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Recruiting the Right Way: Insights from Christine Martin, Director at Tripepi Smith
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Leading with Vision: Executive Recruitment, Strategic Planning, and Team Culture in Local Government
Local government leaders are tasked with guiding their communities into a more resilient and vibrant future. The journey from planner to Assistant City Manager—and now, executive recruiter and strategic planner with Tripepi Smith—gives Christine Martin a unique vantage point on what it takes to cultivate leadership, manage change, and build organizations where people thrive. Her story, and her practical advice, provide a modern roadmap for local government professionals who aspire to leave a lasting mark on their communities.
Navigating a Career in Local Government
For Christine, a career in local government was not preordained. Raised with modest means and watching her parents struggle to make ends meet, she saw firsthand the importance of grit, resilience, and self-reliance. Despite starting out with student loan debt and little financial safety net, she persisted—first as an intern, then as a community planner, and later as Assistant City Manager in Livermore, California. Her progress up the municipal ladder was powered by constant learning, a willingness to volunteer for new projects, and a commitment to growing her skills both inside and outside her agency.
Christine urges up-and-coming professionals to expand their horizons by joining professional associations, attending leadership summits, and seeking out mentors. She credits her shift into executive leadership partly to a chance encounter and a life-changing read—the book "Playing Big" by Tara Mohr—which reframed her understanding of fear and opportunity in professional growth. “Be out there doing things and looking around, even if you don’t think you’re interested in them,” Christine advises. “You never know what’s going to pop up that sparks your fire.
Lessons in Executive Recruitment
Having moved into executive recruitment with Tripepi Smith, Christine draws a clear contrast between routine hiring and searching for transformational leaders. She explains that successful executive searches blend targeted outreach with broad-based communications. The process includes:
- Creating compelling, visually engaging recruitment brochures that speak to both the heart and experience of candidates.
- Using both active job postings and direct outreach via personal networks and peer referrals to find the ideal candidate.
- Screening for not just technical proficiency, but cultural fit, emotional intelligence, and a passion for public service.
Agencies frequently turn to firms like Tripepi Smith because internal HR departments are often stretched thin managing routine recruitments. Specialized recruiters have a broad professional network, marketing resources, and the capacity to focus intently on high-level roles, ultimately freeing city staff to manage other pressing priorities.
Strategic Planning: From Shelf Document to Action Plan
Strategic planning is a familiar buzzword in government circles, but as Christine notes, its quality and impact can vary widely. To be effective, a strategic plan should be “a living process” that includes meaningful input from elected officials, staff at all levels, and the community. Individual interviews with council members to surface genuine priorities and concerns.
- Engaging staff and the public through surveys, workshops (both virtual and in-person), and focused discussions—sometimes even in multiple languages.
- Distilling community and leadership feedback into actionable, measu
Meet Christine Martin
SPEAKER_00Welcome to another episode of Taco Stock. Today we visit with Christine Martin, formerly an assistant city manager with the city of Livermore, California, and currently director and executive recruiter for Smith. In this episode, we're going to look at career advancement from both the lens of the candidate and the hiring managers. Considering a horizontal or vertical career change? Are you a hiring manager and want to identify the best candidate? Want to chart a path from entry level to executive management? Christine will share real-world tactics, tips on what some organizations are doing to attract and keep more qualified candidates. We're going to talk golf simulators. Yes, weren't expecting that, were you? And the transition from public to private sector. Grab a cup of coffee, sit back, relax, and let's get into it. Today we have Christine Martin on the podcast. Christine, welcome. How is it there in Tennessee today?
SPEAKER_01Well, it is a cloudy day and the fog rolls in and rolls out pretty frequently throughout the day and may dump a little bit of rain, but not too much. You know, it's not so bad that my husband can't be out golfing today. So he's out there.
SPEAKER_00I just started taking it up. So I know I'm a little excited about it. My son is really good. I am really terrible. So has his game improved in Tennessee?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yes. Yes, it has. He's where he works really hard at it. He calls it his job. He says he has a job to do. He goes out in the garage and he hits balls on his simulator. And yeah, he takes it extremely seriously.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Doug did used to like his tech. Apparently he still does.
SPEAKER_01Yes, he does. That's why I'm still working.
Life In Tennessee And Community Fit
SPEAKER_00That's funny. Beautiful. So I'm kind of excited about this because I'm looking at it from a bunch of different perspectives. So, first of all, there's a young man that I know that just started as a city planner with a local jurisdiction. We had some conversations, you know, lofty dreams. He wants to eventually make it into the city manager's office. A lot of people that I work with, have encounters with, guests. Everybody to some degree is looking at horizontal or vertical moves in their careers, perhaps that move from public to private sector. You seem to have a background and perspective in all of this. So I want to get as deep and as far as I can in all of this. You've also made the move, we've been toying with the idea of leaving California now for, I don't know, I'm going to date myself, right? When you get old enough, you stop talking in years, but you start talking in quarter centuries. So in about the last quarter century, we keep threatening that we're going to leave. And we've been looking at other places. Tennessee is one of them. Actually, uh a couple of our police officers have already purchased there and they've shown me some pictures. It looks absolutely beautiful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know, uh, one of our officers beat me to the same development that I live in right now, and we both built our homes up here in Jasper Highlands. Oh, nice. So is that Keith? Yeah, he read uh no, Ryan Sanchez.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Nice.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, it's uh I I can talk ad nauseum about the move from California, being born and raised in California to uh now living in Tennessee near Chattanooga. I I have lots of things to say about it, Greg.
SPEAKER_00Well, let's start with that because that's the thing that's most important to me. We're looking at a bunch of different places. We and so we haven't found the perfect place. I think I I mentioned that one of the police officers showed me some pictures. I he's told me where he lived. He's bought the property, and I keep forgetting, but it's eastern Tennessee. And what I remember is the realtor's drone picture where you see this beautiful green canopy of trees, and then you see an occasional roof that breaches the canopy. And so it looks magnificent. So, how have you adjusted being a Californian to Tennessee?
SPEAKER_01Well, I was absolutely ready for it, and I think you have to be ready for it. I knew pretty much what I was gonna get into moving here, and so I was not completely shocked. Uh, and uh that it's what I wanted, which was a lot less uh density. I wanted to live kind of more rurally and remotely, and uh I that is what I got. I mean, the counties here are smaller in size, but I will tell you our entire county has a population of about 25,000 people. And so it's it's a small, small county. My little town probably has a couple thousand people, but I'm about 40 minutes, 30 minutes on a on a on a day where there's been no overturned trucks on the little two-way freeway, two-lane freeway. I'm 30 to 40 minutes away from Chattanooga. So everything I want, arts, uh, entertainment, you know, great shows and the aquarium, any kind of cultural events and people, restaurants, and fine dining is all just a hop, skip, and a jump away. But where I live, there is nobody. There's a Walmart and a Lowe's and a Cracker Barrel and a Waffle House. And that's exactly what I wanted.
SPEAKER_00So you've got the necessities. Okay, so I can't let my wife hear this podcast because so for the longest time, I don't want to be more than 10 minutes from a grocery store, this, that, and the other. The past 15 years or so, she's had a great job, but the commute is absolutely horrific. Uh, a good day is two and a half hours in the car, a bad day is north of four hours. No, yeah. And so so now she's like, I I want to move somewhere where there are no people.
Upbringing, Grit, And Education
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So and it's it's great. The the little community I live in, you know, we're on the top of a mountain, the development, you're not coming up this mountain unless there is a restaurant up here that the developer built to be an attractor. So it's a little like a brew pub. They brew their own beer and it's called Top of the Rock. And it's it's fabulous, but it's it, you're not coming up to up the mountain unless you're either going to the restaurant or uh you live here. So it it's it's awesome. It's about a mile drive, mile and a half drive up. And then once you get up on top, and they call it mountains up here, they're more like plateaus. Uh a Californian wouldn't wouldn't think it's a mountain necessarily. It's about 120 or 1,300 feet in elevation. So it's it's kind of flat once you get up here. I mean, there's some hilly terrain, but these we live on a bluff view of the Tennessee overlooking the Tennessee River, and the lots are, you know, some are a little less than an acre, but some are as much as two, three, four, five acres. So it's very rural feel once you get up here. And but yeah, it's a tight-knit community too. There's there's a club for anything you could possibly want to do up here with with the community that lives up here. So pickleball, you know, there's a men's breakfast club. I mean, I can't even I can't even think of all the things that there are to do up here, if you want. Which I don't, which is why I can't name them all.
SPEAKER_00What a sales pitch. I love it. Okay, so it was on the list. We were gonna do a trip a few months back. We have it. So I think I'm gonna put it back on the agenda. Fly. We have some friends in Atlanta, fly into Atlanta, then take come see us.
SPEAKER_01We're two hours away. You have to come here. We'll take you to Chattanooga. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That was the plan. Come up, hit Tennessee, maybe North Carolina. There was a contractor here that was uh an old fixture, and he purchased so here's how how crazy it is. He sells his home in Livermore, he buys one in North Carolina and uh according to him, puts all the bells and whistles in it, and then his daughter's in Kentucky, so he has enough money left over to buy another house in Kentucky. So I don't know if it's that affordable, but it sounded pretty great.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, you could you could make it affordable. We we we didn't make it quite so affordable, so that's okay. But that was our choice.
SPEAKER_00Of course, you had to put a golf simulator somewhere. I mean, you can't you cut corners.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh. Well, when I said golf simulator, I should have uh prefaced that. It's not the uh you know Chief Young one time told me, You need your husband needs this golf simulator. It's like a 10 grand golf simulator. I said, no, he doesn't need that golf simulator. So he's got like, you know, a much lower scale, you know. He's got the the the I don't know, the your wife is retired and uh or wants to retire version of the golf simulator.
SPEAKER_00Okay, the affordable one exactly. So yeah, California girl, born and raised. I think you went to Cal Poly, right?
SPEAKER_01I did for my grad school. I did my undergrad at Sonoma State. Oh, nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think an interesting fact you said to me is your parents are really young when they had you.
SPEAKER_01Yes, 17 and 18.
SPEAKER_00Wow. So was that a challenge?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yes, if you ask my mother, yes, absolutely. She had to kind of sort of, well, I guess there's no kind of sort of about it. She had to leave home and she was a Catholic girl born and raised, and so that wasn't probably very fun. And they were dirt poor, so I think they, you know, slept on relatives' couches for a good portion of uh the pregnancy, and it took them a long time to get their feet underneath them. All through my childhood, I watched them struggle with jobs and and and paying bills. I can remember a couple of really key moments that really shaped who I ended up becoming. I would watch my mom, we would before school, we would drive to a utility to pay the bill in the morning before they opened so they wouldn't shut the utility off. And I would know, I don't know how I knew this. I think my mom, my she's my best friend. So I guess she was just really open when she was raising me. I knew that that bill was being able to be paid because we weren't paying another bill. And so it was always the Rob Peter to pay Paul syndrome. And I just, I just, we just, you know, grew up making the grocery list with her and then adding it up before we went in our heads of how much it was going to cost and making sure we didn't go over. So just really scrimping all through my childhood. But as they got a little older, seven years after me, my brother came along and they decided to they needed to like improve somehow. They couldn't keep paying, you know, using these low-wage jobs to afford to live. And so my mom went back to school to like that, you know, to tech school, which I don't know if they have them around so much anymore, but she did a medical assisting program. And that got her into a doctor's office and a stable environment and a better paying job. And then my dad went back and got his EMT license, and he got hired on early, early on with a new ambulance company called AMR, which is now huge. But at the time, they were just starting out in the Bay Area. And so that, you know, they bettered their situation. I was probably early teenage years, maybe 12, maybe 11, when I saw them kind of start to be able to have a little bit more stability in the financial realm. And so, yeah, that just really shaped who I uh from then on, you know, I just knew I had to go to college. No matter what I did, I had to go to college and get a decent job that would allow me to have retirement and allow me to enjoy, enjoy my life in a better position than my parents. So yeah, so I guess that's a very uh I don't know where I was going with that, but it shaped my life.
Early Planning Career And Grad School
SPEAKER_00So I look at these stories and I call them the Phoenix syndrome. And so my family, we were immigrants, and dad liked immigrating so much that we did it twice. We came the first time, and some agents told us to leave, and we came back again later when we were legal. But yeah, so but you know, blue collar also, and at one point my parents owned three homes. And I look at it from today's today's perspective. You mentioned AMR. My son worked for them for a little bit, he's a uh firefighter paramedic now, and his fiance is a registered nurse. So between the two of them, they make incredible money, but it's a struggle to purchase a home in your NORCAL. So I, you know, when when I listened to your story and you know, your parents' struggles, and you were able to I mean, it would be it would have been very easy for someone like yourself to give it the poor me thing and not push. You went to school, you you did everything that you did, and you eventually made it to the city assistant city manager, which is not easy because a lot of people have that office as a target, and it just seems to elude some folks.
SPEAKER_01Oh, well, yeah, I just I did there was no, I don't, and I've asked my mom that before too. Like, where did I don't remember them them hammering home necessarily you have to go to college because they knew they couldn't send me to college. So I don't that wasn't the message that they were gonna send, but for some reason it was always very important in in our family. And it was just, I never questioned that I was gonna go, but I did do it all on my own, and I ended up with just a substantial amount of student loan debt when I graduated. But student loan debt back then was way better than it is now. It was extremely low interest, and they were all safe loans, you know, subsidized by the government. And so, yeah, I mean, so they were so low interest that when I got my first real big girl job, I went to a financial planner. It didn't have a dime to my name. And I said, and all this debt, actually, and said, What am I, what should I do? Should I start working on paying off these loans with every extra penny that I have? And they actually told me, no, your interest rate is lower than anything. You're you need to, you need to just start um saving to buy a home because your interest rate is so low on the on the student loans. So, you know, that's what I did. And so I ended up carrying those loans around for quite a long time. I I think I was well into my 30s before they were paid off. But yeah, it just I wouldn't have it any other way. It was well worth every every penny and every every blood, sweat, and tears over exams and the struggle. I mean, even putting myself, I my living expenses and everything. I mean, that was all all on me. I there was no way I could call my mom up and ask for an extra hundred bucks that month to, you know, because the tire, I had a flat tire or something, because she's still trying, she, I mean, even though they were in a better place, they were still raising my brother and they were in the Bay Area where prices were rising faster than their wages. And so it just was never an option. I had nobody to call. So I don't know, it it it builds grit.
SPEAKER_00Well, it does. And they said that people succeed more where when there isn't that safety net where they know it's kind of a do-or-die situation, and you push harder. And it it sounds like you were in kind of that situation. I uh so I was reading an article a while back, and they were talking about immigrants, specifically, we were talking about Chinese immigrants, and we're talking about how Gen 1, grandpa, for instance, is very hardworking, nose to the grindstone, all that kind of stuff, and you have this particular work ethic. And then by the time you get to Gen 3, they say that they have more assimilated into American customs or whatever, and not quite as hardworking, a little bit more laid back. And I don't know, I know that from my perspective, my dad was so, I mean, the most the hardest working guy I've ever known in my life. And I consider myself hardworking, but not to his level. And then, you know, I look at my son and I'm like, yeah, I see that. It it's it's there, but I don't know that it's a bad thing, to be honest with you. I mean, uh each generation has gotten a little more comfortable.
Breaking Into Leadership With Playing Big
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and I don't, you know, just because I struggled mightily, I mean, and then my mom struggled even more. I can't even imagine what how what my life was like for my mom and trying to raise kids. But yeah, I would I wouldn't wish those things on my child just so that they could understand the, you know, the struggle a little bit more. I I I see what my daughter's done, and she she's had her own struggles, and they aren't necessarily financial because you know, damn it, I I there was no way my daughter was gonna want for a college education when I had to put myself through it. That was my number one goal in life was a retirement plan and to be able to help my kids with college. Those were my two objectives in life, basically. And and and I've achieved them and I'm very proud of that. But I I wouldn't, yeah, I don't know, Greg. I don't think I think they have it better, but they have their struggles are very different. And they're not gonna have it as easy, like you know, student loans and things like that are not as easy as they were for us. Every everything just kind of changes in a different way, and things are harder for them that we we don't even we never experienced.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's accurate. I I have a cousin, we're about the same age. He went into medicine, and I remember that, and I remember the the debt and whatever, but it was a little bit so my daughter wants to go to med school. That's kind of a fluid situation. Yeah, hey, we we'll see how that works out, but you know, we're also looking at the expense there, right? And and so I, you know, being a former contractor, whatever, start job costing. So, what is this gonna cost us? What's the return? How long is it gonna take to pay it off? You know, are you better off taking this alternative route? So, and I understand because you know, he had debt, but not to this extreme, and uh and the competition now is ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so yeah, I've heard that too. I I've uh that that's and I don't understand that. We could that could be a whole nother spin-off conversation, and I don't really have any authority or experience in it, but I understand that the the need and demand for great professionals in in medicine in all avenues is so high, but yet the the the they don't make it easy and the route to get in, the weightings, and that you you know, just applying to school and it it takes years. I don't understand that that disconnect there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I agree with you. You said you went to Sonoma, then you went to Cal Poly, you got your graduate your did you get your first job or did you start with okay, so let's let me back this up because I'm mumbling here. Was Livermore your first planning job?
SPEAKER_01No, it was not. I had a couple of internships while at Cal Poly, and then after I graduated, my very first job was with the city of Sonoma. Oh I worked there a little over a year, maybe two years, and then Livermore.
SPEAKER_00So the graduate degree, is that a must for a planner? Because I notice it most seem to have it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I feel like it is. Yeah, I I don't it's been a while since I've been in land use planning, so I'm not sure exactly if the trend is still there, but boy, it was a must-have when I was working my way up and trying to be promoted up through the different planning ranks.
SPEAKER_00You've done a lot of things for Livermore. Your name is attached to all sorts of things. Yeah. First ever strategic plan, communications and emergency management programs and so forth. So you've you uh uh you diversified your portfolio, let's say. So how going from a planner and eventually making it to assistant city manager, what what were the so if I wanted to follow those footsteps, what would be your advice? What should I be looking at doing?
City Manager’s Office: Planning On Steroids
Working With Councils And Politics
SPEAKER_01That's a super great question. And boy, hindsight is 2020. I didn't, it wasn't my goal to do that at all. I certainly wanted to, I was certainly ambitious. I wanted to move up and be promoted through the land use planning ranks and maybe be planning manager someday, which is you know the highest level underneath the community development director, and then maybe someday community development director. But I even that was kind of, you know, it wasn't a an immediate like, you know, this is my five-year goal or objective. I was I was definitely the kind of employee that was very much into work-life balance and my home life was very important to me. And so I I, you know, it kind of curbed some ambition at at certain points in my life, raising my kids and the time and energy that that takes away from the overall ambition to move forward in your career. But at some point, you know, you do, or I do, I got a little bored with what I was doing. And there wasn't a lot of room for advancement in within Livermore. I could, I could, and I wasn't really interested in leaving Livermore. It was such a great place to work. And it's no fun to change jurisdiction sometimes unless you're just not really happy where you are, because learning a new jurisdiction's, you know, zoning code, municipal code, all the rules and regulations, it's a it's a really steep learning learning curve. So yeah, so I was just it was kind of a combination of things. My kids were growing. I had a lot of years of experience under the belt, and so it was starting to kind of go, hmm, is this really what I want to keep doing? And then the fact that there was so many really great people kind of sitting in the chairs above me that weren't really going to go anywhere. So it kind of all culminated in like some, and and you know, I had some big life changes that happen around the same time too. I was going through a divorce, and so those are things that kind of make you go, hmm, in life, right? And re-evaluate. So then something really big happened. I was always involved in in in wanting to better my career. So I was getting involved in outside organizations, professional organizations. Uh, and I really recommend anybody looking to make a move eventually, or even if it's kind of like, oh yeah, I would consider it, but it's not something I want to do right now. Just start getting involved in things outside your agency and and and you'll your network will expand, you'll get exposed to things you didn't really even know about before. So, you know, it just kind of opens your eyes to things you weren't even looking for. And and that's what happened to me. It was one of those organizations. This one is well known in local government, M M-A-N-C. And and I was was went to a women's leadership summit one year. They do it every year, and they bring in guest speakers. And this one particular guest speaker was an author. She had written a book, and and her book was there was a one on every table. And the point that you were supposed to network with the people at your table and make connections there, because they were from all other agencies. And they they paired some high-level women leaders, like some women assist city managers and assistant city managers at the table with mid-manager professionals. And and there was the book that the author had written. And what was supposed to happen was you were supposed to read the book and then pass it on because you made friends in your network. So you take it home, read it, and then like when you're finished, drop it in the mail to one of the connections you made at the table and let them read it. And it was just supposed to make its way around eventually. Well, I I got to take it home, I think. So it and it just changed my life. It was called Playing Big. And the author is Tara Moore. Her last name is spelled M-O-H-R. I give a huge shout out to her. She's active on LinkedIn, so anybody listening can find her. The Playing Big book, I will not go into all the nitty-gritty details, but the there was a concept in there, probably one of many, that she talks about uh taking chances. And uh, I'll never forget it. She talked about fear and fear being a thing that can hold us back, but there's actually two kinds of fear. There's a good fear and a bad fear. And the good fear is the kind of fear that makes you jump out of an airplane for an adrenaline rush, right? You're scared, but you're super excited. Or, of course, you're gonna do it if that's what you wanted to do. So it's a scary but good fear. And then there's the the kind of fear that paralyzes you and makes you think, I can't move, I can't go for forward with this, I'm freaked out. And she talks about turning that bad fear into good fear in your profession and in wanting to move up and in your world, and especially as women who think that they are too busy or they'll have to sacrifice too much at home. So kind of flipping things around and changing the way you look at it, basically, essentially. And it it was the right book at the right time, and and then an opportunity opened up in the city manager's office for an assistant to the city manager, and I went for it. And so it was just a weird combination of things that happened, Greg, all at once. So I I definitely think my story is unique to me, but the message that is applicable to anybody is just kind of be out there doing things and looking around, even if you don't think you're interested in them, because you never know what's gonna pop up that just sparks that fire inside of you.
SPEAKER_00I I agree with with everything you said. I think sometimes you have to make opportunities, sometimes you have to seize the moment. I've told the kids, you know, there's sometimes things will come up. Should I do this? I'm a little apprehensive. This is a little scary. Take a leap of faith if it's something you want to do and and see what happens, because sometimes those amazing opportunities come by once and then it's gone. And it sounds like you had that moment and you seized it. That was good for you.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, it was. I had a great time. I thought I might miss planning, and I and I did miss planning, but oh my gosh, it was I I called the city manager's office planning on steroids, because if you know what planners do, they are basically giant project managers that facilitate all these different interests. They facilitate the project uh developer and they facilitate the engineer who wants all the utilities underground and therefore you can't plant any trees on top of them. And you're facilitating, you know, a historic preservation commission's rules and regulations and in the environment and all these different stakeholders to try, you're the facilitator trying to get the project through in a way that will work for everybody in the community, uh, another huge stakeholder. And then when you get to the city manager's office, it's it's that on steroids. Uh now your stakeholders are just different and and the players are a little bit different, but that's your main job is to wrangle all these different perspectives for the council at the at that point and for your city manager. So it's uh it was kind of the same role in a in a different way.
Signature Livermore Projects And Lessons
SPEAKER_00So two questions. The first one you just mentioned there, council. How was it having to deal with? So when you're dealing with planners and you're dealing with the city managers, you're dealing with that side of the house, you're dealing with professionals, that's our job to do every day. And now you also have to factor in council. We have elected officials, and sometimes the decision-making path is not one that is technical, it's more subjective. You're trying to placate someone. So, how is it dealing with that group?
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, working in a city like Livermore, where we had a fantastic council, all the councils I worked with were fantastic. All of them cared very deeply about the community and were very long-term focused, not short-term special project focus, like some cities have councils that are like that. Um, so it was very fortunate. So it took a, you know, a good group of people. But basically, yeah, it does change things a lot. Your city manager is the one that buffers that for the most to the greatest extent, but it does trickle down when those things that need to get done because they're, you know, of an of a priority for the council that weren't, you know, brand new thing that pops up that wasn't on the agenda literally or figuratively. You you gotta just roll with it. And and that happened, I don't know, that does that, I think that happens at every level of government. It's just your your boss is a different, it's just not the council, it's somebody else. But I will say the number one job of the assistant city manager is taking care of the city manager when that's getting dicey, because the city manager is the one that's buffering the council from the whole organization. So that's a heavy load that the city manager is carrying, and a and a good assistant is a very big support to the city manager.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I could see that, that transition between the two. Having said all that, I had a question for you because I've used this term before, and Livermore is very unique. I worked at a couple of other jurisdictions, and one of them was Sunnyville, it was very techie. You could go out and you could do an inspection or something for Apple or Google, and then it was grandma and grandpa's bathroom remodel or whatever. Livermore is incredibly diversified in within the jurisdiction, right? We have hydrogen fuel facility and we have bus manufacturing, and then we have homes. So, from a planner's perspective, was there any one project or any one thing you worked on that you really kind of geeked out over? You really kind of embraced it was really cool to work on.
SPEAKER_01Uh, two just popped into my head, Greg. Maybe three. Three, maybe four. Okay. Uh they're popping in left and right now. Uh one, I worked on the annexation of the labs. They were outside of city limits back in the day. And getting them annexed was a big joint effort uh between a lot of departments, uh, economic development, the city manager's office, the city attorney's office. I mean, a lot of players involved, but it was it was my project as the project planner to shepherd it through all the hoops, including LAFCO and council. So I'm really proud of that project because it brought in, it brought the labs into the city limits, which it they should have been all along, and and you know, and now they are. So that's one of them.
SPEAKER_00So the the labs, were they originally county property or was it federal land? Oh, it was county.
SPEAKER_01It was county. I don't know going back further than that, if they were ever, you know, anything else, but but county owned by the state for the school, the UC system, right?
SPEAKER_00So oh really? I didn't know that.
Trepepi Smith Origins And Growth
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yes, through it's it's it's the UC and the federal government. Yeah. And then another project I worked on was well, two two other residential projects that were large and and exciting because. They were they had various issues. Um, one was a smaller residential project that's known as the Arroyo Crossing Development over by the park, Robertson Park. It had been owned by a family that had used part of that uh property as an old trash dump. Like it wasn't a dump like we know landfills to be, but it was like a local dump back in the day. And so there was a lot of issues with stability in the ground. And so that project was, I learned so much about geotechnical issues and all of that through that project. And it was super exciting to solve all those issues with the developer. They were a really good developer, and and uh and then see that project come out of the ground and and see the homes that are there now. And it's it's great. And then the other one was a big, giant residential project, one of the biggest that we have in the city. It was the Sage development on the north side of the freeway there by the what hopefully will be a BART station someday. So that one had environmental issues as well because in Livermore, as you know, the the hills and the views are very important, and there's a giant policy over the top of some of those areas called the Scenic Corridor. And uh it requires a lot of well, basically an outside consultant to do all the math that's required to make sure your the development will not breach the scenic corridor visually in height. So that and that project was super contentious with the community and a lot of stakeholder meetings and community engagement. And so, yeah, I mean, just tons of great, great stuff that I got exposed to and uh things I got to learn about that I never would have had the chance to do without working in a great community like Livermore with all these great projects and opportunities.
SPEAKER_00I agree with everything. I same boat you mentioned earlier about not wanting to leave Livermore. It's a hard place to leave. It's a great culture, it's a great fit. The man we've had a transition in management and it still remains a great place to work. So, and then the community itself, the the people, it's just it's pretty cool. And again, I'm gonna say it again, but it's we've got everything there. We have we I think we kind of lost the fusion facility research thing. I think it was in the works, and then I think they decided to go out of state. I might be wrong about that, but we have some some things that are really kind of crazy. I wanted to touch on Tripe. Yes, is that how you say that? Okay, so I get the Smith part. That would be Ryder, correct?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00So true the and I think the name is so cool, Trepe Smith. Yes. Uh is that another partner?
SPEAKER_01Or yes, it actually is. It's a fabulous story. Nicole Trepepi is Ryder's wife, Ryder Smith. Okay, and her father was Frank Trapepi. He's a he he passed away recent uh in the recent past. I think it's been a few years now, but he was very well known in Southern California and lots of highly respected city managers. So Nicole grew up with him and learned local government, but never really was interested in a career in local government. She got her degree in accounting. Uh, she's a CPA and is a fine finance guru. And she met up with Ryder and he was interested in public policy and local government. And Frank was still around at the time and very influential with with Ryder. And and I think a lot of things fell to fell together in their life. I'm not exactly sure of all the pieces of the story and all and the timing of everything, but they ended up forming this company together and in in an effort to help local governments with items and services that they could didn't have the staffing to do themselves. And it just it just has evolved over time and uh morphed with more and more services being provided by our company. Basically, any anybody that can call rider, any city manager calls Ryder up and says, We need this, can you help with that? He he says, uh yeah, we can do that. And that's how our company has grown because of his his great reputation with uh a lot of the city managers. Yeah, and I think it I think basically it started around the recession as well. So I think there was a a recession piece component of our company. And we started with just, I think he had just one or two employees for a long period of time, and now we're we're over 75 employees now. Um and I think this is all since like 2005.
SPEAKER_00So I was on the company website, and what I found very interesting is there are other folks that do similar things, but they tend to uh to be in silos, right? They're very specialized. And you folks seem to have a you cast a wide net. You you do a you offer a lot of services.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And it really has grown. We fill the needs as they come. Like we do SB 1383, the organics state mandate outreach for cities. Uh, we help with all meeting all those requirements. And that just grew, you know, that's a very recent phenomenon, right? And it was just a need that we saw. And uh same with re districting and redistricting, we we can help with with those efforts as well. And so, yeah, I mean, when Ryder started the company, those those services weren't even, I mean, nobody had heard no nobody needed those. There was no state mandate for either one of those things.
Building Talent Solutions And Strategic Planning
SPEAKER_00So did you come on board for specifically for the talent solutions or do you do more?
SPEAKER_01No, so yeah, that's a great question. It like I kind of mentioned a few minutes ago jokingly, uh, it's it's really true. Ryder would just keep getting calls from, you know, city managers and contacts and cities asking for all sorts of things. And and one of the air, two are the buckets that he would get asked to do a lot and had no staff dedicated because it's not, they weren't really communications oriented, is executive recruiting and strategic planning with councils, a goal setting. Those are two areas that, you know, have nothing to do with communications and marketing. And yet he didn't want to leave his, you know, his colleagues and friends in the lurch. And so he embarked upon strategic planning himself. He did a few with some Southern California cities and and he brought on, he worked with a couple of retired city managers. Well, one retired city manager and one retired HR, public sector HR person to kind of do some contracting uh on the recruiting side when folks would need some recruitment services. But so I I was I knew I was retiring and I was at a conference where Trepepi Smith was, and I just had a conversation with both he and Nicole at this conference about a month before my retirement, and they were talking about how they need that, they needed somebody to help with these services because you know, Ryder is just way too busy and and he shouldn't be in the weeds like that doing the actual work himself, anyways. And and I knew I might need to be working after I retire because of our wonderful, beautiful house in Tennessee and my husband's golf habit. So it was kind of an a another moment in time where things aligned perfectly timing-wise, that I could help them get this these services off the ground in a more permanent way and and help myself out as well. So, and stay in the for me, the benefit was staying in the public sector, uh, you know, keeping my fingers in public sector and still helping local government. So I really love the work. But yeah, like you mentioned, the the the work I do for Trapepi Smith is different than what 90% of the company does.
SPEAKER_00It's funny that you just mentioned how you met and how this all happened, the genesis of this whole thing. And uh it's another instance of the right place, the right time, and seizing the opportunity. Huh?
SPEAKER_01Yep. I know. I guess there's a theme there.
SPEAKER_00So somebody's somebody's got a path planned out for you. So on that, on that note, I want to get into the recruiting part. So I want to look at it from a couple different perspectives. One being the candidate, the other being the recruiter. And some time ago, I did the uh IGMT training and we did the whole thing about uh what was our slogan? Find them, hire them, keep them, something to that effect. And so that, how are you? So is it just typical advertising? Do you go out? Are you actively, I'm gonna say stalking, but do you go out and you you think that this person would be a good fit for this position that's opening up and you reach out, or are you just kind of advertising and hoping for the best?
Recruiting: Outreach, Screening, And Fit
SPEAKER_01Well, it's both. It's it's definitely a combination of both. So, you know, we do the full service recruiting from start to finish for agencies, which, you know, I mean entails kind of putting together that slick job brochure that you've probably seen out there that a lot of recruiters use, has, you know, a lot of pretty images and uh is visually compelling. And then hopefully the words that are in the brochure are also compelling and uh engaging and and get people to apply for the role you're seeking to fill. So we do all that and we post the job opportunity on all the relevant professional job boards so that the local agency doesn't have to ha hassle with any of that, and we have the applications come through us again, so that you know that alleviates that HR burden. And um, and yeah, so we're screening the folks that are coming in the door just from the applications being on job boards and being spread around on social media and all that. But then we actively, we also actively outreach to folks that aren't necessarily seeking, and we we have, you know, databases of folks, people that have applied with us in the past for roles or just contacts we've made along the way, or just reaching out to even to people in the same role in neighboring jurisdictions to see if we're not trying to poach them necessarily those in those calls. We're we're trying to see if they'll help us spread the word, like, hey, we're hiring for this role. You have a network of professionals in that same area. Would you mind sharing this opportunity with your network, that kind of a thing? And we actually, you know, smile and dial to do to do that kind of work. So I think it's it's a combination of things and it and it makes it it makes it fun. And I think it makes it well, certainly it's much more than the local agency can do themselves, right? They don't have the staff or the time to dedicate to that kind of that kind of outreach. But uh hopefully it's it's I I guess I lost my train of thought there, but yeah, so that's so that's what we do. I hope that answered your question.
SPEAKER_00No, it does. And you use the P word, and I'm gonna tell you about the poaching. So my my daughter says, Well, I've started seeing this young man. Okay, what's his name? It's so and so, and he works for the city of San Ramon. Oh, really? Okay, so I happen to know some folks there. So the first thing that pops up in my head, City of San Ramon. So this guy's been backgrounded and he has no felonies, so there's a bonus. And so I I pick up the phone and I call my counterparts there, and so I start making inquiries. And so the first thing that comes out of their mouths is, hey, you're not trying to poach this guy. He's pretty great. Okay, that's what I wanted to hear. The endorsement. He's hardworking, he's good, he doesn't have a felony. We're solid.
SPEAKER_01So so there Yeah, and they don't want you to steal him. So there you go. It's not like they said you can have it.
SPEAKER_00Take them away. And so another question I had is, you know, how does it, how does your service compare with what a jurisdiction could do for those for themselves? And it seems like you have a lot more resources and you could be a lot more thorough than, say, you know, Livermore's HR can do or someone else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I find that the HR HR folks are are over, they're they're not overworked in a bad way, but they're very, very busy. I mean, you think of how many vacancies an agency has on any given day, and and it's a lot. And so they have their hands full with the with um, what I would, you know, I'm not trying to minimize, but lower level recruitments. Um, there's so many of them. So if we can help with the executive level recruitments, first of all, we have a broader network of folks to outreach to. And second of all, we have the, you know, we're a communications firm. So we are graphics and we are marketing. So why wouldn't you want our help, you know, kind of with that piece of it for the higher level positions in your organization? It just kind of frees you free frees up the HR staff to focus on all the other many, many recruitments that they have. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Something that I read that I it kind of caught my eye, and it's not something I normally think of. And it says, it was a quote, uh, I might have this a little bit out of context, but Christine believes in a thriving organization or a thriving city organization depends on mutual respect, humor, and shared purpose. Humor is not one that I would have expected in there, but it really does work, right? I mean, having that light environment to work in.
What Cities Seek In Directors
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. I mean, every client is different if you're talking about what we see on the client side and what they are looking for. So I can't say everybody's looking for that piece, but on our side, on what we bring to the table when we're working with clients is we bring that approach. I mean, that's how we approach our work. We call it the sunshine approach. We we bring the sunshine. We're just we're just excited and enthusiastic. And we feel like if, you know, if we're happy doing our job, then we're gonna put out a better product and we're gonna be of better service to you. But yeah, so there's there's the two sides, and I'm not sure which side you were looking at there. I can talk more about what cities are looking for if if that's where you were going.
SPEAKER_00Well, I wanted to get both sides. So if you want to start with that, yep, let's do that.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah. So I guess I I was kind of thinking about the question ahead of time, and I've broken it into two buckets. One for city managers, what are city councils looking for when they're hiring a city manager? And then what are city managers looking for when they're hiring directors for their agency? Uh, because it's very different. Well, not very, but it is different. So with the director level position, so anybody looking to move up, I guess this is kind of like for you. What are folks looking for right now out there? You know, it's kind of all the things you would think they're looking for. I don't, and most agencies are looking for, I'm I'm speaking really broadly at the the what most agencies are looking for. Every agency is a little different and has a slightly different culture. But most are looking for, first of all, you know, just at that level, at a director level, you should be check all the boxes technically. You should have done the work, you should know how to do the work and uh and have all those technical skills honed and lots of experience under your belt. So at a director level, agencies are looking for the soft skills now. They're, they, they figure you assume you can do the technical work. So they're looking for folks that can communicate. So if you're and I find it's the biggest struggle for folks going from engineering positions and finance positions going to director levels because in a lot of those roles they weren't asked to communicate. And so making those leaps are a little harder for folks looking to become directors because now they're looking to, they have to give presentations to their directors, to their city manager, to their council, and they have to be able to communicate to the community sometimes. So just honing communication skills is so important, and I think it's something that people don't necessarily expect if they're brand new to applying for a director level role. Another one would be the mentoring and coaching. Agencies are now really hungry for some for executive leaders that have experience and have a good approach to coaching and mentoring because they're wanting to grow their talent from within the organization. But you that doesn't happen if you have directors and even division managers in the seats in those jobs that aren't good at coaching and mentoring. That's when the city has to go outside for a recruitment, then because they don't really have any good talent at the lower level to promote up. So that's just two, two of the areas. I could, I could go on and on about other things like emotional intelligence and project management skills and things like that. But but those are the two of the big ones.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's I had uh Jose Madrigal on. He's the uh city manager at Durango. And one of his things is family first, which is he his story is pretty remarkable. At uh 26, he was an assistant city manager. Oh, geez. And uh he's very driven. And when I hear things like that, I think workaholic, I think all that stuff, you know, it's all my my dad, not that it was a bad thing, very hard worker. I mean, the 60-hour week for dad was a short week. And so not a lot of family time, right? But he puts family first and still is able to do that. So I I find that um amazing that you can make that challenge.
Culture, Family First, And Retention
SPEAKER_01So that's important to a lot of agencies at the higher level, too, are people that can and will put family first if that's a priority of the agency and the culture that they have there. I had one agency that that is their their culture is uh through the roof. It's it's amazing. They allow babies up to I forget nine months or so at work and they allow dogs at work. They just they just have this very family-friendly culture. And they're and you know, when I recruit for that agency, it's in down in Southern California, I get more applicants for that agency because they have such a good reputation. So it matters.
SPEAKER_00Can you say what agency? Or sure.
SPEAKER_01I I'll give them a shout out. It's uh Rancho Cucamonga. Team RC. They call themselves Team RC.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Okay, so the dogs, yes, a bonus. The kids, uh, I don't know. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, yeah. Uh you know, I'm sure it it it it matters a lot. Uh, it would have mattered so much to me when I had my little one, not having to take her down the road to the daycare. Oh my gosh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, I get all that. One of our inspectors, his little guy now is about a year and a half. And so what's funny is back in my day, there was no maternity leave or whatever for for men. So his wife took the first 12 weeks, he took the next 12 weeks, so they got the first six months out of the way. And so things have changed. And and I guess RC is ahead of the uh ahead of the game. Maybe that's the next evolution to this whole thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, maybe. I mean, and I'm sure there's, you know, I'm sure they have they have to have, I've never dug into uh to how it actually works, but I'm if I'm if I'm an employee there and I've got a a child that's a problem, I'm not necessarily thinking I'm not gonna take advantage, right? Because they're so generous. So I would assume that that's kind of except maybe a little self-policing, right? So if you've got that one baby that's just gonna that sleeps and sleeps and sleeps and needs to wake up and be fed and changed and sleep some more, I'm that's a perfect situation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I get that. Yeah. The distraction, I get it. Mine would be a distraction. Mine would be around running around doing all sorts of crazy things. So Trepepe does strategic planning as well. Can you tell me so run me through that? What does that mean for a jurisdiction?
How Strategic Planning Really Works
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's a great question. Okay, so it can mean different things to different jurisdictions, but there is one path that is more traditional than others when you say strategic planning to a city council member or to a city manager, and that is working with the council on what their strategic priorities will be for a coming period of time. And usually that period of time is two years, kind of commensurate with the with the election cycle and with that particular council. Um, sometimes it's a little longer, it can be three or five years, and just kind of knowing that it might change as you get a new council seated in a couple of years, but setting that trajectory is is okay with some some clients. So so yeah, so we work with with the city manager's office and the council on what that looks like for them. And usually that involves um interviewing the council kind of one-on-one and talking with them about what they are seeing that's working in their community, what what they're what they're seeing that they would like to improve upon, and just really kind of just chatting with them and getting a really good sense of what they what they are liking in the community and what they're hearing from their constituents about needs. And then also chatting with whatever members of the executive team that the that the city manager may want us to chat with. Sometimes it's the full team, sometimes it's a sampling of the team, depending on how big their team is. Sometimes it's just talking with the city manager and uh also getting a feel for what their upcoming budget expectations are, because you know, it's very critical to align whatever goals are gonna come out in the strategic planning process with the budget. We wouldn't want to allow the council to uh proceed upon a path that wouldn't come to fruition. You know, we won't want to set everybody up for failure, we want to set them up for success. So we want to align with budget. And then a lot of times there's community engagement involved in these efforts as well. And that varies as well. It can uh mean anything from in-person workshops that we facilitate. It could just be a questionnaire that we circulate, you know, broadly with our through our communications channels and do a informal survey that way. It can be virtual meetings uh with the community. So just kind of a whole number of things. We've we've done it all. One relative recent example is a community we went and did. We did a combination. We did a couple of in-person workshops, a couple of Zoom workshops, we did a survey, we did an in-person workshop in Spanish because they had a large Spanish-speaking community. And then we kind of take all the feedback from everybody that we've talked to, all the stakeholders, and we do the hard work there of kind of mashing it all up and trying to make sense of it and pull some goals and objectives out of all that work. And then we regather with the city manager and whatever team we've established and chat about what those might be coming to look like. We don't we don't make any decisions there because the ultimate decision maker is going to be the council, but we don't want to surprise the city manager. So we chat about it with them, and usually they're not surprised by any of the things that come out. And then we have a workshop. We facilitate a workshop in a public workshop with the council, and because that's the first time, you know, we met with each council member individually, but now this is the first time that they're getting to work together as a Brown Act body to just and maybe it's the first time they might even be hearing about a certain community need or council members' priority because, like I said, we were chatting individually. So it's a great time, a great workshop where we kind of facilitate everybody's discussion and and and take public comment. And then they the hope and dream is that they will align upon a realistic number of uh of goals to set themselves up with for the next couple of years. And then we take that back with and work with the staff to create the work plan that will go with each of those goals and objectives. Because that's the real meat and potatoes, and that's what differentiates this document from something that will just sit on a shelf and collect dust to something that will be actionable and you can actually go back to the community and the council and report your progress on. So yeah, we do we do that work and I think that that work is really fun because we get to know each and each community is just a little bit different, right? So it that that's the part that is rewarding for me is seeing us make a difference in different communities. So yeah, it's great work.
SPEAKER_00So you said you did some of this virtually, a lot of it was workshops. Does does it help, or is it even come into the the grand scheme of things to actually visit to see the community itself? Or or is it just brainstorming and interacting with just the community?
Community Engagement And Budget Alignment
SPEAKER_01I think, you know, for since I have a background in this work myself, being on the public sector side and having done strategic planning with Livermore, I'd say I I don't necessarily need, I get so much from the passion and the feedback that I'm getting from the stakeholders that that it really you'll see if you do this work enough, you'll see themes come out and they're pretty regular, regularly occurring themes like communications. That's always a priority. People want think we need to do, you know, be doing more of it and be more transparent and reach bigger, you know, bigger swaths of the community and communications. That's so that's that's a that's a goal, I would say, in 90% of my strategic plans. But you're you're going to the community is just a big fat bonus. It's good. I enjoy it. I don't know how much it helps me and what the work that I do, but it is a it's just another piece of information when you're absorbing the goals that are just kind of naturally coming out of all the feedback. So yeah, you can kind of put things and go, oh, that's what they're talking about. There, they were talking about how they need more maintenance in their parks. Okay, I drove by and I saw a few parks that were a little run down. I I can see where they're why they're the community is upset about these things. So this and that. But so I guess, you know, and even talking it out now, Greg, I'm seeing that there is a little bit more benefit that I hadn't put a price tag on of actually going and being in the community. But so so yeah, thanks for the question. That was a good question. I'd say yes. I think it's very helpful.
SPEAKER_00So it sounds like a road trip is in order for the next client. Okay, so I have to put this out there. You told me that Mr. Roberts once communicated that you weren't a very good storyteller storm storyteller. Uh, I think the comment was something along the lines of uh you are where stories go to die. I think he's very wrong, and I'm gonna have to reach out and tell him that. This podcast episode was awesome for me to do with you. You're authentic, you're funny, and you have great tangible takeaways for the audience. So for that, I want to say thank you because I know your time is very valuable to Peppy Smith. It keeps you very busy. And with that, Christine, I'd like to say I wish you the best. Take care.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure. It's not something I've ever done. So I'm I'm excited to have tried something new and also to help out a great friend and a great colleague. And uh I might be contacting you to see if I can poach. I mean, not poach, but see if you can help me spread the word on a on a recruitment or two coming up in the future.
SPEAKER_00That's wrap for another episode of Tacis Talk. Your city leaders prove that local government can be smart, strategic, and yes, even a little funny. Huge thanks to Christine Martin and Pepper Smith for sharing her wisdom, career growth, leadership, and why laughter really does belong in the workplace. If you took away a nugget of insight today, whether it's about taking the next big career leap or learning to laugh through a city council meeting, do us a favor, share this episode with a friend or colleague who needs to hear it. Follow or subscribe so you don't miss the next conversation with the people shaping the future of our city. You can catch every episode at YesReCap attackestalk.com. That was about fall. And follow along on LinkedIn, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Until the next time, stay curious, stay cavitated as always. Don't get stuck in the stock. Thank you, Cup.