Adam J. Brown is the city manager of Ontario, Oregon. He has been an ICMA member since 2003.

How did you get into local government?

I started out as an architecture student, working for a married couple who were architects and very involved in local government. Since it would have taken me seven years to get a bachelor’s degree in architecture, I looked for a quicker path. Because of my relationship with the architects and because I was in the school of planning and public affairs, I switched over to urban planning. Two years into that and learning about what city and county managers do, I decided that rather than going back to get a master’s of architecture, I would pursue a degree in public administration.

What attracted you to the idea of city management?

The idea of being able to make a difference locally. Also, I liked the diversity of services, the opportunity to have my hands in a lot of different things at once, rather than just being focused on one thing.

If you were talking to a student, someone maybe in a graduate program, what would you say to them about local government? What would you do to encourage them?

I take every opportunity I can to encourage students to be involved in local government. What I found most appealing when I was in their shoes, was to be able to be involved in a lot of different things at the same time. Local government is really a diverse profession. You may deal with cats and dogs, sicknesses, population health, and law enforcement all in the same day.

So in your previous job as a county manager, how were you able to bring people together?

That requires building relationships, trust, and bringing others together in consensus through influence, not through power. It’s very challenging as a county government to build a community given the tools and constraints.

Do you have a career highlight, one big thing, you’d like to share?

One of my career highlights in the last couple of years has been working with community institutions to create a community-based strategic plan. We worked over two years to come up with a shared vision and action plan, which was then adopted by our board. Board approval was difficult to achieve, because you don’t know what’s going to happen when you let loose some of those reins.

We have eight priorities overall, with our top goals in economic development, maintaining a safe community, with a focus on healthy communities and education, too. County governments in Michigan don’t have a role in education, so it’s interesting to me that the community would want us at the table for that discussion. We have found that we can be conveners, and our governing body can use its political influence to help with the decisions that need to be made. At the end of the day, education impacts everything that happens within our community. One of our county strategic groups grew strong enough to develop into an autonomous organization called Cradle to Career, and now they operate the county strategic plan for education.

Since we interviewed you in Seattle, you’ve changed jobs, moving halfway across the country and from a deputy role with a Michigan county to a city manager role in Oregon. Can you describe what you were looking for in your career advancement?

I was looking for an opportunity to lead from the front. I was fortunate to work for people, for many years, who allowed me to have influence regardless of my title, but it was time for me to try leading from the front. The only other goal I had was to be closer to extended family, and having a large family myself, I wanted the move to be worth the pain, so I looked specifically for opportunities to move to the Pacific Northwest.

Can you describe your new community?

Ontario, Oregon, is a city on the eastern border of Oregon that neighbors several small towns across the Snake River in Idaho. The eastern desert of Oregon is very different than most of the pictures people have seen of Oregon. Our community is a retail hub for many of the rural communities on both sides of the river and has a strong agriculture base. Surrounding our city are thousands of acres of onions, sugar beets, corn, spearmint, and other crops that grow well in the rich soil watered by irrigation from several dams built during the great depression.

What challenges and opportunities do you most look forward to tackling?

We face challenges similar to most communities, funding critical services in a post-2008 recession financial model. While the economy has slowly recovered, property values, our tax base, is still staggering behind. In our state and others there are mechanisms that prevent the growth of the tax base from keeping up with inflation. We are focusing on public safety and job growth.

What are the differences you’ve experienced so far in a city versus a county? What differences have you seen in government between Michigan and Oregon?

Over my career I have worked for three counties, three cities, and a town in three states. Most differences are determined by the state approach and laws that govern local government. In Virginia, counties provide the same services as cities because they are completely separate.  In Michigan and Oregon, the counties and cities provide different functions. The basics of the job are nearly the same in that you work with a governing body and rely on professional department heads to run services through sound management practices. The differences in states comes down to what tools are available in your organization and who you have to partner with to move the other change levers. Regardless of where you work, you need partners to effect change, because the world is too interconnected, the problems are too complex, and power is too diffused for any one entity to move the community.

What was your family’s role in your decision to change jobs and what are the impacts?

The decision was probably the hardest one of my career.  I was comfortable where I was, my six kids were all going to be in school for the first time, and my oldest two would be a senior and a junior in high school. We consulted with our kids and talked with them, but in the end it was a decision made by me and my spouse. The range of reactions varied, but we have all grown from the change.

So the professional development experiences that you’ve had, can you talk to me about those?

ICMA has provided me with a lot of great professional development experiences, starting in the Emerging Leaders Development Program. When I moved to where I am now, I began the Leadership ICMA program for two years, and I made a lot of contacts and friends.

ICMA membership provides a foundation to the way you manage, and a collegial feeling with your peers. I have adhered to the ethical foundation provided by the ICMA Code of Ethics very closely beginning with my first job. My initial mentor encouraged me to stay very close to that, which gives a good grounding and ensures public trust with our elected officials. When they know what’s in the Code of Ethics, they can have some expectations and comfort in knowing that you will be acting in an appropriate way. I share the ICMA Code of Ethics with all of my department heads so that they can understand why I make certain decisions or act in a particular way.