District I Candidate

Michael Ahn

Biography

Michael J. Ahn is associate professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is a current District I Representative and, since joining ASPA in 2001, has served as president of ASPA's Massachusetts Chapter, the Northeast Conference on Public Administration and ASPA's Section on Science and Technology in Government. He helped organize the successful 2012 NECoPA Conference in Boston and co-chaired an SSTIG symposium on technological innovations in government in 2013 and 2014. As president of MassASPA, he has worked to improve the quality of the Chapter's programs and activities. He organized many programs with leading public administration scholars and practitioners and co-founded the first Massachusetts Best Capstone Competition and Award to encourage public administration students in Massachusetts and recruit them into ASPA membership. His research explores various technological innovations in government such as e-government, smart cities and artificial intelligence, and focuses on identifying organizational and institutional factors that facilitate impactful digital transformations in government. His articles have appeared in journals including Public Administration Review, American Review of Public Administration, Public Organization Review and Government Information Quarterly. Ahn holds an MPA and Ph.D. in public administration from the Maxwell School of Citizens and Public Affairs, Syracuse University.

Candidate Statement

I have been an active member of ASPA since 2001 and have volunteered at all levels including national, state and Section. I've gained valuable "ASPA experiences" over the years, which have helped me grow professionally. The most valuable aspect of ASPA to me is that it provides important opportunities for public sector professionals to meet, discuss and learn from its various programs, such as conferences and publications. The ASPA leadership, executive officers and Council members have been working hard to bring about some exciting changes and I would like to continue to make meaningful contributions to help invigorate ASPA. I will work with my fellow District I Representatives to improve the quality of programs we provide to our members and create opportunities for collaboration. I would like to use our webinar platform to invite key thought-leaders and practitioners to speak at our webinars and reach out to other prominent professional associations for program opportunities and activities that will bring added benefits to our members. I believe in ASPA's mission and would like to serve another term as a National Council member.

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District II Candidate

Marlon Brown

Biography

Marlon Brown is a public administration professional dedicated to bridging the gap between scholarship and practice. He has extensive experience in state and local government and presently works for the State of Michigan as chief administrative officer for the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. Prior to this role, he served in positions at the Michigan Supreme Court, the Michigan State Budget Office and at the Delaware Senate. He also is an elected city councilmember and mayor pro tempore for the City of Mason, Michigan, and contributes to various governing boards for the Michigan Municipal League. He is an aspiring scholar-practitioner in the field. He has taught management and public affairs courses at the collegiate level and has presented academic and practitioner-oriented research at conferences for ASPA, COMPA and several other national organizations. He has been a member of ASPA since 2009 and serves on the executive committee for the Section on Public Performance and Management, as well as the board of directors for ASPA's Michigan Capital Area Chapter. He also is a member of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, COMPA and the Section on Professional and Organizational Development. Brown earned his BA from American University, his MPA from the University of Delaware and is a doctoral candidate at Valdosta State University, completing his dissertation on workplace inclusion and employee engagement within state government.

Candidate Statement

As a public administration practitioner, local elected official and as an aspiring scholar, ASPA has always been a cornerstone of my public service career. ASPA has been my intellectual and professional home, building my knowledge and understanding of public administration and challenging me to help bridge the gap between research and practice in order to advance excellence in public service. I earnestly desire to serve on the ASPA National Council because I want to give back to our profession and invest in the future of this organization. I have a deep passion for public service and I am personally committed to ASPA's mission. As a District Representative, I would work with the current ASPA leadership to advance our ongoing initiatives to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Moreover, I would focus on broadening ASPA’s relevance among practitioners, as well as our efforts to educate and inspire future generations of public service professionals. Most of all, I am committed to listening to and engaging with ASPA members on how to improve the national organization while also providing support to our various Chapters and Sections. I believe that my diverse background and experiences in state and local government, higher education, and nonprofit governance will enable me to make meaningful contributions to the organization. I humbly ask for your vote for District II Representative. It would be my great honor to serve you as a member of the ASPA National Council.

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District III Candidate

Ronald Sanders

Biography

A fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, Ron Sanders has worked for decades in government at all levels, as well as the academic and private sectors, to further the profession and practice of public administration. Sanders most recently served as staff director for the Florida Center for Cybersecurity and, before that, as director and clinical professor in the University of South Florida’s School of Public Affairs, overseeing education and research programs in public administration. In addition, he served for almost 40 years in the federal government, where (among other things) he was the Defense Department’s director of civilian personnel; the Internal Revenue Service’s chief human resource officer; associate director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; and chief human capital officer for the U.S. Intelligence Community. Now running his own consulting firm, he is also a senior fellow with George Washington University’s Center for Excellence in Public Leadership, an organization he founded in 1996 to help the Washington, D.C. government. Sanders also was vice president of Booz Allen and the firm’s first fellow. During his career, he earned three Presidential Rank Awards from three different agencies, as well as an Innovations in American Government award from Harvard and an Outstanding Career Service award from ASPA’s personnel/labor relations section. He has co-authored four books and numerous articles on public administration. He also chaired the Federal Salary Council—which recommends pay levels for the Federal government’s 2 million white collar employees—but resigned his presidential appointment in October 2020 as a “matter of conscience” over the Trump administration’s attempt to politicize the federal civil service. Since then, he has been engaged in efforts to ban similar efforts. He also served on the Advisory Board of the National Security Agency and vice chair of the National Intelligence University Foundation.

Candidate Statement

As a potential member of ASPA’s National Council, my priority would be to leverage my expertise to strengthen the practice and profession of public administration. I believe—as ASPA’s members do—that effective public servants and systems are critical to the health of our democracy and I would try to help that cause by supporting ASPA’s public advocacy in those areas. In that regard, I believe I can help the Council and ASPA’s staff sustain and elevate that advocacy, especially in partnership with other public administrators and ASPA members across the country. In addition, I have been deeply engaged in issues involving technology and the cybersecurity of government agencies and data, both "national security issues" critical to our profession. However, they also require a careful balancing of public and private interests and I would try to bring my experiences in those areas to the Council as well. In my view, these challenges—finding the right balance of public servants and technology, the cybersecurity of government institutions, the transparency of government data, and especially those that question the value of an apolitical, highly competent public service to address them—are mounting. Those challenges, including those that would make more public servants "at will" employees, could undermine our governance systems if not effectively addressed and, as a Council member, I hope that I could serve as a significant voice for doing so... as well as for promoting the value of public service and public servants. Bottom line: I have a long history of leadership in this area and I believe that experience would enable me to help ASPA strengthen its collaboration with governments and their leaders, as well as public administration practitioners and academics (especially ASPA members) across the country, and in so doing, further ASPA’s essential ends.

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District IV Candidates

Merlene-Patrice Bourdeau-Quispe

Biography

Merlene-Patrice Bourdeau Quispe is a president’s postdoctoral fellow in the leadership and management area at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Her research interests include examining truth and integrity in budgets, especially at the state, county and municipal levels; examining the performance of local governments in execution of their budgets; and furthering the research in performance budgeting by examining if adherence to best practices as recommended by budgetary institutions does, in fact, lead to desired outcomes expressed by citizens. Her work experience includes serving in multiple fiscal positions at the municipal level. She also has worked internationally as a microfinance expert for USAID and the United Nations in multiple countries including the United States, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Peru, Burkina Faso, Morocco and Kenya. Quispe earned her PhD in public affairs from Florida International University. She holds a master’s degree from New York University and a bachelor’s degree from York College.

Candidate Statement

I started my PhD journey blindly. I did not know what was needed for success in the academy. Luckily, someone told me that all “movers and shakers” of public administration attend ASPA’s conference. In 2016, I attended my first conference and have been hooked since! There are so many new things to learn and so little time. At ASPA, you will find support, guidance, comradery, expertise and so much more! The trick is knowing where to look. During my tenure as District IV Representative, I am particularly motivated in ensuring “community” for new scholars. I will be humbled and honored in contributing my time and efforts in making ASPA home to the next generation of new scholars.

Weston Burrer

Biography

Weston Burrer is a licensed architect and the staff architect for Pueblo County, Colorado. He has spent his career working in government and the private sector and, in his current position, has the opportunity to do both. He focused on the changing dynamics of child visitation with his capstone project, identifying the stigmas that are inherent with the physical space and built environment associated with child visitation centers and how that directly affects reunification. He works to improve how public buildings affect the delivery of government programs and services to citizens. A 2022 ASPA Founders’ Fellow, he also recently received a 40 under 40 Emerging Leaders Award from the Pueblo Latino Chamber of Commerce, and just returned from Pittsburgh where he was part of Mission 2130, an application-based event of 50 young design professionals who were charged with discussing what the world, society and built environment would look like in 100 years. The event was sponsored by the Young Architects Forum, a component of the American Institute of Architects. Burrer holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Design from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an MPA from The Maxwell School at Syracuse University. He resides in Pueblo, Colorado with his wife and their two children.

Candidate Statement

Although a member for just over a year, ASPA has become like a family to me. I was a non-traditional graduate student when I attended Syracuse University for my MPA and decided to join ASPA for its resources and information. Being nominated and selected as a 2022 Founders’ Fellow, I experienced so much at the 2022 Annual Conference in Jacksonville and met so many great people that I wanted to continue to serve the organization where I can. Even though I’m working to get the Colorado Chapter active again, I want to help the other areas in my district to be participate actively with practitioners and academics alike. I also have experience leading and being a part of teams that collaborate well around a similar goal. As mentioned, I am working to rebuild the CO ASPA Chapter and have started by discussing with a few current members how we can simple collaborate to share ideas and information in a common setting. I hope to also strengthen that Chapter and others in the district and also work with the National Council to move ASPA forward.

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District V Candidates

Drew Brassfield

Biography

Drew Brassfield has been in the public sector for more than 20 years. During his 14 years of full-time law enforcement, he completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees from West Texas A&M University. This accomplishment afforded him the opportunity to move into city management, where he has been since 2017. He was awarded the Texas Municipal League’s Leadership Fellow Award in 2018. He has retained his Master Peace Officer license and is a member of the Panhandle City Manager’s Association (PCMA), the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), the Texas Municipal Human Resource Association (TMHRA) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). He lives in the Texas panhandle and is happily married to his beautiful wife Cindy and they have three children. He enjoys spending time with his family, woodworking, hunting and raising Longhorn cattle, when not at work. Brassfield earned his Certified Public Manager designation through Texas Tech University and is also a Certified Professional through the Society for Human Resource Management.

Candidate Statement

I firmly believe that to make anything work in life, we must be active participants, not simply observers. Our relationships, careers and everything else in which we desire to see success requires effective involvement. This belief has been confirmed repeatedly and has cultivated a sensible and good-humored approach to my leadership style and I have applied that foundational principle to the local and statewide boards on which I have served during my career. Casting vision, bridging gaps and collaborating with a diverse population are just some of the key characteristics I would bring to the National Council. As a practitioner, I believe I am well-positioned to bring a real-world perspective and tangible experience to the National Council. As an ASPA member since 2018, I have enthusiastically and eagerly worked to promote public service and be the “boots on the ground” to strengthen partnerships that draw more people into public service. Extending these efforts on the National Council is of paramount importance and that is why I am, humbly, requesting your vote in this election.

Rex Facer, II

Biography

Rex L Facer, II, recently retired after 20 years as a faculty member at the Romney Institute for Public Service and Ethics and Brigham Young University. His published research has focused on public sector pay, alternative work schedules, municipal annexation and local public finance. He serves as a consultant to government clients on human resource management issues. He is on ASPA's National Council and Executive Committee. In 2021, he served as the inaugural chair of the Utah Independent Redistricting Commission, an independent, bi-partisan advisory group charged with redrawing the political boundaries for Congress, state legislative seats and the state school board in Utah. Its work was recognized as being fair, transparent and engaging. He serves on the advisory board for the Astana Civil Service Hub, a UNDP project aimed at strengthening civil service systems around the globe. He served on NASPAA’s Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation for three years, including a year as chair. The commission is the accrediting body for master’s degree programs in public administration. President Barak Obama appointed him to the U.S. Federal Salary Council, where he served from 2010 to 2017. His research has been published in leading journals in the field and he is a regular presenter at national and international conferences. Facer received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia and is a senior certified professional with the Society for Human Resource Management.

Candidate Statement

I am honored to have served ASPA over the years. I believe ASPA is and should be THE professional home for practitioners, scholars and students of public service. I have benefited greatly from my membership in ASPA. Because of this, I have a responsibility to give back to ASPA and I want to do that through serving on National Council. ASPA is a membership organization. We need to bring more people into the organization but we also must strengthen the value-added proposition of ASPA membership. ASPA’s current member benefits, such as the Bridge, PA TIMES, webinars and the National Conference, provide incredible value to members. Additionally, Chapters and Sections, the space where many of our members interact the most, enhance membership. I have grown professionally from ASPA conferences, publications and professional networks. ASPA membership has opened many doors. For example, through my service in ASPA I was appointed by President Obama to serve on the U.S. Federal Salary Council. Through ASPA relationships I have been able to work to strengthen public service around the world. I am deeply grateful for the opportunities that ASPA has opened to me. Because I have benefited greatly from my ASPA membership, I have a responsibility to give back. I have tried to do that over the years by serving in Section leadership (SPALR), on ASPA’s finance committee, on strategic planning committees, the Founders' Fellows program and on the National Council. I would like to continue my service to ASPA as a member of the National Council. I believe in ASPA’s mission of advancing excellence in public service. I hope you will give me the opportunity to represent District V on ASPA’s National Council.

Juliet Lee

Biography

Juliet Lee is director of administration and external relations for the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy in Sacramento, California. Her main role is managing the Master of Public Administration degree program at the Sacramento campus. She has worked for the university in many capacities including program coordinator for executive education programs, policy outreach manager, alumni and advisory board liaison and student services advisor. She has made her career in higher education, guiding students to lead service. She is a part-time adjunct professor teaching organizational behavior and collaborative governance. She sits on the board of directors for Her Health First and has been an active member of ASPA's Sacramento Chapter for the past decade. Lee holds a doctorate in educational leadership, an MPA from University of Southern California and a BA from UCLA.

Candidate Statement

I love ASPA! I have enjoyed being a part of ASPA's Sacramento Chapter since 2010 and attending the Annual Conference over the years. While an MPA student, I learned about the organization and the mission statement to pursue excellence in public service really spoke to me. I joined the Chapter leadership as a council member, then stepped up to be Secretary, Vice President and President—now I would like to contribute on the national level as a District Representative! If elected as your representative for the National Council, I will advocate for the needs of the local Chapters throughout the district—engaging the universities and strengthening communication to encourage more Chapter development. The Sacramento Chapter is one of the oldest in the country, established in 1940—even with this history, during COVID we lost a lot of momentum and struggled to keep programs running. ASPA National pivoted well and created a series of online programs and make the annual conference virtual. I would like to continue these efforts and incorporate more of the international chapters as well and continue ASPA’s global reach. It would be an honor to serve on the ASPA National Council by representing the District V states of Arizona, California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

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Student Representative Candidates

Jennifer Martinez-Medina

Biography

Jennifer Martinez-Medina is a public affairs and policy doctoral candidate at Portland State University. As a community-engaged scholar, she does relational and comparative research on transnationalism, (im)mobility and political and social rights across borders. Her work seeks to explain how peoples’ everyday expressions of kinship, community care and citizenship are shaped by interlocking identity formations brought on by globalization, immigration, labor and free-market policies. She examines how groups contest conditions of racial inequality and climate change by studying migrant knowledge systems, remittance transactions, grievances and mobilization techniques within and beyond the state through the experiences of farmworkers, immigrant veterans and other diaspora groups. As an interdisciplinary scholar, she combines her background in public policy and administration with perspectives from other disciplines to employ participatory action research as an approach to co-produced inquiry with practical applications that can be mobilized for social change. She utilizes both qualitative and quantitative research methods and experiment with storytelling, art and a variety of advocacy strategies to communicate findings back to communities of impact. She teaches various American and Latin American politics courses and seeks to continue engaging students through my public scholarship.

Candidate Statement

As an active member of ASPA, I served as the membership representative for the Cascade Chapter. Now, I wish to serve as Student Representative at ASPA to create initiatives and programming to better reflect the needs of today’s new professionals and early career researchers. The journey into public service and research has dramatically changed. Addressing the pressures today’s students and professionals experience is critical to sustaining a healthy public service pipeline. Across the country, linguistically, culturally, racially and ethnically diverse civil servants and researchers continue to face barriers to entry. ASPA can play a pivotal role in promoting social equity by attracting members representative of the communities being served. If elected, I will work with the leadership team to (re)establish inclusive recruitment strategies and support programs to ensure diverse scholars and civil servants are retained, such as the International Young Scholars Program. As a community-engaged scholar, I will promote student development and research opportunities that introduce students to civically engaged research as a strategy to bridge the actionable gap between theory and practice. With this priority in mind, I also will work toward improving writing and publishing opportunities for early career scholars and new professionals to continue co-producing knowledge together as we transition into this new age of public service. I will strive to be a reliable and trusting thought partner to leverage the power of students and new professionals as we move into the future of public administration. My platform includes:
  • Better reflect the needs of new professionals and early career researchers through membership discourse
  • Promote social equity through inclusive recruitment and retention support programs, such as re-establishing the International Young Scholars Program
  • Bridge the gap between theory and practice by promoting actionable, civically engaged research
  • Improve writing and publishing opportunities for early career scholars and new professionals

Mary A. Smith

Biography

Mary A. Smith is a PhD student attending Mississippi State University majoring in public policy and administration. She also is a board certified and doctoral prepared family nurse practitioner. She has also completed additional studies in rural nursing case management and health law. She has a background in developing value-based reimbursement models that reflect the utilization of care coordination and patient-centered care, in addition to the promotion of quality metrics to advance improvements in health outcomes, patient safety and equity in the delivery of health services among the rural elderly and disabled while collaborating with both Medicare and Medicaid programs. She is a National Rural Health Association fellow, where she focused on the revision of policy pertaining quality improvement in rural health care while completing the fellowship program. She has a longstanding academic background with a teaching emphasis on health policy and evidence-based translational research in clinical practice settings. Her research interests during her current PhD studies include the application of emotional labor in the relationship among rural health services performance of electronic health record interoperability and the presence of clinician burnout as it pertains to government pay for performance structures associated with Medicare and Medicaid programs. She has also recently been accepted to participate in the 2022-2023 Adam Smith Fellowship as a PhD student, which is a co-sponsored fellowship of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and the Liberty Fund focusing on critical engagement of key thinkers in political economy.

Candidate Statement

I feel I should be elected due to my passion for developing and promoting health policy initiatives that contribute to a healthier society by promoting affordability, access and improved quality in health services—with a particular emphasis on mental health. I also have a strong desire to lead health related discussions within ASPA in a way that will bring members together to create more effective recommendations for diverse and equitable approaches to the development and delivery of public health programs pertaining to mental health, in addition to government based pay for performance structures associated with Medicare and Medicaid.

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International Director Candidate

Pan Suk Kim

Biography

Pan Suk Kim is a commission member of the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) of the United Nations. He was a member of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration for two terms. He was also a professor of public administration at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Yonsei University in South Korea. He has a broad experience as an expert in governmental affairs. He served as minister of personnel management and secretary of the president for personnel policy in the Office of the President of the Republic of Korea. He also served as a member of the Administrative Reform Committee and several Policy Advisory Committees in the Korean central government. He was an elected National Council member of the ASPA in the early 1990s, representing Region IV, and served on various committees, including the Annual Conference program committee in 1993, while teaching public administration at Old Dominion University in Virginia. He was chair of the ASPA’s Section on Public Organization and Development in 2009–2010 and served on the executive board of the ASPA’s Section on International and Comparative Administration in 2017–2020. He was elected as an international fellow at the National Academy of Public Administration in 2011. He has led a number of professional associations, including the Korean Society for Public Personnel Administration, as well as regional and international associations, including the Asian Association for Public Administration and the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS) in Brussels. He has received several awards, including ASPA’s International Public Administration Award in 2009, and its Donald C. Stone Service to ASPA Award in 2019. Kim received his BA from Chung-Ang University in Seoul, his MPA from Florida International University and his PhD from the American University.

Candidate Statement

I have a plethora of professional experience in public affairs, both domestic and international. I am currently a member of the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) of the United Nations. I consider myself a suitable candidate for the position of International Director of the American Society for Public Administration for a multitude of reasons. First, I have been actively involved in nearly all aspects of ASPA’s international relationships for over 30 years. I have developed an extensive and ever-growing international network in this field. Accordingly, I could expand the international membership of ASPA and promote international participation in ASPA's Annual Conference. I aspire to encourage and facilitate greater coordination and deeper international connections between international partners and ASPA’s related Sections and Chapters; and, in doing so, organize more productive joint activities. Second, ASPA requires an international director with a wide range of global connections such that that I have developed over the years. In my tenure as the former president of the Asian Association for Public Administration and of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences, I worked with numerous national, regional and international associations in the field of public administration around the world. I currently serve on the editorial boards of several major international journals, including Public Management Review. Finally, I am well acquainted with ASPA, having regularly attended ASPA’s Annual Conferences over the years and served ASPA in various capacities. In recent years, I have worked for the United Nations as a commission member of the ICSC. Accordingly, I would like to share more useful information on the United Nations and UN family organizations with prospective students and faculty members. Hence, my extensive experience in related fields will enable me to successfully perform the functions associated with this position.

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President-Elect Candidates

John Bartle

Biography

John Bartle is dean of the College of Public Affairs and Community Service, and a professor of public administration and urban studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). He has been at UNO since 1994 and has served as dean since 2011, leading several academic initiatives. He is a lifetime member of ASPA and served on the National Council. He also has served as chair of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management (ABFM), the Section on Transportation Policy and Administration (STPA) and on the boards of National Academy of Public Administration and the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). He received two major awards from ASPA Sections: the Aaron Wildavsky Award from ABFM for lifetime achievement in budgeting and financial management, and the Truitt-Felbinger Award from STPA for significant contributions to the field of transportation policy and administration. He has authored or edited four books: Innovative Infrastructure Finance: A Guide for State and Local Governments, Management Policies in Local Government Finance, Sustainable Development for Public Administration, and Evolving Theories of Public Budgeting. He has published in many of the leading journals in the field, such as Public Administration Review, Public Budgeting & Finance, State and Local Government Review, Public Administration, Sustainability, and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. He has worked with the Nebraska legislature to provide policy advice for over 10 years. Bartle's bachelor’s degree is from Swarthmore College, his MPA from the University of Texas and his PhD from The Ohio State University. He received the honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by the State University of New York in 2016. He worked in city and state government in Minnesota, and for state and national nonprofit research organizations on tax policy issues.

Candidate Statement

I have a vision for ASPA. ASPA has great opportunities. Almost half of our members are young professionals and if we can connect them to professional opportunities they will remain as members—and leaders—for life. The Sections and Chapters can be broadly publicized and effective as professional associations. The conference can be both educational and profitable. I am well-connected. As a leader among the deans of public affairs colleges, I will connect to their faculty and students. I have been on the boards of all the national public administration organizations and will collaborate with them. As a pracademic, I regularly go outside of academia and work with elected officials, nonprofits and interest groups, and will expand ASPA’s reach. I achieve results. We have grown our college substantially by identifying growth opportunities in the public and nonprofit sectors. I can help ASPA reach out to other public sector organizations to achieve synergies. I know the value of a dollar. Not only do I teach budgeting and finance but I manage the finances of my college effectively. I have done the same for professional organizations and community groups and will keep ASPA financially healthy. Most important, I listen. I welcome your ideas and will be responsive. Email me at: [email protected] or visit my website: Bartle4ASPA.org.

Miriam Singer

Biography

As president and chief executive officer, Miriam Singer is responsible for leadership and management of Jewish Community Services (JCS)—a community-based nonprofit social and health services agency serving the South Florida community for more than 100 years. She joined JCS in January 2020 and was charged by its board of directors to implement a comprehensive strategic transformation of the agency aimed at efficiencies, innovation and securing the agency’s fiscal sustainability. With an annual budget of $45 million and a dedicated, diverse team of 500 professionals, JCS provides 40 unique human service and health care programs. In fiscal year 2020-2021, more than 120,000 clients received a broad array of safety-net services. Her professional experience includes 35 years of service to Miami-Dade County government, where she began her career as a social worker working with survivors of domestic abuse and justice-involved refugees. She has broad experience in direct service delivery, management and executive operations for human and business services. She developed and implemented justice and community-based programs serving dual-diagnosis clients, survivors of domestic violence and gang-involved youth. She has been recognized by national and local business, governmental and professional associations, with a variety of leadership awards focused on achievements in DEI advocacy, public administration, public service, accomplishments in organizational transformation in two large counties and capacity-building for nonprofit agencies. She holds a BA and MPA from the University of Miami. She has a Lean Six Sigma green belt, is a certified public purchasing officer and contract negotiator. She serves as a site reviewer for NASPAA, an advisory board member of FIU’s MPA Program, a frequent panelist at professional conferences and a member of ASPA’s South Florida Chapter Advisory Board. She and her husband, Jeff, are blessed with two daughters and two grandchildren who bring great joy to their lives.

Candidate Statement

I respectfully ask for your vote to serve as president-elect of the American Society for Public Administration. As members of this prestigious organization, it is up to you to choose its leadership. Your support will help shape our near and long-term future. I was nominated by a fellow public servant who is a public administration professor and has been a colleague for over 25 years. It is truly an honor he felt I would make a meaningful positive difference for all of our community—academics, practitioners, students and international. In the process of reflecting on the privilege of serving, and listening to many of you about your ideas, my excitement at the prospect of leading in this capacity continues to grow. If elected, you have my commitment that I will pursue every opportunity to strengthen our fiscal sustainability and work alongside colleagues in the profession to elevate the ASPA brand. As a member of the ASPA National Council, chair of its financial management committee and CEO of a major not-for-profit, I know firsthand that a primary responsibility of leadership is to secure a strong financial future. Fiscal strength makes achieving our mission—and undertaking the activities important to each of our members possible. Based on my experience as a 37-year public servant, I plan to advance the concept of institutional memberships with local and state governments to grow our practitioner membership, and effectively bring together academic and practitioner communities in exciting ways. As we continue to emerge from the COVID pandemic, I will work with colleagues on the National Council in engagement with Section Chairs and members to promote our Annual Conference, a significant source of revenue, to be the "must-attend" annual event for academic and practitioner collaboration in the field of public administration. To better serve our membership, I am committed to local Chapter development as a way of providing networking opportunities, professional development and meaningful experiences no matter where you live—and using the resources at our disposal, including maximizing use of technology tools. The impact of working collaboratively and strategically will ensure the future looks bright for ASPA. It would be a great privilege to serve as president-elect. I humbly ask for your support. Please consider casting your vote today.

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