Understanding and Involving Others

I am a Pennsylvania native but my paternal grandfather is from Wisconsin.  I have been married to Lorinda for 29 years. We have three children: Dwight, 21, UW Madison senior in Bio Chemistry.; Clyde, 19, UWGB Environmental Sciences major; and Sylvia 17, a junior in high school.  We’ve lived in Waupaca for 13 year.  I have a bachelor’s degree in public administration from Miami University and a masters in public administration from the College of Charleston.

Employment: City Administrator/Clerk, City of Waupaca

Volunteer Activities
–Founding member and currently on Board of Directors for Waupaca Area Triathalon.
–Member Waupaca Breakfast Rotary, 1st Vice President. On International Committee.

How do you define leadership? I define leadership as working toward a common purpose that improves people’s general well being economically or personally.

What’s the most valuable leadership lesson you’ve learned? The most valuable leadership lesson I’ve learned is that your chance and level of success is exponentially related to the number people you involve in diagnosing problems and brainstorming solutions.  The more broad based you are in making decisions, the better off you will be.  Always involve people.

How has Leadership Wisconsin/WRLP impacted your life? Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program gave me an understanding of myself.  There is no one perfect model for a successful City Administrator.  The experience gave me a new found self respect and the knowledge that it is OK to be your own person. The key to life is understanding yourself and what makes other people tick.

How did your experience with Leadership Wisconsin/WRLP benefit your organization or business? We learned some strategic planning techniques and ideas for consensus building and conflict resolution that have been very helpful to me.  People have different motivations; you just need to understand them.  It helped me achieve results in visioning and identifying solutions to projects.

What was your most valuable WRLP/Leadership Wisconsin leadership experience? Our session in Tomahawk where we did a lot of interpersonal training and reflection was the most valuable to me.  A light bulb went off for me. 

Your greatest achievement so far? My greatest achievement is being married for 29 years, given that we were married when I was in the Navy and we went through several job transitions.  We have been able to work through trials and tribulations and I still have my best friend.