ICMA-president-elect Tanya Ange, will become that organization’s sixth woman president in its 109-year history toward the end of September. In her many years of involvement with ICMA and in her four years as top administrator in Washington County, Oregon, Ange has demonstrated a solid commitment to local government management excellence.

To the 600,000 plus population county – the second largest in the state --  Ange  has brought multiple critical management practices, including restructuring of finance, the creation of the first director-level Chief Financial Officer; the county’s first capital improvement plan, and an aggressive attack on multiple deferred maintenance issues that threatened the county jail and other human service and criminal justice facilities. 

Here’s what she had to say:

“I wish I would have told my younger self to believe in work-life integration because our communities operate 24/7 and my family lives 24/7. And so, it’s about integrating to feel successful in all those spaces.

“I knew I wanted to be a city or county manager and focused on development of all the competencies I’d need so I could check all the boxes when a job profile would come out. I took a leadership development class, but I was so focused on building my career at that point in time that I left my husband with a three-year-old and a three-month-old at home. In hindsight, I wish I had trusted my intuition and just delayed that leadership program and focused on my family. That was a learning opportunity that I can be the parent and spouse I want to be as well as the local government professional.

“I used to be really hard on myself.  Shifting to a style of self-care and self-compassion is a learning mindset that I’ve really had to lean into and grow from. That includes morning routines of mindfulness and exercise. By investing in yourself, you’re actually able to give others more.”

Helen Ramirez is city manager of Brownsville, Texas, the 18th largest city in Texas, with a population of 187,000, and currently the largest city in Texas to have a female city manager. A first generation Mexican American, Ramirez credits her parents with nurturing her love for service, and her Catholic all-girls high school, San Gabriel Mission, with providing its students with a 250-hour community service requirement for graduation. Based on lessons learned from her mother, who died when she was eight; her father, her grandparents, and her school, she learned that “Giving to the Community was part of what we did.”

After working in a variety of urban planning-oriented jobs in LA County, Ramirez, moved to Spain with her husband, who was born there. They spent about ten years in Madrid, with Ramirez working for private companies in engineering and urban planning jobs and travelling internationally – an experience that emphasized to her the benefits of having both private and public sector experiences. She became city manager of Brownsville in January 2023 and was one of the top ten finalists for the League of Women in Government’s 2024 Leadership Trailblazer award.

Here’s what she had to say:

“Having mentors is really important. They will tell you what you don’t want to hear. I would tell myself to be open to advice if it comes from a good heart and a good place and to listen to those words of wisdom even if makes you doubt some of your own decision making. If it’s someone you trust, consider what they say because they have so much history and wisdom and you may not have that at that point in your career. My mentor, Henry Taylor, was one of the first African-American building inspectors in LA County and he asked me to be on his team as I was starting in my career and he was with me for 23 years, until he passed away during Covid.

“What I’d tell my younger self is bring other women with you. We don’t do that enough. Men have a lot of networks they’ve fostered for many years, and we have a lot to catch up with. And I practice “learn by doing”, California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo’s motto. I actually live that every day and I talk to my employees about it. With a can-do mindset, we can bring other women with us in our careers to achieve success professionally, financially and personally.”

Susan E. Buxton became the Director of the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation on April 19, 2021. She served as the temporary director and accepted the full-time position six months later. Buxton previously held the position of Administrator of the Idaho Division of Human Resources from 2016 to April 2021. From August 2012 to early 2016, Buxton served on the Idaho Parks and Recreation Board.

Previously, she worked extensively as a private attorney, representing local governments and a variety of other clients in the areas of water rights, land

use, public finance, employment and government relations. She began her public sector career as a law clerk in the Idaho Court of Appeals. After being a “ski bum for a year,” she attended law school at the University of Idaho and got an internship with United States Senator Steven Symms, which was her first experience in public service. 

Here’s what she had to say:

“I’d like to tell myself to stop worrying about what people thought about me. I always had good self-esteem, and was successful, but as a female I was always afraid that people would find out that I didn’t know as much as they thought I did. 

“Also, I’ve always been an advocate for my clients or the people I work with, and I help to get people where they want to go. I was never afraid of hard work. But looking back I would spend more time with my friends and family. I have a husband for almost 29 years. He’s an accountant for the Idaho fish and wildlife foundation.

“Our daughter is 23. I worked hard to spend as much time with her as I could, but my husband had to carry a lot of the load especially during the recession when I was able to do a lot more work which helped the family. I traveled a lot, and had a lot of night meetings, and I also volunteered a lot which I loved, so he took a lot of the load, I would have liked to have done a better job at managing that. 

Christiane Farrell, the assistant administrator of the Town of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, has worked there for 25 years and has responsibilities for such areas as planning, economic development, emergency management, risk management, human resources and communications. Back in 1999, Farrell started off in an entry level position in the planning department, where she worked for 18 years, with eight in the role of planning director, a particularly challenging job given the town’s rapid growth.

In fact, for a couple of years, Mount Pleasant was the fastest growing area east of the Mississippi River. Now, its population is just under 100,000 up from 47,600 when Farrell was first employed. As she says, “a lot of what I learned over 25 years has had a lot to do with the environment we have -- being the planning director of a place that doubled in population in that time.”

Here's what she had to say:

“Mount Pleasant has been one of the fastest growing communities in the country, and in 2011 after I had been there for over a decade, a number of concerns and complaints began to surface at public meetings and on social media about the growth and changes in our community. 

“People were concerned about the number of apartments, new building heights, and traffic. I had only recently been placed as head of the planning department and since most concerns were related to zoning and new development, my staff and I were subject to most of the criticisms, some of which were quite vocal. Looking back, I realize how personally I took so many of the comments directed towards me and I let it weigh on me, taking it home with me almost daily.

“I was relatively new in the role and despite being knowledgeable and a hard worker, I did not recognize my own value.  It’s important, especially in times like that, to be confident in yourself. It’s important to know your value to yourself and your organization and that will help get you through times when problems arise that aren’t under your control.”

Having grown up in rural Kansas, Tansy Howard has been deputy city manager in Raleigh, North Carolina, for the last four years. She originally considered a future in journalism, thinking she would become a political analyst. After graduating from the University of Kansas, which has a nationally-recognized program in government, she soon acquired a passion for local government, and has worked in city manager’s offices, in places like Olathe, Kansas, Des Moines, Iowa, and Tacoma, Washington. Her experiences have led her to deal with the transitions from the dot.com era through the great recession, tax reform and more. 

Here’s what she had to say:

“Every person’s career is going to unfold in a unique way that meets their needs and is responsive to their goals and the environment they’re in. Sometimes as you move in a career trajectory with a goal in mind, you can lose the opportunity to celebrate the growth in the role you’re in then, and to really experience all the growth and rewards that position offers. 

“Something else on my mind, as there’s greater emphasis on work life balance, is that there’s no perfect formula for accomplishing that. When I was younger and my daughters, who are now 21, were around three, I was at a conference, about not taking our personal commitments as seriously as our work commitments, and the particular tactic this person recommended was to put our personal commitments on our calendar the same way we do our professional commitments. So, I left the conference and put on my calendar biweekly times when I was to take my kids to the library. 

“Then the first time that popped up on my calendar, I couldn’t do it, and I felt guilty about it all day long. And the same thing happened a couple of weeks later. So, I finally had the presence of mind to realize that effectively balancing work and the rest of my life would vary over time and sometime there’d be periods of my life when family would come first, and other times when work would be prioritized, and my family would have to be ready to accommodate it. I think our families and our colleagues will generally give us grace that we don’t give ourselves. 

#WomenInGovernment #WomenInLocalGovernment #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalGovernmentLeadership #CityGovernmentManagement #CityGovernmentLeadership #StateandLocalGovernmentCareerDevelopment #PreparationForPublicService #CityManagement #CityManagementCareerPath #GovernmentCareerPath #TakingCareerRisks #GovernmentWorkLifeBalance #CityWorklifeBalance #CityGovernmentConflictManagement #StateWorklifeBalance #CityGovernmentLeadershipPerspective #CityGovernmentLeadershipIntegrity #EthicalGovernmentLeadership #CrisisManagement #HighGrowthCityManagement #WomenInGovernmentNetworking #GovernmentWorkLifeBalance #StateandLocalHumanResources #CountyHumanResources #GovernmentLeaderAdviceToYoungerSelf #BarrettandGreeneInc #Envisio #TheLeagueOfWomenInGovernment #AllianceForInoovation #TanyaAngePresidentElectICMA #ICMA #WashingtonCountyOregon #BrownsvilleTexas #MountPleasantSouthCarolina #IdahoParksDepartment #RalieghNorthCarolina