Have Talent, Will Work for Experience
Chris Howell
Pete Hechenbleikner, town manager of Reading, MA, says Chris Howell “has what we want in our profession – a fire in his belly for public service.”
The problem is, Howell, who’s 31 and has master’s degrees in both public and business administration, has had a tough time finding a job in local government.
His story may be all too typical for talented young people today. They want to enter public service but the economic downturn and their lack of direct local government experience conspire against them. How can they become the next generation of public servants if they can’t even open the door?
Maximizing personal impact
Howell, who lives in the Boston suburbs, always knew he wanted to be in management. His mother is an elected town meeting member, but he didn’t think about the public sector for himself until after he co-founded and ran a moving company and was going to grad school for his MBA.
It was when he started thinking about what he wanted in a job. Community and having the opportunity to work on a wide range of functions came out on top, along with the ability to be personal in his work, as he’d been with the employees and customers of his moving company.
And then it struck him – local government is where he could have the most personal impact. “It seemed to be a good fit,” Chris remembers. “I was kicking myself for not going after it for the past seven years.”
Chris finished his first year of business school and did a summer internship with the Neponset Valley Chamber of Commerce, which serves a dozen communities in the area. He made it a point to get to know local town managers, one of whom had taught graduate-level public administration courses at Suffolk University. “If I’m ever going to get another degree,” thought Chris, “it’s probably got to be now.” So he doubled up, taking about eight courses at once so he could finish two degrees.
At the same time, he began trying to build his resume in local government. He had excellent skills for public management; what he needed was experience.
Building experience
Howell set out to build as broad a network as he could. It wasn’t easy. He did volunteer work for town managers he met, got involved with the Massachusetts Municipal Association, and landed small paid projects, with the Town of Hingham’s Planning Department and Affordable Housing Trust. Then he secured an extended internship with the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a well-respected nonpartisan policy group, where he worked on state pension reform.
Having gained experience in state policy, he relaunched his job search at about the same time the economy took a downturn.
“When I got out of grad school, the positions I would have been qualified for were being cut – or not being created,” he says, “and no one in those jobs was leaving them. If a position did come up, there were so many qualified applicants.”
He broadened his search. Over the course of two or three months he applied for town clerk positions, a job as special assistant to a town manager, part-time work doing outreach for a new grant program of a municipal health department, and a few other positions he was in the running for but lost out.
When he lowered the bar, applying for administrative assistant positions in the hope of getting a foot in the door, he was told he was overqualified. Pete Hechenbleikner mentored Howell through all his ups and downs and would hire him himself – but he doesn’t have a position available either.
Howell was willing to take unpaid positions just to build up his resume, “but even if you’re willing to work for free, there’s not a lot of opportunity.”
Getting a foot in the door
Finally, thanks to his indefatigable networking, Howell found two unpaid part-time internships, one with the city of Providence, RI, the other with the Canton, MA, Town Manager and Fire Department, which has turned out to be a “fantastic experience.” He’s analyzing call volume and response time data, which will enable the department to allocate staff levels more efficiently to save on overtime and callback pay.
Still he kept networking. He was at a Chamber of Commerce training for municipal employees when he met Tim McInerney, town administrator of Grafton. They stayed in touch and over the next few months their conversations led to Howell being hired as a consultant by the University of Massachusetts Collins Center for Public Management, through a program created by the state legislature to improve the effectiveness of local governments. His first assignment is with Grafton, working on the town’s budget, capital improvement plan, and revenue and cost projections.
Howell has worked hard to get where he is today. He hopes that he’s finally embarked on his career in public service. How many other potential public servants are meeting the same obstacles? It’s a given that local governments can’t change fiscal realities. But could they still find a way to cultivate their next generation of leaders?
“I think there’s a lack of realization that there’s a pool of qualified, interested people who need experience and may be willing to work for free to get a foot in the door,” says Chris Howell. Pointing to the Town Manager’s intern program in Canton, he added, “If other local governments would create a structure, they could take advantage of it, too. Managing intern projects can require a bit of oversight up front, but the value added could be significant.”
