This year, I celebrated 40 years of service in local government. As I look back on my career and think of the communities that allowed me to serve them, I truly feel honored to be a part of this profession. To celebrate my personal achievement and to honor ICMA’s centennial, I recently made a gift to ICMA’s donor-supported initiatives that are working to strengthen the city management profession and ensure its success in the next century and beyond.

I have supported the Fund for Professional Management for many years. It is an invaluable resource for communities across the United States facing challenges to the professional management position. Further, the Fund can also help create a professional management role.

But it is the Life, Well Run campaign that holds a special place for me. I am proud to say that the city of San Antonio has been involved almost since the campaign’s inception. We saw the campaign as an opportunity to foster understanding and positive relations, and to create more opportunities to best understand the working relationship between city management professionals and elected officials.

I am pleased to say that working on the campaign brought together many stakeholders from the community. Separate and apart from what the campaign has done for my community, I see Life, Well Run as an opportunity to attract future city management professionals. Our profession is not something that children hear about on career day, but it is critical, rewarding, and vital to ensure our local communities remain in good hands across the nation. Life, Well Run introduces our career to the next generation, with the hope that it will inspire students and young professionals and help them find their way to a rewarding local government career.

If you believe in what we do, feel that it is a calling and an honor to serve our local communities in public service positions, I ask that you please consider supporting the profession by making a gift to the Fund or Life, Well Run. Helping the profession in this way is as important as the work we do in our communities directly every day, and I can assure you the rewards of being a donor are well worth the financial sacrifice.