why did you become a mentor?

When I managed a town in southern Oregon I had a small group of energetic, involved, mid-level employees who got things done in their various departments, police, public works and planning. Two were considering getting an MPA degree and one was enrolled in an on-line program. The nearest college with an MPA program was two and a half hours away. So enrolling in a brick and motor program was not a great option.

I started an informal weekly brown-bag lunch where I introduced the group to some management and leadership resources, some that I had encountered in grad school and some that I had picked up over the years.

Our discussions morphed into “case studies”, discussion of current management issues the participants were experiencing. We agreed to keep these discussions confidential. I worked to get each of them involved in helping develop their department budgets, and I tried to assign interesting projects.

Within two or three years, I made one of them an Interim Parks Director and eventually promoted him to Public Works Director. The police department employee was a Detective, promoted to Captain. Before I left the city, she was appointed Chief of Police following the retirement of the former Chief.

The third participant I appointed as my Assistant City Manager, and he was appointed City Manager when I left the city.

The lesson I learned was to look internally to mentor and coach employees which in this case led to a “deep bench” when it came time to fill key positions.

Why is mentoring important to the profession?

How many of us remember our first day as a manager or administrator? How much did the academic work prepare us for the variety of personnel, and resident-related problems that piled up on our desks? I think that a good mentoring program should give the participants enough real-world experience of the day to day work to then feel confident enough to hang in there when it gets difficult, demanding or just down right weird. It just seems obvious that as experienced managers who want the profession to grow, and to do the best we can for our communities, that we would want to share our experiences with and help the incoming generation of managers.

What impact has being a mentor had on your life?

When I started, almost thirty years ago, I got a lot of satisfaction out of the capital projects: roads, parks, water reservoirs, community centers. Later, as I moved to bigger communities with more staff I wasn’t directly involved in that work. For a time I admit that I felt I was drifting professionally, even though I doing a lot of work with my council and with the employee organization. That’s when I started my own “seat of the pants” mentoring with my small group. I wasn’t prepared for the satisfaction I got from the coaching and mentoring, even more than the satisfaction I got for those capital projects.

Are you mentoring anyone currently or is there a mentoring relationship that has been particularly impactful for you?

I’m not mentoring now. I spent 15 months in transition until I started working for a very small town back in Washington. Counting me, we have ten employees so I’m doing things like grant writing that I haven’t done in years (or I had staff to do them). And I wish I could afford an intern or a “management analyst” because there is so much to do it would be a great place to learn but…

Have you had a mentor/mentors who impacted your life that you would like to thank?

I had a mentor who hired me as an intern in a small town while I was in grad school. I was given several projects that stretched me, including learning how to use a computer. This was 1986.  The first week I started they were unpacking their brand new desk tops system. Over time my mentor shuffled me through several departments to help me get the “big picture” of how a city and its employee organization works.

Through this exposure I got a good appreciation for the role each department plays. My mentor felt that the best experience I could have when starting out was in budget/finance and personnel. In his experience small towns and Councils sometimes struggled with those aspects of management.

My year and a half as an intern and another year and a half as the towns “Budget Analyst” was my stepping stone to getting my first City Administrator position. That was in 1989, and other than a 15 month stretch of “being “in transition” it’s been a worthy, satisfying career. But I’m not done yet.

I would have to single out two other mentors in my career. I grew up in a small town that had a very effective City Manager. A model for “Life, Well Run. Bob White was there for over 25 years and really took my home town from a small, post war housing development to a full-service city.

As a bookworm, I spent a lot of time in the library that he was instrumental in getting built. Within the span of about ten years it went from a small Police Department and volunteer fire department to a professional police organization and full service career fire department. They built a public swimming pool and new City Hall. The town is really an interesting example of the evolution of a post WW2 community.

And really my first mentor, my Mom who just passed away last month at 95, whose advice to me when I started my first city administrator position “Leave it better than you found it.”  That’s been my personal goal in every town I’ve worked in.