Guest Blog from Mike Tallent

Mike began his new role as Assistant Vice President on March 15. I asked him to reflect on his experience.

First 60 Days

I have been asked to take a minute and share with you my impressions and reflections on the first 60 days as an Assistant Vice President for the Institute for Public Service. Let me begin by thanking Dr. Mary Jinks for the opportunity to serve as Assistant Vice President for the Institute for Public Service, and to the leadership and staff of the Center for Industrial Services (CIS), the Law Enforcement Innovation Center (LEIC), the Naifeh Center and the IPS Central Office for the warm welcome I have received and for their assistance in helping me acclimate to my new environment. I especially want to thank Don Green, Paul Jennings and Tom Kohntopp for their assistance and cooperation. They especially have made this transition very smooth and productive for me.

This opportunity was created by the untimely death of our former AVP Karen Holt and while I am working with a different set of agencies, I hope my work and efforts reflect positively on the standards she established.

Although, I have been a part of the Institute for 30 years, that time was with the Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS) and my familiarity with CIS, LEIC and the Naifeh Center has been limited at best. There is an old saying regarding a fast learning curve, that it is like, “drinking from a fire hose”. That is a good way to describe my first sixty days, because I arrived in the middle of budget preparation for three agencies, including budget hearings for all agencies, strategic planning for the Naifeh Center and four other inter-agency strategic planning teams and numerous existing and potential grant pursuits.

At the end of my first 60 days, I am pleased to say that the budget process is close to being completed and I am far more conversant on the agency budgets of CIS, LEIC, the Naifeh Center and IPS than I was. Does that mean I have the answer to any financial worries looming on the horizon? No, but I am in a much better position to have a positive impact on generating a solution to those concerns.

At the end of 60 days, we have completed the strategic plans for the Naifeh Center, the Environmental/Energy Strategic Planning Team and hopefully the Public Safety/Worker Safety Strategic Planning Team. We are still working on the strategic plans for the Leadership/Executive Development Strategic Planning Team and the Resource Generation Strategic Planning Team. These completed plans cover a five- year span and in each case are very aggressive in the goals and objectives they have established. Each of these teams is comprised of staff from multiple agencies, and I want to thank and applaud these staff members for their vision and efforts and their commitment for improving their respective subject area for IPS and for the customers of their respective agencies and the Institute.

Overall, these plans represent what I hope to achieve as AVP and that is creating a work environment in which agencies and staff want and see the benefit of working together on issues and projects and thereby utilizing the multiple skills, ideas, innovations within the Institute to deliver the best and most innovative solutions and services to their respective customers efficiently and effectively. For me it is critically important that we be good stewards of the taxpayer’s dollar and that the services and advice that we provide make a difference in the performance and success of our customers.

In closing, I again want to thank Dr. Jinks for the opportunity and I look forward to the challenges and fun this new position will provide.