How long have you been a FCCMA member and why did you join?
That’s an interesting story, I went to my first FCCMA conference in 1995 while I was a staff member at The Innovation Groups. The Innovation Groups which later became the Alliance for Innovation had a long-standing partnership with FCCMA and from 1995 through 2013 I attended many association events and Board meetings in my role as Florida Regional Director. In that capacity I was an Affiliate member and did not become a government member of the association until officially becoming the Manager of Strategy Development for Sarasota County, FL in 2013.
Are you an ICMA member, why did you join, and how long have you been a member?
Similarly, I have had the great opportunity to be an ICMA member for most of my career. In 1995 as a very young director for The Innovation Groups, I was part of a select team of people from our organization to meet with ICMA Leadership. To just be around such giants in the profession as Bob Havlick, Bill Hansell and Tom Muehlenbeck is an honor I can’t put into words, but it definitely shaped my career as a young and impressionable local government public servant. Through our partnership with ICMA I was given membership and have retained that throughout my career. Being a member of both ICMA and FCCMA is foundational to understanding the importance of the council-manager form of government as well as adhering to our ethical code. For me that code has been a light to lead my actions.
Please describe your areas of formal/advanced education.
I do not have a typical MPA degree, rather my degree is a Masters of Science in Technology and Innovation Management from the University of Tampa. When it came time to select a Masters degree program, my mentor at the time Bob Hart and I discerned what we were looking for in a program. I had years worth of experience being exposed to an on-the-job MPA, what we decided I needed was something that would help me push the envelope of public service and breed innovation capacity into the organizations we were working with. This has served me very well as a strategic planner. It has allowed me to dive deep into process improvement, reorganization efforts, culture change and of course strategic planning and performance management.
Why did you select a career in public service?
As a young person all of my family influences were very public-service minded. I come from a family of educational and medical professionals primarily. But even in our home life, my family values foster care and adoption which oftentimes comes with advocacy for the under-represented in our communities.
Please tell us about your current position and give a brief job description if you are not a City Administrator/Manager.
As the Manager of Strategy Development for Sarasota County I am first and foremost responsible to manage our strategic plan. In Sarasota’s case that comes with the development of, tracking and reporting of an annual work plan. In addition to the strategic plan, I am also responsible for our performance management program that is aligned to the annual financial plan and the overall strategic plan. A very rewarding aspect to my job has been the implementation of our strategic planning and performance dashboard. Having a technology background has allowed me to build out our system without the help of an outside agencies and really allowed for us to make it our own. Through these efforts I have a broad look into our organization while working with each department individually to help facilitate their planning process. I have also had the great opportunity to bring my many years of consulting to Sarasota County by running our internal process improvement projects. These projects pair on the job professional development for rising stars in our organization with critical problem solving of an issue that has captured the attention of County Administration or the Board. It is a great way to teach people skills in surveying, benchmarking and report writing.
Please describe your typical day.
My day is fluid most of the time and focused on what deadlines are next. Many people see me as a task person but frankly that does not come naturally to me. I am a dyslexic and I have learned that to be successful in my work I have to be disciplined in my to do list and management of my time.
What is your favorite part of the job?
My favorite part of the job is invention. Inventing solutions, system or new methods of doing things. I feed off of a work group and somehow can see when I am facilitating the path forward that they are describing. As a dyslexic you tend to see things differently from other people. It’s like the answers are in the air rather than on paper somewhere and I get to articulate them for my counterparts. I am in my element when I am in this zone.
What is your least favorite part of the job?
I really abhor when politics get in the way of our ability to do the right thing. Politics come in many forms, it can be organizational politics or greater community politics. It can even be the influence of the larger political landscape that effects decision making. A former elected official once said pot holes don’t have politics. At the local level there is little room for political agendas.
What are your hobbies/interests?
Well my biggest hobby/interest is my family. That has led me to some wonderful adventures particularly in baseball with my sons and horses with my daughter. I realized over the years that being outside in these activities brought out the child in me. While most people hunkered down during COVID, we made the crazy leap of faith to sell our home and purchase a horse ranch. It has been one of the best blessings of our lives. It is a lot of work, but it is awesome just the same.
If you could give one piece of advice to people interested in a career in public service, what would it be?
I try to encourage everyone I know to consider a career in public service. It is honorable, stable and rewarding… at least most of the time. And whenever I can I try to debunk the idea of us as “bureaucrats.” I see us as community builders doing the valuable work of protecting all people in our communities including the most vulnerable.
Who were your mentors and how have you passed this information down to other aspiring public administrators?
Oh boy, there are too many to name, but I will give you the short list. Katy Simon, former Washoe County Manager taught me how to be a female leader in this industry. In my experience, we can’t do it the same as our male colleagues, but it doesn’t mean our brand of leadership can’t be just as good, just different. My next two are Bill Horne and Tom Bonfield. These two giants in our profession are on my list because they cared about me more on a personal level than any of the work I did for and with them. They have given me great advice in raising my family and making hard choices in my career but have always done it in a non-judgmental and authentic way. Bob Hart is on my list for the same reason as Bill and Tom but to an even greater degree, Bob changed my life. As my boss he cared more about my personal well-being than any task I had on my list. He pushed me to do things that were uncomfortable and supported me through those choices. Getting my masters while having another baby and learning how to be successful at working from home. It was all critical to the person I am now.
The greatest thing I do now is take the time to pass these sentiments on to others. I have had the chance to encourage people to go back to school, and counsel through career decisions as well as provide stretch assignments. But probably the most important thing I have learned is when someone comes to me with distress in their eyes, I stop what I am doing, and I put all work aside to care about the person before me. I don’t just do this at work either. Leaders lead in the quiet moments as well as the grand ones.
Do you have a story you can share about how being a member of FCCMA has helped you or impacted you in a positive way?
FCCMA is family. The relationships I have at FCCMA is beyond what you develop in a typical association. We are a unique group and most importantly if one of us calls or writes, we answer. We are compelled to serve one another in the good times and the bad. Public service isn’t just about running cities and counties for us in Florida, but what I have learned from my FCCMA colleagues is it is about doing all that we can as a group to make Florida the best council-manager state in the nation.
