It’s the most wonderful time of the year! We’re counting down the top 100 influencers in local government. Today, met ten amazing local leaders who are making a difference in their communities. View the full list on the #ELGLTraeger page, and share your congrats using the hashtag #ELGLTraeger on social media!
#81 – Danielle Rogers
Community Marketing Manager ,City of Newton
Three words to describe the nominee:
Passionate, communicator, advocate
Why does the nominee deserve a 2020 Traeger Award?
Danielle has a passion for sharing information. She’s always believed that people need information. Her passion lies in making sure everyone has access to that information, and she has shown she knows how to provide it. This year, Danielle stepped outside of her community marketing manager box of communication and marketing her community – taking a headfirst dive into the world of emergency management and public information. In early March, she began serving as PIO for a county-wide emergency operations center opened by the EMA and Public Health for the COVID-19 pandemic through June. In August, after a derecho damaged much of her community, Danielle spent two more weeks in the EOC as her community dealt with and started to recover from the damage and destruction caused by the unexpected storm. (She may now know more about epidemiology, PPE, FEMA, tree debris, and disaster proclamations than any average human should.) In both roles, the information wasn’t glamorous – but Danielle made sure that info got out. Danielle is a master of her trade and is always trying to learn more. She’s willing to share her knowledge with anyone. Whether it’s a virtual session at the Iowa League of Cities on how small towns who don’t have a full-time communications specialist/manager can use social media or a (virtual) coffee date to brainstorm with a partner agency ways to get their information out. Danielle loves to connect and bring people together who share common interests and values to get stuff done – which is why she’s a member of ELGL, Government Social Media Professional Association, and 3CMA. As someone who moved to Newton by choice and chose local government as her career path, she consistently challenges and advocates against the “that’s the way we’ve always done it” mantra both professionally and in her community.
Anything else to add?
GIFs and emojis are her love language; she finds joy and happiness in the small things like dark chocolate, feminist authors, and Balsam fir candles. And she’s becoming a more prominent advocate of self-care with each passing day.
#82 – Stephanie Deitrick
Enterprise GIS & Analytics Manager, City of Tempe
Three words to describe the nominee:
Innovative, Dedicated, Determined
Why does the nominee deserve a 2020 Traeger Award?
Stephanie joined the City of Tempe, Arizona over six years ago and has focused on working with departments and community partners for ways to use data to make decisions. Her goal is to make data “less scary” and to work with people to find the data and tools that fit their needs and experience. She believes that everyone can learn to work with data and analysis, and that one of her roles is to provide the support and tools they need to more effectively use data. Sometimes this means providing training on how to create their own data and analysis. Other times it might mean creating dashboards or narratives that departments can use as part of their decision making. Stephanie strongly believes in communicating program decisions and results to the community. Sometimes this means providing the data, but often it also includes providing narratives about the data and problem, along with tools to explore the data. She recently led the team that developed Tempe’s COVID19 Hub, which provides a single location to get information about the City’s COVID wastewater testing efforts, current testing results, and learn more about the science behind the work. Stephanie leads the application team for Tempe’s What Works Cities certification, which resulted in a Gold level certification in 2020. Her work creating the open data policy and open data program, as well as leading efforts on the performance measure portal and data academy (internal and external training opportunities), where key in the City achieving a gold certification. She is currently working on tools to support the use of data related to equity in operational decision making with the Strategic Management and Diversity Office. These data are currently being used as part of the City’s COVID 19 response along with the results from the COVID wastewater testing partnership with ASU.
#83 – Ruth DeWitt
Communications Manager, KU MPA Program
Three words to describe the nominee:
Connected, energetic, creative
Why does the nominee deserve a 2020 Traeger Award?
Ruth is the ultimate connector – whether it’s connecting her students to KU alumni, ELGL members to the local government community, or KU faculty to ELGL – Ruth is at the center of it. She has an evident love of people and public service work and it shines through in her always-pleasant demeanor and friendliness.
#84 – Nicole Duley
Communications Advisor/Corporate Planning Advisor, City of St. Albert, AB
Three words to describe the nominee:
Responsive, Dedicated, Collaborative
Why does the nominee deserve a 2020 Traeger Award?
Nicole joined the City of St. Albert, AB over seven years ago as an Economic Development Summer Student and has risen in the ranks to Corporate Planning Advisory. In her role, she is responsible for designing, developing, implementing and maintaining corporate planning systems and processes related to business planning, performance measurement, reporting and risk management. This includes working with the City’s leadership and corporate project leads. Nicole collaborates with a number of corporate areas, such as financial services, human resources, communications and IT, to ensure that systems are approached holistically. With her depth of experience, Nicole is a terrific contributor to the ClearPoint community and is always quick to help out others in local government.
#85 – Emily Farris
Professor, TCU Professor
Three words to describe the nominee:
Twitter-god, equity-focused, smart
Why does the nominee deserve a 2020 Traeger Award?
I always love reading her tweets – both relevant to local government and not – because it puts such a human face on public policy academics. She gets what it means to work in public service, to push the envelope to do what’s right, and I also just personally appreciate her perspectives as a working mom.
#86 – Tina Gradizzi
Community and Economic Development Coordinator, City of Saint Marys, PA
Three words to describe the nominee:
Resolute, Forward-Thinking, Champion
Why does the nominee deserve a 2020 Traeger Award?
Tina advocates for rural Pennsylvania every day. She networks with federal and state officials to understand how best Saint Marys can play a role in improving small towns. Local businesses and non-profits rely on her expertise and can-do attitude to help them expand their operations, find a new facility, or work on new initiatives. She is a tireless worker for our area and is consistent in her effort to energize Saint Marys.
Anything else to add?
Saint Marys is in the middle of a fairly new wild recreational area in Pennsylvania known as The PA Wilds. Tina partners with this group on major projects to ensure Saint Marys is plugged into the rest of The PA Wilds Region. This gives the community a more regional-focus on how to improve rural spaces. Tina, with my backing, was also very instrumental on bringing Chuck Marohn and Strong Towns to Saint Marys a few years ago. This was a great experience and provided new information to our elected officials and community leaders as to what a town should be doing to remain vibrant yet financially viable. She’s a valued resource and should be recognized for her hard work.
#87 – Melanie Humphrey
Corporate Data Analyst, City of St. Albert, AB
Three words to describe the nominee:
Committed, Resourceful, Hardworking
Why does the nominee deserve a 2020 Traeger Award?
Melanie serves as the Corporate Data Analyst for the City of St. Albert, AB. – a position she has held for over three years. Her background is truly impressive having provided business intelligence, forecasting, and analytics, strategic business decision-making support, data warehouse systems modernization advice, and input into disaster recovery and business continuity planning efforts in a variety of environments. Melanie is an accomplished, hardworking individual, who is open and willing to share with others in the field. Even during a turbulent year, Melanie has been able to handle unexpected new work and still commit to the City’s strategic plan.
#88 – Meg Miller
Adult Services Librarian, City of Pflugerville
Three words to describe the nominee:
Capable, Confident, Team-player
Why does the nominee deserve a 2020 Traeger Award?
Meg is one of those people that is truly a pleasure to work with every day. She excels at her job as an adult services librarian at the Pflugerville Public Library. It’s easy to underestimate how much she accomplishes on a day-to-day basis because she does it so effortlessly. As an example, as the library’s expert on our laser cutter machine, Meg receives frequent requests from not only the library staff and guests, but also from other city departments. No matter how bizarre the request, Meg is always willing to give it her best effort (you can’t laser cut everything!). She made some adorable gnome-themed slate signs for the City Hall plaza. Meg is so relentlessly positive about her work. Her supervisor recently delegated the planning of a large annual author event to Meg. Rather than stress over the added workload, Meg expressed how excited she was to take on the project. I have no doubt that even in an online format due to social distancing requirements, the next Romance Readers Social is going to be even bigger and better than ever. Thank you for considering Meg for the #ELGLTraeger Award. She is such a wonderful part of our team at the library and I would love for her hard work and positive energy to be recognized.
#89 – Jim Proce
City Manager, City of Anna
Three words to describe the nominee:
Storyteller, Passionate, Rock-N-Roll
Why does the nominee deserve a 2020 Traeger Award?
Jim is one of the most innovative thinkers in the North Texas local government scene. With over 30 years of municipal government experience (a career that began working on a survey crew in Palm Bay, Florida, to leading one of the fastest growing cities in Texas), he is able to combine knowledge only attained through years of experience with an unceasing quest to be the first in achieving something new and innovative. Jim loves the local government profession and will always take time to mentor budding professionals, sharing his lifetime of experiences through highly entertaining, enthralling, and seemingly unbelievable tales of local government.
Anything else to add?
Jim is 100% Rock-N-Roll. You can find him on YouTube jamming with local bands.
#90 – Kari Johnson
Business Intelligence Manager, City of Scottsdale
Three words to describe the nominee:
Data-whiz, caring, professional
Why does the nominee deserve a 2020 Traeger Award?
Kari is at the forefront of data governance and literacy in local government. Regionally, she’s one of the first to offer assistance to others and has her finger on the pulse of all things data. Not only is she integral in AZ/DC, she leads a group of professionals in our organization who have made life easier for all COS employees during COVID. She’s caring and passionate about others and is a joy to work with!