Thomas Quist

2008 Harold Holtz Intern

ICMA recognizes the Georgia City-County Management Association’s Harold F. Holtz MPA Scholarship Program as a positive step toward preparing the next generation of city/county managers. One component of the program is a full-time internship grant awarded to a Georgia local government to subsidize the cost of hiring a Georgia MPA program graduate as a management intern. 

The Harold Holtz full-time internship program was launched in 2008 through a collaborative effort between the GCCMA and the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia. The first local government to be awarded a Holtz grant was Cartersville, Georgia (Sam Grove, city manager).  Thomas Quist became the first Harold Holtz Intern in 2008, arriving in Cartersville through an application to the Local Government Management Fellowship.

The city of Cartersville not only paid for Quist’s salary and benefits exceeding the GCCMA grant, they agreed to continue his full-time position after the internship’s expiration. His primary job responsibility thus far has been to oversee the city’s performance management process. He is heavily involved in improving service delivery, increasing efficiency, and developing strategies for performance measurements into the budget and public reporting functions. He works out of the city manager’s office—a requirement of the grant. The next Holtz internship grant will be made to a different Georgia city or county in hopes that it will also seed a permanent position.

Many graduates of MPA programs have aspirations of becoming city/county managers, and programs like the Harold Holtz full-time internship program give recent MPAs the critical boost they need to get started on this career path. If you know of any programs aimed at developing the future of the local government management profession or would like to help start one, send an e-mail to nextgen@icma.org or call Rob Carty at 202/962-3560 or Alex Brown at 202/962-3503.