Owlnotes.com

I work for the Village of Tinley Park in Illinois, which is a community of about 60,000 people located 25 miles southwest of the Chicago loop. I began working for the Village of Tinley Park in February of 1999 Assistant Village Manager, and became the Village Manager in March of 2003.

Tinley Park has been a growth community for the last 25 years, and we're coming to the end of our growth period. I would like to see Tinley Park's future development to be commercial and retail based, so that we have a wider tax base.

A lot of it is really done by the Mayor and Village Board through their vision setting process. My methods would really just be the tools that are provided within state and local laws, and really just my management style, in terms of participation, teamwork and communication.

I think that I definitely see myself in Tinley Park for the next five to seven years. I don't know if Tinley Park is a place that I will be for the rest of my career.

As a Village Manager, I'm a generalist by nature. I'm a Jack of all trades and a master of none. Depending on the day, I can deal with issues related to police, fire, public works, human resources and finance. For instance, in police, if we have a major emergency of some sort, I'm going to be involved in communicating with the Village Board and the press. In public works, if we have a water shortage and we have to implement a watering ban, I'm involved in implementing that. I can negotiate a union contract among personnel and I interview new employees. I also set budgets.

A lot of that is based upon my own lifestyle. I'm 36 years old, which is young for a person in my position. But a lot of things I've done to go above and beyond are the hours I've put in. Most people consider a government job a nine-to-five, 40 hours per week job. I'm generally in the office early until late in the evening. I do night meetings, I work weekends and I put in a lot of extra hours. There have been some trade-offs, obviously. I'm not married and I don't have kids, but that enables me to work those hours. Basically, I have to be accessible at all times.

I've set some very simple goals for myself. Not in terms of my own career success, because I think I've achieved a lot for my age right now. But within the profession, a lot of people have a negative attitude towards government employees. One of my personal goals is to make sure that when people are done dealing with me, whether it's a resident or a business owner, that they have a better opinion of government because of the professional approach that I take.

I went to college in Rock Island, Illinois from 1989 to 1993, and I obtained a double-major in political science and public administration. You can't do an awful lot with those degrees unless you also have a master's degree. While in college, I got very involved in campus activities where I was in a position of leadership. I liked having an impact on the quality of life on campus, and I wanted a career where I could have an impact on the quality of life. From there, I talked to my counselor, and I ended up going to graduate school at Northern Illinois University to get my master's degree in public administration.

I would say that they were that important. I got good grades and I scored well on the GRE, but it's not an ultra-competitive type of career, like law school or medical school, where you need to be in the top two percent of your class.

My first job out of college was in the Village of Elk Grove, which is a northwest suburb of Chicago near O'Hare Airport. My job was as an intern. I was going to graduate school and working 30 hours a week as an intern. That was in 1993. Then in 1995 I got a full-time job as assistant to the village manager in Elk Grove.

I think it was more valuable than my master's program. My internship and my day-to-day learning experience were more valuable than what I learned in school. It was a practical program.

I would say it was enjoyable, because I was in a professional community and I had good mentors.

Yes, it's traditional. Most people in my field get internships and work their way up. The non-traditional approach is someone who either was an elected official or has a law degree and is hired as Village Manager. Sometimes someone like a Police Chief will become a public administrator. That's the non-traditional approach.

One of my focuses in graduate school was urban planning. Tinley Park is different than, for example, where I grew up. The town I grew up in is completely landlocked and doesn't have a whole lot of new development. When I came to Tinley Park in 1999, there were still thousands of acres to be developed, and that's what appealed to me.

I haven't thought about my next career move, but I do have some specific goals for when I leave public administration. I think I can probably retire at a relatively young age, probably in my early fifties. I would like to get involved in local civic activities, and perhaps even be involved with a non-profit organization. But I guess I probably wouldn't get into those things if I could become an usher at Wrigley Field that's my perfect retirement job.

A political science degree is usually a precursor for law school. With that degree you could also become involved in politics, on the campaign side or as a lobbyist of some sort. Those aren't things that I was interested in. With the master's degree in public administration, you could apply for jobs at different levels state, federal or local. I chose local because I think it has the most impact of people's quality of life.

Usually, the mornings are spent heavily in communication, whether it's e-mail or phone calls with the various department heads and elected officials. Basically from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., it's usually meetings which have been prearranged or set-up. Very rarely do I just have time to sit and read or tackle big things. I end up taking a lot of stuff home. That's a typical day. I can have an odd day like yesterday, where almost my entire day was spent on one issue.

We sent out 7,300 water bills, and of the 7,300 bills, about 100 people called to complain. For us, that's a lot. It doesn't seem like a lot, but if we get even one complaint, the Mayor gets nervous. Almost the entire day was spent communicating with Village Board members about this issue and having our Public Relations staff member preparing press releases and letters. That can happen; I can just get sucked into one issue, and before I know it, it's 6:00 p.m.

We increased water rates effective January 1, because our water supplier was charging us more. The way that the ordinance reads, the new rate was supposed to go into effect with the January bill. So I got a bill on the first of January, and it was for October, November and December. So people got the bill and people wondered why they were being charged the higher rate for those three months, if the effective date was actually the first of January. Well the fact is, the village was actually paying a higher rate for December. But we over-communicated to people telling them why their rate was going up and when, so when they read their bill they figured out that there was probably a mistake. And it was our fault; we blew it. So we're going to give all 7,300 people about a $6 credit on their next bill.

There's a ton. I don't know how someone that is into investments or finance just sits and looks at numbers on a screen all day. There's a massive amount of variety, so no two days are the same. Nothing ever becomes mundane.

I think each city is unique because of the people in it. My experience is that the residents in Tinley Park are probably not as spoiled as they are in other cities. I've lived and worked in other cities, and I've found the people in those other cities to be very needy. The people in Tinley Park are very resourceful and self-managed. Plus, I would say that the elected officials in Tinley Park are very consistent. The Mayor has been in place for 28 years, and most of the Village Board members have been on the board for 20 or more years, which means that it's very politically stable.

I have to say that the managers' jobs probably don't differ much we do a lot of the same things. The difference is that, in some towns, you have mayors that are also in the office a lot. The mayor's position in Tinley Park is not a full-time job. In some towns, the mayors come in every day of the week for about four hours.

A lot. For example, when I'm on vacation, I often have to take phones calls about fatal accidents, fires and snow plowing accidents. Once, I almost took an early flight home from Mexico because of a tornado threat. It was the first time since becoming Village Manager that I finally got away for a week, and there were a bunch of tornados that were in the area. They didn't hit Tinley Park, but I was pretty worried about it. I was thinking, "If this hits Tinley Park, I'm on a plane."

The salary range for my position is probably about $115,000 to $145,000 per year. I'm right in the middle at $130,000 per year. In Illinois, the range is a lot bigger though. If you go on the north shore of Lake Michigan, you'll have managers that make $165,000 to $170,000 a year. Even though Tinley Park is a much larger community, the southern suburbs of Chicago generally don't pay as high.

Actually it hasn't that much. If you consider that I've been in the profession now for fifteen years. Even though I'm relatively young, I bring a lot of experience with me. When I first came to Tinley Park, my experience level didn't cause my salary to be on the lower end. In the end, it's all based on the quality of the job you do.

It usually goes up about three percent a year, and then based on the quality of my performance, I might get a little more. There are also some other things related to my salary. For one, I get a vehicle paid for, including gas, insurance and maintenance. My salary has also changed over the past fifteen years. My first salary in my first full-time job was $33,047 a year. For that entry level job today, it would probably pay about $45,000.

Not really. I never really thought I'd be making as much as I do now. Obviously my salary allows me to do certain things. I come from a family of public servants my mother was a teacher, my sister is a teacher and my younger sister is a social worker. Maybe we were programmed to be public servants. I never looked at a job based on the top end salary. One of the nice things about a government job in this current economic climate is that there's a lot more stability and better benefits. Also, not a whole lot of private places offer pensions anymore.

Actually, I didn't have a lot of prejudices. When I was in college, I actually had a job in public works for the city of Elmhurst, Illinois, so I had early on interaction with people who I thought were hard workers. I guess I wasn't jaded towards the perception of a fat, lazy government worker who sleeps in a truck all day.

This might sound weird, but I enjoy the responsibility. I feel as if I'm making important decisions an I'm having an impact on people's quality of life. I'm amazed at how people get sucked into watch presidential politics and the time and money spent on campaigns. Citizens are better off getting involved in the park board, school board or village board activity, because it has more of an impact on their lives.

Employees. There are a lot of personnel issues. It's our biggest cost factor, but the constant evaluation, discipline, promotion and managing of staff is very, very difficult.

A lot of it is mostly common sense. There is a certain amount of law you have to understand in terms of personnel what you can and can't say and do. But most of it is just common sense and being honest and communicating with people.

Yes, there's a lot. That's kind of scary, but the more you get into it, you realize you can't control what people are going to say, and you can't control what elected officials are going to think. If you think that you can control it, then you're setting yourself up for a big disappointment.

The biggest change I've seen is that elected officials have grown thinner-skinned. What I mean by that is even when I started in 1993, the Internet wasn't that prevalent. Blogs weren't that prevalent. The news media wasn't what it is today. I think you have more and more influence from what I call the vocal minority. We've got 60,000 people in Tinley Park, and we might have one person show up at a Village Board meeting or send a nasty e-mail. So the other 59,999 are just dandy, but we really react strongly to even the slightest bit of criticism. I don't want to say overreact, because it's up to the Mayor and Board of Trustees to decide what kind of service level they want to set. But I think governments are becoming more politically adept at responding to those things.

I would say that my job is very comparable to a CEO that works for a board of directors. The main difference is that my board of directors are elected officials. Every decision we make is subject to public access meetings, minutes and other things like that. Corporate directors can make a decision and no one's going to cover it.

I'll even say that's part of the job, is actually grooming someone to be a successor. They say in the military, if you can't groom a successor, you're never going to get promoted, because no one will be able to step up and take your place. I think communication is key. I'd look for someone who's honest and communicates well. I do have to say that someone has to be willing to put other things aside when the time is right in order to get the job done. I get 22 days vacation a year, and there's no way that I've ever used all those day. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll use twelve or thirteen days. And I don't get to keep those days; it's use them or lose them.

I would say public administration is a good career path. I think it's challenging and rewarding. It's not going to make you rich, but it will reward you in feeling that you're having an impact.

I'll have thirty years in my pension by the time I'm 53. For the rest of my life, I will probably get about seventy percent of my last salary. So that means that I'll have a lot of flexibility and options. I don't think I'll stop working, but I will be able to be pretty active.