cook anything. I just like to entertain. I like to have my friends and family over and serve a meal.”
Collins takes Homewood’s CFO position after the city’s former finance director was sentenced for embezzling nearly $950,000 from the city. U.S. District Judge Anna M. Manasco sentenced Robert Burgett to 37 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud in October 2024.
Collins said that, since the incident, Homewood has done a good job of putting policies in place to prevent anything like that from happening again.
“I feel like my job at this point is more optimization,” she said. “They’ve built the framework, and now my job is just to optimize that framework and ensure that we’re following those policies and procedures that they put in place.”
“I do feel some pressure, but I would feel that pressure regardless,” she said. “Every decision that’s made, we have to consider how the public is going to feel about it. I’ve just always felt like that.”
Collins is married. She and her husband are parents of five children and have three grandchildren, with another on the way.
