Leadership and Management

A message from Dan Hartman, Leadership and Management Committee Chair, 2012-2013

What we do in public works is critical to our community’s health and well-being. Imagine not having safe water, trash removal or sanitation. What would a community’s economy be like without roads to deliver goods or the food we eat? The truth is what we do in public works provides the backbone of our communities and without this critical infrastructure the community and its people would suffer.
 
Now more than ever it is important that we provide the critical infrastructure that our communities count on efficiently, so scarce resources are available for broader needs. To accomplish this, our leaders and managers must continue to improve, supply vision and guidance to everyone in the organization. Providing assistance to our members to improve their leadership and managerial skills is the mission of the L&M committee.
 
This year we began the Great 8 series in the APWA Reporter which highlights and discusses one of 8 important leadership qualities in each issue. We also began a new program “Recognize Your Leaders”. Through this program we will be looking for leadership stories about people working in public works as examples to our members. We hope to find throughout the public works field that we all can be leaders and that in doing so we can make our communities better for all.
 
Finally, we are highly focused on supporting the Donald C. Stone Center. The Center is dedicated to providing professional training to people in public works in one of three career paths:

•  Leadership and Management Path for supervisors, managers, executives and leadership fellows.
• Technical Specialty Career Path for operators, technicians, supervisors and managers.
• Professional Career Path for engineers, scientists, planners and consultants who work in public works.

 The paths are designed to develop the future generations of Public Works Leaders.
 
We welcome everyone who is interested in leadership and management to contact us and get involved. Last year we established an L&M Knowledge Team and L&M Facebook Group. We are looking for energetic folks like you to join us.

We value your input and appreciate your questions, so please do not hesitate to contact any of the committee members or Becky Stein, the committee's staff liaison.