Pittman and Friends Podcast
Welcome to Pittman and Friends, the curiously probing, sometimes awkward, but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman - that’s me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear.
This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County Government, so don’t expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government - of, by, and for the people.
Pittman and Friends Podcast
Vincent Moulden on Connecting People with Government
Hear about challenges and progress in efforts to build trust and collaboration between the people and their local government in an administration led by a former community organizer. You’ll get to know Vincent the Peacemaker.
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Welcome to Pittman and Friends. The curiously probing, sometimes awkward but always revealing conversations between your host, nne Arundel County Executive Stuart Pittman that's me, and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear. This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County, so don't expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government of by and for the people. I'm Anne Arundel County Executive, stuart Pittman, and my guest today is Vincent Molden, the Anne Arundel County Director of Community Engagement and Constituent Services. Hello, vincent.
Vincent Moulden:Hello, happy to be here, all right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You know, I want to say some things about you, and particularly your role, before I ask you what is your job, because you may have a different answer. All right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So I wanted Vincent on here because he runs Community Engagement and Constituent Services and I firmly believe, and I was saying this to your staff actually just this morning in our regular staff meeting that the role of community engagement and constituent services is much more important to governing than most people think.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Most people think of it as you just do constituent services you take the call about the pothole, you call the agency and you get it done. What we do here is much bigger than that. We've talked about this a lot. It is taking the passion and the interest that people have when they bring an issue to county government and actually helping people turn that into change and engage with government in a positive way. And so I almost think of you and your team as community organizers out there who are really helping people influence government. But at the same time, it's always a little bit sensitive when you've got the County Executive, you've got the heads of the agencies, you've got the staff in the agencies, and you've got passionate people on the streets of the county that are telling you what to do. So tell me what you think your job is. How do you describe the job?
Vincent Moulden:Well, as you said, I am the Director of Community Engagement and Constituent Services. I lead a team of seven incredible individuals and together we are the primary liaison between the County Executive's Office and the community, and what that means is we basically make sure the community has a voice at the table in all county government involvement, so at the decision making process. When it comes to policy, legislation and anything of the sort, we are kind of the tip of the spear and making sure that they are relevant in the conversation. That's how I see us.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, okay, and we're going to get into some. Maybe we'll even get into some wild stories about how complicated this can be sometimes. But, um, you know you. You came. I remember when you interviewed and I don't remember if you told me in the interview I think actually you interviewed with James Kitchen, who was the director at the time yeah, and I don't remember if it was you who said it or other people who told me that you were interested in doing this job because you're shy and you wanted to force yourself to engage with people more and you thought this job would be a real challenge. That was when we hired you as one of the staff before we moved you up to director in the second term here. But tell me a little bit about your background and how you ended up here.
Vincent Moulden:So, prior to coming to the administration, I was working for a family-owned business, Thompson Management Associates, shout out to Kristen and Joe Thompson. It was a management firm in Eastport and I worked there for about 12 years. I got an internship when I was in high school. At the time, I had just graduated and I had a decision to make. I had graduated at the height of the recession, so I was looking at colleges and to me and my Capricorn brain, if you believe in astrology- Not really, but you know, you got your thing.
Vincent Moulden:It was either to go into debt or make money and I decided I wanted to make money. So when the Thompsons offered me a part-time job I decided to take that on and they were wonderful to work for/with and college just never really appealed to me and they were magnificent. At some point they wanted me to go to college so badly that they actually offered to pay for me to go to school and pay for my classes.
Vincent Moulden:And I took some sessions, but it just was never really my thing, but at some point they decided to retire. They had been doing this for a while, and so I had experienced some great growth. After they retired, I had got a promotion and I became the executive director for a new account that we had took on, the Maryland State Pest Control Association.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Oh boy, that's exciting, it was.
Vincent Moulden:But I really did gain a lot of respect for the work that they do and the role that they play in public health, and one of my proudest moments was the client had took on a new event called the Interstate Pest Management Conference, which was the biggest conference in the mid-Atlantic, and so they really needed help putting that on, and prior to them taking it on, it was an educational institution who managed it before and so it had been around for about 40 years. And someone had walked up to me and said I've been coming to this for four years and this is the most well-organized it had ever been, and so I took the client on. For about two years. Revenues went up 65 percent, attendance at the events went up 10 percent. I felt like I had done everything I could at the association firm with the client, so I was looking for a new opportunity.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You know, I've never heard you toot your own horn. That was kind of cool to hear you toot your own horn for a minute.
Vincent Moulden:Well, this is is what this is about, right? Yeah, this is the spot. So, I remember distinctly it was December 2019, because where I used to work we would take that week off between Christmas and New Year and I saw the application for a Community Engagement Officer and it said something along the lines of represent the County Executive at community events and at agency meetings and stuff all the things that make an introvert squirm. So I said let's give it a try.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:All right, well, I got to say well, there was something else in your resume that at least made me take note a little bit, because I have so much respect for Senator and soon-to-be Congresswoman Sarah Elfrith, and I know you had volunteered on her campaign, correct?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And she also said don't miss this resume when it comes to you. This guy's amazing. Having worked for 12 years in one job right out of school is also, I think, a great sign that somebody is committed. So I'm glad we hired you, thank you. So I'm glad we hired you, thank you, and I think just about everybody who works with you is. I want to ask you what you've learned in this job about how people view government. You see it every day and they come at you with different levels of knowledge, different issues, and I know how you want them to perceive government. We'll get to that in a collaborative way, but what have you learned?
Vincent Moulden:Honestly, I think the most interesting thing that I've learned is that people see local government differently than they do at the national level. I think people really do understand that local government and how impactful it can be government differently than they do at the national level. I think people really do understand that local government and how impactful it can be and oftentimes you will see people support local government in ways that they probably would never nationally.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So it's not just automatically government is bad.
Vincent Moulden:No, at least not at the local level, and I think people will often make that distinction. I think the trust factor is different at the local level than at the national, so I find that pleasant.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, so you're well okay. Here's another take on that. The institution of CECS obviously is about creating community engagement. But when you bring that pressure or you sort of act as the messenger for those groups and you go to an agency that is really busy and always believes they're doing it right and you bring them these issues, sometimes you probably get some pushback. You know, my position sort of goes a little bit like yours it's like you're.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I'm in the middle. You're in the middle, trying to make all this stuff work. Do you feel like community engagement ever gets in the way of progress, or is it inherently a good thing? I know that's a tough one. You're going to piss somebody off.
Vincent Moulden:Yeah, you're going to piss somebody off. I think that community engagement done right is progress. I think a good example of where I think we're doing community engagement excellent is with Crownsville. A couple weeks ago, we revealed the first kind of concept drawings and maps of kind of where we're going with the thought of Crownsville, and that part of the process always makes me extremely nervous and so when we were getting to that part, I was just like, oh, here we go, we're going to get beat up, we're going to get slammed, and the feedback we received so far has been really positive and I think that's because we have been doing such a great job of including people in the process that there was nothing really to be worried about because people have been part of the process along the way. So I think and it's something everybody kind of wants too right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I mean nobody wants to leave Crownsville the way it is. Everybody's excited about turning it into a place for healing and a park. Most people like parks. Of course we can get into parks.
Vincent Moulden:They can be controversial too. Actually, I mean where?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Some of the greatest controversy. We can get into that. But for Crownsville what you're saying is and you know it's interesting that, and we can get into that for Rec and Parks, too, because.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Rec and Parks actually is part of Crownsville, I mean the first big project and the thing that will move the soonest is turning it into a park. So, and we're calling it Crownsville Hospital Memorial Park and um, but when we're at that conception stage and everybody's at the table, um, you get a lot of really positive engagement. But when you're at the part where, like, if you look at Crownsville in a couple of years, and we've gone through this process and there's been consent, whether it's consensus or not, but the decisions have been made, and the contractor's about to get started with something, and then a new group of people comes in and says we weren't notified. How dare you do this in our community? Um, that could happen, couldn't it?
Vincent Moulden:It could happen and it probably will. But I'm just saying, even with my experience and being at this stage, it can be scary and things could get ugly. And I'm just saying for it to even be at this point and still the positivity is still flowing. It's exciting, right?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So yeah, so I will be perfectly honest that that Rec and Parks has been a department where community engagement has been uncomfortable at times. And part of my theory on that is that any change in a neighborhood there's going to be controversy around it - Absolutely.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And when you take a piece of land and you make changes to it with a park, people often think of the park as their neighborhood park. Some are designed to be regional and countywide, some are designed to be more neighborhood. But there's always been some level of engagement in the process and a master plan that goes out to the public and a lot of those things, and it always goes through the county council when a capital project at a park is funded. But tell me how you have engaged or intervened in some cases when the community is saying Rec and Parks isn't listening to us, and Rec and Parks is saying, yeah, we are. I know this is hard and you have to be tactful.
Vincent Moulden:No, you, you have engaged masterfully I think okay, because this was.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:This was has been really hard in some cases yeah and and uh, there are a number of parks that we're talking about, um, and you are an extraordinary person in that. People trust you because you're very honest, you're very grounded and seem that way, I try and you respect everybody. You talk to I think you genuinely do, and so you have helped to lead a process whereby Rec and Parks has actually changed a lot of their practices.
Vincent Moulden:Yeah.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Right, what have they done?
Vincent Moulden:Well, I think they have been open to a lot of suggestions because I have listened right. I think the biggest thing for community engagement with Rec and Parks is when the public should be involved. Right when I'm when I was talking earlier about releasing those concepts or having those drawings, the public seems to want to be involved before those things even come out. They don't want to see any concepts or drawings or anything. They want to have input before those things happen. And Rec and Parks feels like they should have some sort of a concept before people start giving opinions, because how else do you have a discussion? Like the thought of it is just radical to them. So coming to the table or having a group of stakeholders come together to even have a discussion about what a park could be just seemed weird to them. But they have become.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:They've become open to it and I think that it has started to work right and I just I just want to um, um sort of note that you have been really good at that and rec and parks has been really good and gotten better, and they always want to. I mean, they have more community engagement probably than any department because they have all these volunteers they work with and all these organizations.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:But another example that something that I thought was really cool that you did and hopefully you think it was cool. I know it was hard. Okay, what's this Is? You connected me with a guy with an idea, okay, and the idea was to. We had breakfast, was to have a youth gun violence prevention weekend and I said this is awesome, let's do it okay. And then what happened? We work together and the organization's Chase Your Dreams Initiative and television and I mean I knew him before and I knew that he could do good work. But I was so excited and I think you were too that we have to figure out a way to do this on a very tight timeline.
Vincent Moulden:Tight timeline with a big budget, Right right. So we worked together with Kyle to put together a youth gun violence prevention With a big budget, Right right. So we worked together with Kyle to put together a youth gun violence prevention weekend. The idea was to bring together a bunch of celebrities and influencers that could bring in the youth that we wanted to hear from, to hear ideas and perspectives that would curb gun violence in the community. So we mainly partnered with Gillie and Wallo, who are podcasters, and we brought together some different community leaders from across the country who came in and the weekend entailed a teen summit in which we heard from some youth, and a celebrity basketball weekend where some funds were raised and then distributed to nonprofits who were doing work in the community.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, and you probably don't give yourself enough credit on this, but you and then we brought in James Kitchin, your former boss, who does all kinds of work around the county wherever we need him, and he jumped in to help on this, thank God, yeah, you guys guided this process. Know, look to us like maybe by our government standards it wasn't, or you know it was organized the way non-profits do and community, you know, initiatives do and and. But we saw the talent and we saw the possibilities, and I just think you did a masterful job of guiding as much as you could without getting in the way of the natural energy that was there and I thought it was an extraordinary weekend where young people's lives were changed and that hopefully that work will continue. But a little different role that I played anyway as County Executive from what I'm used to. I really became a cheerleader, trying to, you know, getting private sector folks involved and kind of used the weight of my office, where I haven't often.
Vincent Moulden:Yeah, to me that's CECS at its best. I mean helping the community to accelerate and reach its goals. Yeah.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah. So you've had a lot of great successes in the work that you've done. I hope you feel really good about it. But I have a question about your staff. They're under a lot of pressure. They are out there hearing directly, sometimes on people's bad day, when something's broken or whatever it is. How do you keep them positive, because obviously they have to be positive. How do you train them? And then how do you keep them positive, because obviously they have to be positive? How do you train them? And then how do you keep them going?
Vincent Moulden:Well, having served as a community engagement officer myself, I knew it would be rough right coming into the role and having served in that capacity. And so when I became director I really wanted to be a staff-oriented leader. I knew in order to serve the residents, I had to serve my staff and so very early on I knew the county offered various types of training and we took psychological safety training, which is offered through our risk management team, and I didn't really know what it was. But you know, I'm a millennial, we're into mental health. So I was like, oh, this sounds interesting, but really I didn't understand.
Vincent Moulden:But I understood after taking the course or the workshop just how much risk you do take by not taking psychological safety seriously. Right, and by prioritizing the mental health of your staff you can mitigate so much, right. So I really do try to create a safe space where the team knows they can come to me and now that you know we have Kristy on our team, my assistant director, they can come to her as well. We let people know that it's okay to take time off when it's needed. We do things like wellness Wednesdays in the office so that we do some team building activities, just whatever we can to just let the team know they're supported and if they need help we're here to help.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, well, I meet with you guys every week and your team tells me about bubbling up issues, issues, particularly if there may be some policy decision that has to get made, and it's been really impressive to watch you build that team out. So tell me about just really quickly, this thing that you did recently called the Community Association Summit. Yes, that was something new too.
Vincent Moulden:Yeah, so for that, that was an idea that Hannah Thompson and I had, our Strategic Engagement Officer, where we were working with the Growth Action Network. We wanted to put together something for our community association summits, mostly focusing on our homeowners associations, because we noticed that a lot of them were reaching out to us for various different issues. So we put together a series of sessions and workshops based on effective communications, stormwater management, financial stewardship and just good governance, which were kind of the main topics in which HOAs would reach out to our office. We put together it was a half day worth of sessions. We had about 100 different community leaders come out to it and people were really happy. I think people were mostly happy to just have the ability to network with other community leaders in addition to being able to attend the session. So we look forward to making this an annual thing and we're going to follow it up with a series of webinars. So looking forward to that.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Awesome. Yeah, I heard a lot of really positive feedback from that and it was something different than what we've done before. It was really just it was the government helping the very folks who come after us sometimes become more powerful, and we've done a lot of that, actually, with organizations that represent constituencies. We've done a lot of work with the Caucus of African American Leaders. We've done a lot of work with a lot of different organizations the government normally wouldn't be so close to. Growth Action Network is another one where I meet quarterly, absolutely.
Vincent Moulden:Who would have thought putting all of our most vocal critics in the same room would be so successful?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah, Congrats on that. So I want to give you a chance to well, first I'm going to embarrass you. So many people like you so much. I kind of have trouble understanding how somebody can be so universally liked and be in a job like the one that you're in.
Vincent Moulden:I think you're talking to the wrong people.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And you said that you wanted to be less shy, and that's part of why you came to this job. Has it worked to make you less shy? Are you the same person that came in here, or have you changed? What is your secret?
Vincent Moulden:Well, one, I think I'm definitely less shy, but I'm still an introvert. But my secret to being liked is that your question?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, maybe you don't want to be liked. I don't know. Why do you think people like and trust you?
Vincent Moulden:I think I guess I would have to attribute that to my mother, who taught me that kindness is not weakness. I think that a lot of people think that in order to be respected or to display confidence, it means you have to be loud or mean or whatever right. But very early on I was taught that kindness does not mean you have to be weak. It's a choice to be made every day.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Damn, I didn't expect an answer that good. You've got me kind of like. You know all getting shivery and I met your mother too, so I can see her saying that you can see that it's true.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Wow, yeah, you have delivered on that and you're getting it back from people. Yes, absolutely, it goes both ways. Okay, well then, that should be the last thing, but I'm going to ask you a last thing, which is do you have any advice for the folks out there who might want government to do something, or might want government to not do something or change something or do something differently? What's your general advice to them about how to approach it?
Vincent Moulden:Contact CECS. How? You can contact us by visiting aacounty. org/ CECS and all of our contact information is there. Okay, is there a phone number they can call too? Yes, what is it? 410-222-1785. Okay.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I'm glad you remembered that phone number. I didn't give you any warning on that one. Well, so I want to say thank you to you, the team, to James Kitchin, who was in the job before for the first four years, who brought you on you and trained you up for, I think, being certainly as important as anything else that we've done to make this administration effective, and everything hard that we've done is because people engaged and supported it and backed it up. It wasn't just because the County Executive said it. Absolutely. And you all have been central to all of that. So, thank you. We've got two and a half years to go, man.
Vincent Moulden:Ooh, we've got a lot more to do, finishing what we started.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:All right, yep. Thanks, Vincent no problem.
