GovLoop Guest Posts Exclusive – February 2021

Hello again everyone! It’s been a whirlwind of late for me trying to keep up with all my responsibilities in Texas local government. Last week we had our TAGITM annual conference for the first time in two years and it was such a blast. Two years felt like more, but it was fantastic to see familiar faces on both the government and vendor side of the house. Here’s hoping it was a step in the right direction in returning to normal life beyond the pandemic. That said, I did want to get a new post out there for The Country Exec website. This will be the second in a series of three posts detailing my work as a featured contributor for GovLoop. I’m calling this one GovLoop Guest Posts Exclusive for February 2021.

TAGITM

As a tidbit to the TAGITM annual conference, it was quite a week for me. This was my first year at the conference serving on the Board of Directors. It is definitely an eye opening experience and more working from that side of the house. Different perspective for sure, but I enjoyed it and look forward to contributing moving forward.

I took home some nice hardware on behalf of Seguin IT and my work for the organization. My organization was awarded the TAGITM Excellence award for our work on the large scale radio infrastructure project I have written about previously.

The award on the far right is for my work as the conference committee chair. The award on the left is the surprise though. I was chosen as this years TAGITM President’s award winner, something I could not be more thrilled about. It is an honor to be recognized by your peers, and I love it when my staff of Country IT folks get recognized for the outstanding work they do. Thank you TAGITM!

Middle Management to Executive and the 4 Pillars

Now, back to the task at hand! My first post in February was on the four pillars I leveraged to climb my way to the executive level of management. I knew nothing of what was required of me to promote into senior levels of leadership, and I had to figure these things out along the way.

What I know today is that your career field does not matter. If you apply the four pillars of knowledge, commitment, accountability, and the intangibles necessary to succeed, then you definitively will achieve at a high level. I always say success is not rocket science. If you apply yourself and put your best foot forward you can do exceedingly well in your chosen profession.

COVID-19, Community and Working in Government

I really liked the post from this week. It was so positive, and I believe it reflected well on this beautiful community I am fortunate to call home. In early the City of Seguin received our first COVID-19 vaccinations to begin distributing to our residents. I volunteered to work the second day of the three day event, and it was an experience I will never forget.

People were so happy. My organization was wildly efficient even though we were trying to figure everything out as we went. I got to talk to a lot of good folks. People just trying to live their lives in rural Texas, not any different from me. My community came together in an amazing way, and I left the venue that day somehow more proud to call Seguin, TX my home than when I showed up to volunteer. And you all know I have some Texas pride, that’s definitely saying something!

Project Management: The Secret Ingredient for Organizations

For this mid February post I got back more to my bread and butter in a professional sense. Project management is my jam. I wouldn’t say that I am some project management all star by any means, but I have had good success in applying basic project management principles throughout my career.

I specifically targeted IT organizations in this post to correlate the success my organization has earned to how we go about achieving it. It’s simple really, we use basic project management principles to dictate communication and efficiencies. We do more with less through this simplistic approach. There is absolute value in applying project management to the IT profession. I hope there’s a few folks out there that may have benefitted from this one!

Local Government vs the 2021 Texas Winter Storm

So this was a big one for me. I cannot see the page counters for GovLoop, but I suspect the post detailing my experience through the great 2021 Texas Winter Storm garnered the most traffic. I actually saw it gaining traction on social media, how cool is that?

The scoop is that my organization was extremely fortunate to hold up exceedingly well throughout the winter storm. I mean, I know we’re good and all but it did feel as though maybe we had a little luck on our side too. Whatever it was I will take it! We wound up helping out several neighboring agencies around us that terrible week. Our industry partners in town helped us in a major way. It was yet another example of how local government and communities come together in a time of need. Not that I needed reminder, but this is why I choose to do what I do.

GovLoop Guest Posts – January 2021

And of course above is the obligatory link back to the first in my series of GovLoop guest posts from January 2021. If you enjoy reading my rambling writing style, please do take a look!

GovLoop Guest Posts Exclusive February 2021 Conclusion

That was my work as a featured contributor for GovLoop in February. My organization worked through our first COVID-19 vaccination event and the greatest winter storm to hit Texas in some thirty years. Wow, what a month! As they say, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. I think February 2021 was reflective of that. Until next time thank you for reading, and please take care of yourself and the ones you love.