BY THE NUMBERS: HAMILTON’S FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
3: Years program has existed
10: Fellows in three years of program
11: Months per fellowship
$25,000: Amount paid to each fellow
$12,000: Housing stipend
Source: City of Hamilton
WHO'S WHO IN HAMILTON'S FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
Past participants and their current roles
Chad Toussant, working with the U.S. Geological Survey in Columbus, conducting environmental assessments
Greg Reger, city of Denver working in energy conservation
Sarah Van Frank, senior manager of hospitality & concessions for Butler County Metroparks
Liz Colombo, economic development department, city of Hamilton
Lauren Gersbach, energy management department, city of Hamilton
Chris Lawson, office of the city manager, city of Hamilton
Source: City of Hamilton
PRESENT FELLOWS AND THE CITY DEPARTMENTS IN WHICH THEY WORK
Aaron Hufford, economic development
Mercy Montgomery, city manager’s office
Jacob Stone, utilities
John Asbury, human resources fellow jointly shared with ThyssenKrupp Bilstein
Source: City of Hamilton
A program designed to attract young professionals in public administration at a low cost to the city recently welcomed its third wave of participants
Funded almost entirely through city utility funds, Hamilton’s Fellowship Program got its start in 2011.
This year, the program has expanded to include four fellows instead of three, with ThyssenKrupp Bilstein covering half of the cost for the annual salary provided to the human resource fellow, according to City Manager Joshua Smith.
Aaron Hufford, of Springfield, who is working toward his master’s degree in economics at Wright State University, learned about the program via a mass email in March to the entire Raj Soin College of Business.
He applied for and was accepted to the economic development fellowship, which he started earlier this month. Hufford said the program is a good mix of both working on different projects from behind a desk and getting out into the city for various meetings and events.
“I think it really offers a great deal of experience, more so than some of the jobs I was applying for,” Hufford said. “It’s really a great opportunity to learn about a wide variety of different happenings within a city. That was one thing that really attracted me.”
Smith said his original idea for the fellowship came from the now more than 60-year-old Cookingham Fellowship Program from Kansas City, Mo.
“Several city managers or assistant city managers who I respect were “graduates” of this fellowship program,” Smith said.
In Smith’s last community — the village of Howard, Wis. — there were two fellows, one of whom became chief of staff for the city of Green Bay and now serves as village administrator at Twin Lake, Wis. The other fellow is now the assistant village administrator at Montgomery, Ill.
Hamilton’s fellowship program worked and continues to work because it is able to “attract some of the brightest young professionals in public administration at a very low cost” and helps the fellows get a one-year resume builder right out of graduate school, Smith said.
A fellow in the Hamilton program is paid $24,000 in annual wages, plus a $12,000 stipend toward housing at the Historic Hamilton Mercantile Lofts, he said. The city does not pay for fellows’ health insurance or pensions when they are in the program.
“The added bonus for the city of Hamilton is that we can give the fellows a one-year test run,” Smith said. “If we — and they — think our organization is a good fit, we can hire very qualified people with a proven work ethic. We have a lot of individuals retiring the next few years and this will help us fill organizational gaps.”
Of the six fellows who have graduated, three have been retained full-time as city employees to fill vacant positions, including Liz Colombo, a business development specialist; Lauren Gersbach, an energy supply and utility business affairs analyst; and Chris Lawson, assistant to the city manager.
Gersbach’s fellowship saw her working on operating capital budgets for all utilities, doing performance measures and tracking statistics and sending out regular performance reports to the utilities about different operations, analyzing how different processes were taking place and where the city could improve efficiency.
“That opportunity for the fellowship program was greatly beneficial coming out of grad school,” she said. “It offered really great experience outside of the classroom that you couldn’t get in grad school and, at least in my current position … I’m doing a lot of very similar things.”
Sarah Van Frank, who now works as senior manager of hospitality and concessions of Butler County Metroparks, worked as a fellow for the city of Hamilton in 2011, dealing with energy efficiency education and community outreach.
A large project of hers, the Sustainable Living Project, involved working with Hamilton City Schools in conjunction with other organizations, including Vision 2020’s Green Committee, the city of Hamilton and Butler County Recycling and Solid Waste District and, toward the end, Butler County Metroparks.
The Oxford native said she enjoyed living in downtown Hamilton and ended up buying a home in Hamilton.
The position not only helped Van Frank develop long-term connections, but gave her the ability to work with the city of Hamilton’s parks.
Van Frank sees the fellowships as “a fantastic program” and an investment that Hamilton is putting back into its communities.
“It’s an opportunity for young professionals to come to a new city, or to come to a city that they know quite well but have never been able to work in,” she said. “For me, it was an opportunity to stay in the area and I knew I wanted to stay in Butler County.”
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