Gretchen DiFante, city manager of Pelham, Alabama, grew up in that state, and started with a job in marketing in McDonald’s in Rochester New York. She wound up working as a senior executive with a billion-dollar company but when her young daughter became ill, she became a private sector consultant.  In 2012, she began to work on a strategic plan with a community college in Batavia New York, which won an ICMA award. She became assistant city manager there and found it to be thoroughly rewarding. In 2017, she returned to her home state and became the first city manager of Pelham. Here’s what she had to say:

“One of the things I always struggled with was that I would feel like I had failed because I didn’t have a designated career path. I’d tell my younger self, don’t worry about a designated career path as long as you’re doing things that you enjoy doing and are passionate about and give you fulfillment. I needn’t have worried unnecessarily about not knowing where my career was headed. What I discovered was that I enjoyed working with people to help them collaborate and fix complicated problems, and that’s exactly the job of a city manager. I learned those skills through my entire career path, but had I tried to find a straight line forward I never would have found my way to where I am now. It was really all about honing the skills I enjoyed that led me here.

“Whether it’s state federal or local, government doesn’t seem to view itself as capable of excellence or deserving of excellence. We don’t seem to be dreaming too big, so we just have everything as status quo. But I’d tell my younger self, don’t be fearful of tackling the big scary insurmountable problems, because those are the things that can really make important changes if you can help people work together. If we aren’t going to be willing to take it on, who will? I’d tell my younger self not to be afraid of those things.” 

Penny Postoak Ferguson, has been in public service for 30 years, in a wide variety of positions from small towns to big cities and counties. She’s been County Manager of Johnson County, Kansas with a population of about 600,000 for a little over six years. Here’s what she had to say: 

 “Always do the right thing and everything will be OK. There have been times when there’s been a tough decision to be made, but it was going to make people unhappy with me, and I’ve learned that if I do the right thing. It was the only way I could feel good about what I was doing, but I also found I would get instant respect and credibility from the people who understood why that decision had to be made. The first time or two I had that experience it surprised me, but then I learned to anticipate that would generally be the case. 

“It’s also important to allow yourself to be vulnerable and share yourself. My daughter has Down’s syndrome I shared a personal story one time about her and found out the first couple of times I did that at least one person in the group has come up to me afterwards and will share with me how that touched them and share a similar story, and I feel honored because I demonstrated being vulnerable, and that creates a wonderful connection. People say, when I see people at the top do that, I can relate to that and see that they have life challenges the same as I do. I get so much joy out of getting to know co-workers in that way that it’s very rewarding to me.”

Shelby Kerns, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, grew up on a farm in a tiny town in Idaho and attended the University of Idaho, where she studied political science. “My biggest dilemma back then,” she says, “was I wanted to do everything. Every time I took a class, I’d say this is amazing. This is something I’d like to do.” Her introduction to public service was an internship in Washington D.C. to work on the 1996 farm bill. After working for various trade associations, she entered Idaho state government and, in 2009, started work in the budget office, rising to budget bureau chief. After a brief time with the state’s department of labor, in 2020 she became executive director at NASBO. Here’s what she has to say:

“A piece of advice I would give is to stay curious. I’ve never had a job that I had previously known existed. When you keep an open mind, things will come your way but if you don’t, they won’t. I’ve found curiosity is a hallmark of people who work in state budgeting. You continuously come across topics that you had no knowledge of before but need to learn about to do your job. So, it’s a great profession for people who are a little bit interested in everything and love to learn.

“Also, if you’re curious you can more easily adapt to things, including changes in technology and emerging issues. Curiosity about the world can also help you adapt when you need to change jobs. Perhaps I feel that way because, ironically, I came to the budget office in Idaho after my job working in rural economic development was eliminated during the Great Recession. It turned out to be the best move I could have imagined! Circumstances change and if you have a lot of interests, that helps you adapt.”

Sarah Medary, city manager of Eugene, Oregon, studied horticulture in college and then went back to study landscape architecture. When she completed that degree, she took a job working in the maintenance division of the Eugene parks department, assuming it would be for a year or two. That was 28 years ago, and she’s been working with the city ever since. Over the course of those years she worked in public works, central services, planning and development, as well as library, recreation and cultural services. 

In 2008 a new city manager came in, at which point she had put in 12 years with Eugene. She was inspired by his approach to problem solving, and decided she wanted to be assistant city manager, and achieved that goal later that same year. When the city manager retired in 2019, she became pro tem city manager and six months later in 2020, the council appointed her to the position permanently. Here's what she has to say: 

“If I go back to the beginning of my career or even my middle school and high school days, one of the things I would definitely say is to follow my own path. I have an older brother who I idolized, and I followed him. I played all the sports he played except football, and I wanted to do that. I applied to the college he attended.

“Even when I got to the city, I decided to do the job until something else came along. I would advise myself to take a more purposeful path. I should have paid more attention – which doesn’t mean I would have wound up someplace different.

“I think when I first started at the city of Eugene, I would have told myself, ‘Pay attention to yourself every day. Weigh yourself every day. We think about the big accomplishments, but it’s the small things that make a difference.

“Also, I’d say embrace your setbacks and know that they’re helping you to prepare yourself for something that you don’t even know is going to happen. People focus on the bad things, but later you’re going to take those gifts and use them in a way that’s powerful.  As you get older, you see this with much more clarity.  

Corrin Spiegel former City Administrator of Davenport Iowa, moved to Phoenix after growing up in a small town, and fell in love with the field of economic development. She worked in Goodyear, Arizona and Centennial, Colorado in that field, and became city administrator in Davenport for eight years. Last year there was a building collapse there and people died. and “things became intolerable for me. I was called a murderer for several months, in addition to which there were instances of sexual harassment aimed at me.” She’s now in her last year of a doctoral study in business administration. Here’s what she had to say

“In thinking through the question of what I wish I could have told myself when I was younger, I realized that my thoughts evolved into a series of thoughts that formed an acronym: PEARLS.

Here’s what that stands for:

• "Have an idea of where you want to go and Plan accordingly but allow the journey to Evolve with you.

• “Act with reverence when protecting your (mental, physical, and emotional) health; regaining it will be exponentially harder than retaining it.

• "Take the time to Reflect and Learn. Some of life’s most difficult moments will present the most important opportunities for growth. Patience and humility will be hard, but important, lessons.

• "Most importantly, Savor life’s moments, big and small. Time is a nebulous construct that we often undervalue, but it’s not infinite, so treat it like it's the precious resource that it is.”

Melissa Bridges is a Senior Client Success Manager at Tyler Technologies, a role she took after twenty-five years of local government, non-profit, and international development experience. She played a pivotal role as the inaugural performance and innovation coordinator for Little Rock, Arkansas and served in that role for six years.“

After completing my MPA degree and working myself into a full-time position with a city government, I realized that I had to work harder than the men around me to receive less pay.  I grew frustrated with that environment and left after four years.  After a ten-year gap doing everything from international development to non-profits to healthcare data systems, I returned to local government. I would tell my younger self that she did the right thing.  Leaving a toxic workplace can be very hard, especially when just starting your career and trying to make a name for yourself but having self-worth enough to know when it is not healthy is so important. I was able to return to local government on my own terms and chart a career path that was very rewarding to me, both professionally and personally.”

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