Patrick Redmond on careers in state government

Patrick Redmond, Deputy Broadband Director for the state of Nebraska, describes how he was able to rapidly gain increased responsibilities after getting his M.A. in political science from Iowa State. He also discusses how doing a graduate research project provides opportunities to learn from practitioners about how policy and politics interact with each other. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

You're listening to Polycyclones from the Political Science Department at Iowa State University, a podcast that explores the wide variety of ways our alumni and students are making a difference. Welcome to the Polycyclones Podcast. I'm Alex Tugnis, chair of the Political Science Department. And on this episode, we're going to talk about careers in state government and public policy with Patrick Redman. Patrick received his master's degree in political science five years ago from Iowa State and is now the deputy broadband director for the state of Nebraska. Patrick, thanks for being on the podcast. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so Patrick, how did you originally get interested in politics?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

So I originally got interested in politics back when I was getting my undergraduate degree actually at uh St. Ambrose University. Uh I was looking for um something to really be my focus uh when I went off to college. And I landed actually on international relations first. And then through that and studying different systems across the globe, I really kind of branched out into political science. And I think it fit really well for me because I'm just extremely inquisitive into kind of how things work, how everything gets done. In general, just the discussion of ideas was just very, very attractive to me uh from the start. I'm just somebody that really, really likes to drill down to okay, well, what are the incentive structures here? Why are people doing what they're doing? And then also how do you kind of push people to get things done and move in a certain direction? And how is that networking completed? So just lots and questions that are really centered around relationships and then structures as well. As I moved into public administration, I was like, okay, cool. So now I know the major players theoretically how things get done. Now, how do they actually get done? And that was uh that was a little bit of a different question and something I've been pursuing for the last, as you mentioned, five years, which is kind of wild that you put it that way. I didn't think about that. It's it feels like it was just yesterday I graduated, but yeah, five years uh it's been a lot.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Yeah. So, and you know, as you were describing that path, it's like one of the things I actually talk to our students about sometimes is you know, that with political science, you're both getting a set of tools to think about what policies we should enact, but you're also starting to learn uh some of the dynamics of how policies get made, how you go about persuading people, how you build coalitions for new ideas, right? And so, you know, part of making a difference in the world is both having an idea, but also figuring out how to actually make it happen. So uh, you know, obviously working in state government is, you know, puts you in a position where you're getting to play a role in, you know, the policies that get enacted and things like that. Uh absolutely. Oh, sorry. I know I was gonna say, so maybe say a little bit more about your career path. So you got your master's degree from Iowa State. Um kind of describe your path to becoming uh the deputy broadband director for the state of Nebraska.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a very fascinating story. It's a bit unique uh for sure. So I graduated uh from Iowa State University back in 2021. Uh, and then I spent the next three months sending out 128 applications to different state governments, primarily, uh, all the way from Missouri to Texas to Wyoming, just to try to find something. I really just wanted a chance. And I sat down here in Nebraska at the budget office, is actually where I started as a budget analyst. And in the interview, they were asking me all kinds of questions, and I was like, uh, numbers, you know, I'm okay with numbers, but I'm much more interested in the policy side of things. But what I told them was I said that you just give me a chance and I can learn. You know, and that's one of the biggest things that picked up from Iowa State, my time there, was being able to develop this willingness to learn and willingness to kind of engage in new ideas, even if they may be unfamiliar to me or intimidating at the time. So they really like that in the interview. And my advice to any uh current or soon be graduated students is two things that I look for. I've conducted about a hundred interviews myself for my own team. Two things I look for, especially in recent grads, is willingness to learn and kind of a very go-getem attitude, if you will. So a relatively assertive attitude in the sense of like, oh yeah, no, I really want to do this, I can do this, I'm here to learn. You know, just give me a chance, get me upskilled, I can do it in six months. That almost always will give you a leg up in the interview space. So, anyway, conducted the interview, uh, got a call back, started in uh October of 2021, and then hit the ground running. So, one thing on the job that I did right away and got really great advice from my boss and mentor, uh Lee Will, who's now the COO of the state, director of administrative services by the time he was director uh of the broadband division. And he told me, become invaluable, you know, become invaluable on the team, develop skills that are irreplaceable, and you'll you'll climb very quickly, you'll do very, very well in your career. So I, my first task there was to work on the ARPA bill that had recently recently been passed by uh Congress. So just kind of developing some information around that. Through that, I was able to demonstrate my skills uh as that I had honed at Iowa State University, and they kind of transitioned me to in February of the following year. So if you keep them keeping track here, that's October to February. Uh I was tapped as infrastructure coordinator for the state. Now, this started off as a relatively, you know, just simple administrative position, but it eventually grew into something much more and much more heavily focused on broadband specifically. Uh in our state agencies, we usually had a place for, you know, transportation-related items, electric-related items, but we didn't really have anything for broadband. So the governor at the time uh kind of transitioned me to what's called a broadband coordinator that following summer. So I'd been working in my position for less than a year, and I had just had kind of a pseudo-title change three times. So then 2022 election rolls around. Jim Pillen ends up winning that election, um, you know, uh as part of the budget division, and uh we brief him on the functions of state government. In those conversations, the idea for a broadband office came up. Now I don't know exactly where that began or uh you know the history on his side, but at least from my conversations, that's where we first started discussing that. Jan uh then January of 2023, I was then appointed as interim broadband director. So keep in mind, again, I've been working for just a little over a year at this point, uh appointed to interim broadband director. And for the next six months, I operated in that capacity. So I met with stakeholders, I traveled to conventions as a representative of the state while uh the governor was conducting a nationwide search to find a permanent broadband director. That individual was uh found in late June and hired on, started in July as my uh boss, uh director Patrick Haggerty of the broadband office. Uh and for the last three years, he's been the director. Since then, I've transitioned to more of an uh internal role running administration, where I've been learning a lot on the job about how to be a manager of a of a team administering about $405 million. So lots of money, lots of responsibility. And it's been very much that attitude that I kind of started and honing at Iowa State University of, hey, I just want to learn. Like give me chances to learn, give me chances to perform, understanding that, you know, I'm not gonna get it right away, and that's okay. Um, but I will eventually get it and I'll get it as quickly as I can. And the attitude to kind of go out there and be assertive and take opportunities. Uh I had a lot of sit-down conversations when we were going through the infrastructure coordinator phase and even the broadband coordinator phase, where there are opportunities afforded to me, and I just had to reach out and take them, basically. Just say, yep, no, I can do that, Lee. Oh, yeah, no, yeah, just give me that chance and I'll see what I can do. You know, with fully understanding what my capabilities and experience were at the time, I was very honest and transparent about it. But being having that back and forth and having that willingness to take on this opportunity is really what led me to where I am today. And I think a lot of that started at Iowa State, particularly with my Creative Component project, because I can't remember exactly which professor it was off the top of my head. But a professor offered me opportunity to go and interview the utilities manager at Indianola. And I was very nervous uh to do so because I'm obviously not from Iowa either. So uh I was kind of walking into a little bit of an unfamiliar environment. But taking that opportunity and going down and sitting down with him gave me the background knowledge on how local government functions, which I've since been able to translate to my position here at the state. So that's kind of my trajectory, and uh it's been very unique. I would not use it as a barometer for anyone else, but uh I think just the core concepts of being willing to learn, taking opportunities, and having kind of a very go-getem attitude has led me to where I am today.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Yeah, no, that's that's really interesting. And and uh it I suspect it was maybe uh Professor Shaw who uh set you up for that. Uh he was mayor of Indianola, so you know he would be the most likely to know people down there to uh to connect to you with. So, you know, obviously like one of the things you you described was, you know, as as part of your education and getting your master's degree, you had developed a capacity to learn new things, right? Uh, which allows you to be able to step into different roles and new challenges, figure them out, demonstrate competency, right? And then as you show value to your organization, uh, you know, hopefully continue uh progressing in your career. Um so and you mentioned specifically, like, say, doing this interview for your creative component. I want to maybe, maybe talk about that a little bit more. So, like one of the things we've been encouraging some of our master students to do, in fact, now I think a majority of our master's students do a creative component rather than the thesis. And it's partly because they can do something that would be more applied and it may help them with, you know, skills that are going to be more directly applicable uh to the job market. Right. So maybe talk, maybe if you want, you can talk a little bit more about what you did for your creative component or you know, what are other like skills you learned during your time at Iowa State that help prepare you for what you're doing now? Yeah, no, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

I I think uh I'll take that in a little bit of a backwards fashion. I think broadly speaking, the courses at Iowa State and Political Science, just broadly, one of the best things about that is how uh I would say, in a good way, contentious the topics could be. I mean, there's some very, very sensitive topics being discussed in a very respectful way, I will say. Uh I've always described uh to anyone that I've talked to about political science courses that they're they're not very political in the ways that you would normally think of a college course, in the sense of like there's not an agenda there that they're trying to get you to follow, if you will, typically. Uh in my experience, that you talk about political topics, but in a more apolitical way, because all uh avenues are presented. So, for instance, like with international relations, you get the realist perspective, you get the uh institutionalist perspective, and you get the construction constructivist perspective. And they're all presented in their positives and in their negatives. And it's really up to you, the student, to kind of decide which one resonates with me the most. And then you have the second part of that, which I really, really liked about political science courses as opposed to most of the other courses I've taken in my time, is it's just discussion-based. It's like, okay, here's the topics, here's so everyone has the same baseline understanding, discuss. And it's very respectful. I think uh one of the things that I took away is that there's people from all stripes in political science, all different perspectives, and they can respect each other and say, oh, well, you know, I disagree here, but here's why, in a logical, cohesive, respectful way, because we've actually thought about the topics from a uh theoretical perspective. Now, where that translates into the creative component for me, where I think this is really where I had a bit of an eye-opening perspective. And I'm glad to hear that more people are doing creative components because I think the applied nature of that is so useful. When I sat down with the utilities manager of Indianola, I had this idea in my mind where I was like, oh, thorium nuclear reactors, which is what my creative component was about. It's like these would be great because you know they're just so stable and they generate so much energy and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all these great positives. And he sits down and he's like, Well, who wants it in their backyard? And I like, oh. And he's like, Yeah, have you ever heard of NIMDI? And I was like, no, what's NIMD? And he's like, not in my backyard. Like, these are all great things. Yes, you can ask everybody, oh, I want cheap electricity for sure. Okay, so can I build a power plant in your backyard? No, I don't want that there. It's gonna reduce my property uh evaluation. And it's like, as a as a graduate student who had never owned a house at that point, that's not even something I'd even thought about. Was like, oh, yeah, people care about what's built in their neighborhood. And like, oh yeah, there's there has to be a lot of permitting done. There has to be a lot of people brought to the table. And this is something I'm learning, uh I have learned, I will say, in my current capacity uh for broadband, because we're building up infrastructure, right? There are so many different stakeholders involved. There's there you have to get locates completed, you have to get permits done by cities, counties, uh, national uh federal agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management. All of these different entities need to be involved at some level. We're currently going through a lot of the NEPA process right now for quite a few of our some grantees. This is just not something that conceptually we usually discuss in these political science courses because these are just the very nuts and bolts of how you move forward with a project. And getting fact checked on that and getting reality checked really by somebody who's who'd been doing it for decades, and I was like, oh yeah, no, I like because the guy's like, I love nuclear power, can't build it, nobody will let me. You know, so that's and that's one of the I think the best things to think about because I've I've had other students from different, you know, because we have UNL here in in town. I've other students from other universities, like, oh yeah, I'd have this great idea. And now that I'm the seasoned state, you know, employee, I'm like, yeah, nobody will ever go for that. Like, I'm not saying that that's a bad idea, but it's like you have to go and contact this person, this person, this person, this agency. It's gonna take you six months to a year to get that done, and by then your funding's right up. So it's just like, you know, that that very uh kind of specific perspective that you have because it's like, oh, in my head, this was great. But when you go out and actually talk to somebody, it in some ways kind of shaves off some of those unrealistic ideas, but then also can cement better ones because had I not had this interaction, I would not have had the perspective that I did at the start of my career here with the state, where I'm like, oh, you know, this is why this bill's getting passed, so that this can happen or this money can go here uh in very many specific areas. And I think that if I were to say that perspective might have impressed my manager or my boss enough to be like, this guy might have something. Let's give him something a little bit more and test him out and see kind of where he can go from there. And I think that really that uh interaction with my creative component uh is what led me to that. But overall, overall, the perspective that you kind of hone in political science that is more flexible, mentally more flexible and and more understanding that there's differing opinions that are not differing opinions because others are necessarily wrong. It's differing opinions because in many ways they have different incentives and they have different backgrounds. So understanding that and then figuring out okay, how do I negotiate with this person or how do I leverage their incentives to kind of move my project along is an important consideration once you get into actually uh actualizing political science. So applied political science, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

No, that that that's really interesting. So there's kind of two parts. So one part is, you know, in the in the courses you're taking in political science, you're partly learning how to have, you know, respectful, thoughtful discussion on controversial topics from a wide variety of views, which allows you when you step into these professional settings to have a kind of professional demeanor as you're interacting with people who have a variety of different points of view. And at the same time, there's a kind of opportunity to encourage more students to take advantage of. It's like you can choose a creative component topic that gives you an excuse to be sitting down and talking to people in state and local government or, you know, you know, people who've been working for a while in a particular policy area. Um, and and the chance to learn from them is a way to incorporate a kind of practical element, which may give you greater insights into what's feasible, what's not feasible, what kinds of arguments are likely to work, what kinds of arguments are not likely to work. Um yeah, so if we can encourage more students to be doing those kinds of things, right, they're gonna be even better prepared.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that that's that would be the number one thing I think that students could do to prepare themselves if they're if they're looking at a career kind of where I'm at. And I gotta say, like most state agencies that I've interacted with are pretty open to talking with students. Um, I mean, we currently have one through UNL here that it will be wrapping up, I think, in a month or so. And, you know, she just reached out and we're like, oh yeah, sure. Yeah, we'll sit down. We're happy to, you know, have meetings and just say, hey, this is how things work. You know, on a theoretical level, like they present ideas and we say, Hey, have you considered this? Have you actually gone out and talked to them? Oh no. I was like, okay, well then maybe you should do that. Like, and and we'll we're we're happy to help network and do everything that we can, um, just because I think that that's gonna be the best way to prepare these students. And in general, it sometimes helps us too. Uh and helps us understand, okay, well, what are people talking about now that maybe we're not even considering? So I think it's a very good symbiotic relationship. And uh a lot of the time, I think the biggest barrier to entry for that is just picking up the phone and calling any state agency, really. Uh I would say most of them that I interact with here uh are willing to have an hour sit-down conversation, be like, oh, you know, hey, this is this is how we do things, ask me questions, happy to answer. I mean, obviously there's confidential information, but broadly speaking, in operations, a lot of that is public knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Well, Patrick, uh, you know, I want to congratulate you on the success you've had in your career so far. And uh, you know, wish you the best as you continue uh working in uh in state government. And uh yeah, thank you for being on the podcast. Yep, no, absolutely. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to this episode. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Iowa State University or the Department of Political Science. If you have ideas for topics or guests for future episodes, or if you want to share your thoughts, email Polycyclo. That's P-O-L-I-C-Y-C-L-O-N-E-S at iastate.edu.