Phillip M. Messina is the city manager of Carnation, Washington. He has been an ICMA member since 1986.

How did you get into this profession?

I had a friend whose husband had worked in Maine and Oklahoma as a city manager, and then he taught urban planning in Australia. At the time I had a bachelor’s degree and a two-year-old daughter. I was working for a company that was importing espresso machines in the midst of the coffee craze back in the mid-1980s. I had started looking around at schools – grad school, law school – something other than fixing espresso machines. My friend’s husband said “I’ll try to create an internship if you're interested. If you get into grad school, we’ll talk about an internship.” So I did and he did, and I ended up working for this little town on Puget Sound called Steilacoom.

Steilacoom was the first incorporated city on Puget Sound, dating back to 1853. When I started, the city was just unpacking its first desktop computers (they had not had computers before), so I stepped into the computer age literally on my first week on the job. A few years later, I was hired into my first city administrator job in eastern Washington in Colfax, a small town in the wheat and barley area about 15 miles west of Idaho and 300 miles east of Seattle. It was the first time I’d been that far from home. I learned a lot in a couple of years, and then it was time to bounce back over to this side of the state, where I worked another 10 to 12 years in the Puget Sound area.

In 2002, I was hired as city manager in Central Point, Oregon, near Medford in Southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley. I spent a decade in Central Point building the city organization and making a lot of changes, including construction of a new city hall. At the time, that part of Oregon was growing; a lot of retirees were attracted to the area with its good weather and the opportunity to golf 300 days out of the year. So we had a lot of building going on until 2008 when, along with everything else, it all shut down. We tried to keep it all on the tracks and managed to do so through the recession, when I decided, for family reasons, it was time for me to get back to Washington.

I took a job in the Portland area, which only lasted one year, and then I was in transition for 15 months. Being in transition is an interesting experience; I don't wish it on anybody because it is not fun.

I was offered an interim job in a little town out in the Snoqualmie Valley––Carnation. Then-manager Ken Carter was out sick. I met with the staff and it was like I’d never left city management. I was their interim for two months. Ken passed away in March 2015. He was a really good guy and had been a longtime manager in Washington. After his passing, the Council hired me full time, so that’s how I ended up as city manager in Carnation. And yes, Carnation is right around the corner from the old Carnation Farms, where the Carnation Milk products started out about 100 years ago.

What excites you about the work that you do?

When I first started out in the profession, the work that really got me excited was building things. We built a new water reservoir in Colfax––they hadn't had one in over a hundred years. We created a community center in Burlington. We implemented road projects in North Bend, and more importantly rebuilt the local government organization and the citizens' trust in government. When I got to Central Point, I had a really good staff and I wasn't directly involved in a lot of those projects, so I decided to focus on some organizational things. I reached out to some sharp, young staff members who were dedicated, innovative, and intelligent and really exciting to work with. Since the nearest university with an MPA was in Eugene and about three hours away, I tried to introduce as much thinking, books, and issues that I could come up with for their professional development. We focused a lot on leadership and management.

When I left in 2012, the city promoted the young man who had been my assistant city manager to city manager. Another young man who started as a planner and who had worked in the planning and public works department helping developers through the process, I had made an interim park director. His career took off and he did a great job. When the public works director retired I promoted this young man into public works and he’s still doing it. And then a young woman who was a detective on the police department when I got there, got her master’s degree online, shot up into the ranks, and also attended the FBI Academy. When the chief retired, I went to the mayor and council and I said I don't see any reason to do a long extensive recruitment, because you have the best candidate for chief right here. And she is now the chief of police in Central Point.

So that gets to how do you help people?

That's at that time what I really loved. Rather than building stuff I was mentoring and coaching people, which was really satisfying. But just to finish up, I will tell you now in Carnation I'm back to doing stuff. I’m not only the city manager, I’m one of only 10 employees. I’m also the public works director and the finance director. I'm back to square one and I love it because I'm really busy and it feels rewarding.

So would you recommend going to a small community?

That’s tough. After I was city administrator in three small communities and I started applying locally for city management jobs and wasn’t getting considered, I talked to a recruiter. He said “Well, you’re kind of considered a small-town manager.” I don't have a lot of good advice about that. It's just something to be aware of, that you could get pigeon-holed.

What is one career highlight you’d like to share?

I think it was the satisfaction I got in seeing three young people who worked hard move up and take steps into a different phase of their career, and they’re succeeding. How much I had to do with that––I don’t know––but I feel good about it. And then looking back, there are so many little projects and things that benefited those small communities over the years that I can just feel good about.

What advice would you provide to somebody just starting out in the profession?

You’ve got to know people, you’ve got to keep trying, and when you do get opportunities, make the absolute best of them. It’s an extremely satisfying and necessary calling, and the work you do is vital. And all the things that government provides, whether it's a small town or a large community, it’s necessary work and it’s valuable work. It can also be frustrating but when you get through that, it's also very satisfying.

I wrote an article for the October 2015 issue of PM magazine about when I was invited down to Portland State University to participate in a roundtable for MPA candidates and students who wanted to talk about the business and public management career options. The last thing that I asked them to do is to purposefully consider when you’re in the career, when you're working, and when you’re putting all those years in – to think about what you want your legacy to be, what will you be proud of. For me it's been just a great ride doing some helpful things in communities and watching a few really good people bloom and take over.

You were very active in your state association in Oregon. Why belong to two organizations, ICMA and the state association?

The state association helps you focus local issues. Oregon managers are a very strong and tight group. They have a listserv and if you ask a question about a situation, within 15 minutes you'll have 10 replies saying “we did this,” or “here’s a model ordinance,” or “here are some things to watch out for,” and “here are the pros, here are the cons.” They are so dialed in that it's almost scary. There’s a lot of solidarity and a lot of friendship in that group.

ICMA has an international reach, and again, the resources that are available to the members, who would turn that down? I never thought about why [not] be a member of two organizations… it just doesn't compute.

I’ve been an ICMA member since I was a student. There’s plenty of guidance, resources, and people to reach out and talk to. There are blogs that are available on the ICMA website, job opportunities, training, and conferences, all of it is extremely valuable. When I was state association president of OCCMA, we had an ethics problem, and I reached out to ICMA and got a lot of help from Martha Perego.