Career Cheat Code
Welcome to Career Cheat Code, a podcast that explores the stories of everyday people making an impact in the world through their careers and loving every minute of it. Whether you're already on your path or searching for your purpose, this podcast is for you.
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Career Cheat Code
059 | From The Bronx, For The Bronx feat. Anthony Perez
What drives a person to dedicate their life to public service? Join us as we uncover the remarkable journey of Anthony Perez, the Bronx Borough Commissioner for the New York City Department of Transportation. From his humble beginnings as a college intern to managing critical transportation projects in one of the busiest boroughs in New York City, Anthony's career offers a masterclass in perseverance and dedication. Discover how his formative years growing up in Marble Hill Houses fueled a lifelong commitment to improving his community and learn about the balance he strikes between immediate problem-solving and long-term strategic planning.
Anthony’s career path is a testament to the power of persistence and the importance of seizing opportunities. We explore the pivotal moments that shaped his trajectory, from obtaining a worker's permit at 14 to landing a position in the Francis Barton Library, and finally, navigating the Urban Fellows Program. Listen as Anthony recounts his rapid rise during the transition between mayoral administrations, advancing from an urban fellow to acting director of finance, and later deciding to immerse himself in a dual degree program at NYU. This episode is filled with valuable insights into the strategic moves and professional risks that can lead to significant career growth in public service.
Balancing professional ambitions with personal life is no small feat, and Anthony’s story exemplifies this delicate dance. From spearheading voter registration drives with the Bronx Democratic County Committee to addressing infrastructure needs in public parks, Anthony’s work has had a tangible impact on the Bronx community. We also delve into his thoughts on the influence of urban planning legend Robert Moses and the importance of community engagement in modern governance. Tune in for an inspiring conversation that highlights the profound impact one dedicated individual can make in their community, all while maintaining a strong commitment to family and personal values.
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Host - Radhy Miranda
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And she was soon to be evicted from her home because a subsidy program that she was enrolled in had eclipsed and she needed to figure out a way to now continue paying her rent.
Speaker 1:And back then there was a thing called the Green Book and it was a physical little phone book almost, but for government offices, and so I went through that and I called every single housing agency there was in that book, went through that and I called every single housing agency there was in that book and I was able to help her enroll in a new program to finish paying her rent and make her ends meet. And she called the next day and she was crying and bawling and she was like you saved my life. I would have been homeless if it wasn't for you. I don't know what I was going to do and I was just like what I'm, like a college kid who's just interning for the summer, and I just made some phone calls and I was able to change someone's life or make them feel like I did, and that to me was like all right, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to help people and I want to make their lives better.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Career Cheat Code. In this podcast, you'll hear how everyday people impact the world through their careers. Learn about their journey, career hacks and obstacles along the way. Whether you're already having the impact you want or are searching for it, this is the podcast for you. So, anthony, welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you, thank you. No, I appreciate you, man. I know it's been a long time coming with you. You are the second half of a dynamic power couple that has graced the show so far, so I'm very excited to really have you here and talk about all the great things that you're doing. We've been working on this for quite some time, but your career continues to evolve and move and you continue to do remarkable things, so I'm excited to show the world a little bit about it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me, man. It's been a long time coming, but happy to make it work and things go in their sequence for a reason Absolutely so.
Speaker 2:Let's dive right in, man. Let's tell the world what it is you do for a living.
Speaker 1:Sure, so I'm the Bronx Borough Commissioner for the New York City Department of Transportation, so I'm basically the face of the agency when it comes to all Bronx transportation projects or operations. So DOT we manage street repaving, sidewalks, streetlights, traffic signals, crosswalks, public plazas, 794 bridges. It's a lot of the public space in New York City and it's my privilege to be the head of the unit that oversees all the Bronx operations.
Speaker 2:So what does that mean for you? So when you walk in on Monday morning, what does your day actually look like and how do you plan out your week? And what does it actually entail to be the Bronx Borough Commissioner?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. People say this all the time, but it really is true Every single day is totally different. Every single week is totally different. My wife and I actually just started doing our Sunday family meeting where right after breakfast, we go over our schedule for the week, just because, particularly with this job, it's one of those things you have to plan around or plan through as well. So sometimes the week will include several community board meetings in the evenings or presentations to neighborhood associations.
Speaker 1:Sometimes that'll include times where I have to be downtown in Manhattan later in the afternoon and we have to figure out what that means, or even early morning, because you know I have the privilege of taking my daughter to daycare every day in the morning and if I have to be somewhere earlier that day, we have to switch.
Speaker 1:I'll say you know what, I'll pick her up today and you drop her off. But when it comes to every day, it's like a lot of time to start with a text from elected officials saying, hey, there's a traffic light that's not working in my district, can you fix this? Or someone saying, hey, there's a pothole or a manhole or a crosswalk that seems to be open as a safety hazard, and sometimes it's meeting with different stakeholders, like a business improvement district or a business in the Bronx having issues with something happening in their street. So every single day is different and it's just trying to stay on top of it all. It's a high volume, fast paced work environment and all you can do is just do whatever you can for that day and whatever you couldn't do that day, you try again tomorrow Got it.
Speaker 2:So you're basically like the bridge between what's happening on the ground, whether it's short-term things like a pothole or like larger stake projects, like a renovation of a bridge or of an entire street that needs to be closed for a couple of months, like the bridge between what the community hears and learns and communicates into the agency and vice versa. Is that generally the goal there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a pretty quick way to put it all together. A lot of the things that we do that will have the most reason to have a public-facing role is for what we call street improvement projects, which we basically do maybe nine to 10 per year and they're almost similar to a capital project, a construction project that the city does, but we're able to be more flexible with these because we use expense dollars. So we go in there, make street improvements using paint and plastic and rubber, and we'll be able to redesign a public space and make it safer for people across the street or for children to go to school. And so whenever we do that, there is, by design, a drawn out process. We meet with the elected officials, we meet with the local stakeholders. We meet with the local stakeholders, we meet with a community board, do a presentation, and it takes a while. But it's one of those things where it's like you want to move as fast as you can but as slow as you have to, because part of that process is doing that work and you can't do it without it, and so it's like it's my privilege to get to do that, you know, to be able to tell people. Here's the problem. Here's our idea how to fix it. Let's work together to get to that finish line. I love it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so is this what you always wanted to do for a living in public service?
Speaker 1:I think I found that opportunity through working directly in government.
Speaker 1:My career has just led me to this point now where I'm here, but I think it is one of those things where, like I said, the sequence of life just leads you to certain places, and sometimes it's by plan and sometimes it's just because you got there.
Speaker 1:And it's one of those things where I feel like I'm at the right place, because it merges all of my different interests and the history that I've been able to build through my career trajectory, like working with different businesses, working with different branches of government, just thinking out of the box and figuring out issues. And particularly what I love most about it is the physical aspect of it. You can have a physical testament to your work when you see the design changes and when you can actually point to data showing that something is safe or that there are less crashes, that it's helping people cross the street faster or easier by including a concrete pedestrian island and thinking about how many feet per second does an elderly person need to cross a super extended crosswalk? These things are things you can actually quantify and say like I actually made my community better in some small, particular, tangible way. I love that.
Speaker 2:Tell me where were you born, where were you raised, what was your upbringing like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, born and raised in the Bronx, still live in the Bronx. I'm a Bronx boy through and through. You know I was born at a hospital, 188th and the Grand Concourse Union Hospital, which is now a more community center, I think, through a lack of funding, which in and of itself is an interesting story. There too, I went to PS9, ms118, dewey Clinton High School, to all public schools. My family, I grew up in a single parent household. My mother's a Dominican woman who immigrated in the 80s and raised my brother and I by herself and you know I think that played a big role into my career path as well.
Speaker 1:Just thinking that, you know we grew up in public housing. We grew up in NYCHA, at Marble Hill Houses. You know that we couldn't afford a car, so we took the train and the bus everywhere. Public transportation I mentioned we went to public schools, that we were on public benefits.
Speaker 1:So when you think about it, this concept of a government, this social contract of you know, like having a safety net and taking care of people, it provided me an education, a roof over my head, a way to get around, a way to put food on the table, and so in so many ways for me and it might sound corny, but it's true, it's me being in public service and being in government is a way to put food on the table, and so in so many ways for me and it might sound corny, but it's true, it's me being in public service and being in government is a way for me to pay that back. It's the idea that government and the city gave so much to me, so the least that I could do is give something back to my community in return.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. So, you know, and I think that's a great perspective, right, because being of the community, from the community, right, like you also are able to bridge back to now, provide and bring that voice into the room and bring that perspective right, like you're not just talking at someone that has this role but has never lived it. You literally have walked in people's shoes, right, so, like it's amazing to be able to be in a role where you can actually, you know, be the voice for the community that you grew up and know. Tell me more about when you were in high school, right, did you have a sense that you, like, were you always aware of that government kind of intersection in your life and how you can actually do good within government, or where did that come from?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. You know, I think when I was in high school I really wasn't as focused on what I was going to be doing. I knew that I was going to go to college and figure it out. I think that it was in college that I really started to figure out what I was good at and what I could offer. And it's funny because it was another one of those things that it was kind of a happenstance, you know it was. I got to college.
Speaker 1:I went to Union College of Es character in new york. While I was there, I think I was as one of those freshmen, like welcome orientations, we were all hanging out meeting each other and I had mentioned my name, anthony perez, but uh, then people kept calling my last name, which, like a weird thing, you know, in in new york city everyone just calls you by your first name. But when you go to these colleges you know in different parts primarily white colleges uh, I'll call you by your last name. So perez, perez, perez, people were calling me and then somebody said, oh, perez, for prez, you should run for class president and I it was like a funny thing and I was like, oh, you know what I might do that, and I actually ran for class president. That was the slogan perez for prez. I had it on stickers, on flyers, everywhere. I knocked on every single freshman uh dorm door, uh, and met every single freshman dorm door and met every single one of them and got elected, and then that became like one of my passion things. You know, obviously, when you go to college, you go there to learn and get an education in the classroom, but for me, I think what I got most out of my college experience was being part of student government, was, you know, being part of all these different clubs to figure out how to get things done, and particularly too, I think, when I was up in Union College.
Speaker 1:It's connected to New York. It's a town that is known as the city that used to light the world. General Electric was based there in the earlier part of the 19th century or the 20th century and then, I think in the 60s or 70s, ge left and went down south. It's cheaper and easier to maintain a headquarters down there and the city basically lost its primary source of income. And so now you see a bunch of houses that are abandoned, that were quickly built with poor materials. There isn't as much of a tax base. The schools are deteriorating, the streets are deteriorating, and I say that because I could draw many parallels to my experience in the Bronx of feeling like my community was under-resourced, and so I found that connection there.
Speaker 1:When I was at Union, we started a club called the Union Schenectady Alliance, because Union College was ranked number two in the nation for having the worst relationship with its community by Princeton Review at that point Number one was Trinity College, and so we wanted to find ways to improve that connection so that it didn't feel like it was just a beautiful campus with big walls separating itself from the city that it's within. And we found ways to create, like we did, something called the Taste of Schenectady or Fall for Schenectady. That was the other one. We brought local businesses to campus to give out food and have students learn about what's in the community. And then we would do like mentorships with the local high schools and partnering volunteer events to clean up different parks.
Speaker 1:And when I was graduating, after doing all that government work, student government work and also working in the community so much, I was starting to plant roots there almost. And I was working. I was an intern at a district attorney's office. I had another internship where I also worked for a local nonprofit, and so they were offering me jobs to stick around and be there. But for me I realized, well, wait, I'm from a community that needs me too. I realized, well, wait, I'm from a community that needs me too. So for me it was important for me to come back home to the Bronx to bring back what I had learned and what I had built and figure out how I could plant my roots back to where they started and give back to my own community.
Speaker 2:Wow, so remind me what was your major in college.
Speaker 1:Political science, political science, and that's particularly because I thought at one point that I wanted to eventually uh, become a lawyer. Growing up in my household my mom would always joke you know, it's like you got to be a lawyer. You talk so damn much, and I think it's one of those things where it's also um, particularly, I think in immigrant families. You know there are certain professions that are just like the marquee routes. You know, you either become a lawyer or you become a doctor, uh, and it's one of those one, two, three, four, five particular choices.
Speaker 1:They don't say, hey, you're going to be a zoologist, or you know, you're going to be a marine biologist, it's going to be a lawyer, a doctor, and I've always been queasy whenever I see blood or anything like that. So I was like, all right, I guess you're going to be a lawyer then. So political science was just one of those degrees that you could pursue and then flip that into pre-law. So that's why I initially chose it. But I think I've always been interested in, like I mentioned, just the concept of what government is, and then learning more about that and how it works just intrigued me and worked out.
Speaker 2:Got it. That makes a lot of sense. Which also which also makes sense why you had, you know, an internship in the district attorney's office and why, in your mind, that was the path right and you know. That's actually part of the reason why we started this entire show is to highlight that you can be so much more than you know a lawyer, or even within being a lawyer, you can be in so many different industries and so many different things. Right. But like you can be the Bronx Borough Commissioner, right. And like you didn't I'm sure you didn't know that was a job when you were in Schenectady, right In college, right. So this just opens a window of opportunities and possibilities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that actually would lead me even further down this path. You know, just again, just by going by the traditional paths and routes that are promoted as sometimes the only way or the best way. One of those pieces of advice was, if you want to go to law school after college, you should have a really good internship your junior summer so that when you're applying you have that on your resume. And so one of those things that I looked up was to get an internship in a legislative office, so that junior summer I wanted to find an internship in government in my community. That would prepare me at some point for the prospective legal career that I thought that I would have. So what I did was I actually looked up all the elected offices, all the legislative offices that are in government, the ones that are particularly in the Bronx. I sorted them by distance and then basically created a map for myself, because I was going to find an internship that summer, and so I went to the first one and I was like, hey, my name is Anthony Perez, I'm a junior in college, this is my resume, I'd love to intern for you for free, and that was my plan to do that all throughout. And the first office that I showed up to was right on Burnside near the Grand Concourse and it was a council member, fernando Cabrera's office. I walk in there. I did exactly what I just said and they called me back when I was getting back in the car going to the next office and they're like actually come back, meet the chief of staff. It worked out and I got the internship that summer and I was ready to go to every other office. I have my resume printed like 50 copies but it worked out that my first stop was the one that worked out for me. But when I was doing that I was also directly put into doing constituent services and managing cases.
Speaker 1:So when an everyday New Yorker might call and say, hey, I'm having issues with my rent or I'm having issues with my electricity, or what can my council member do for this or for that? I'm having issues with my rent or I'm having issues with my electricity, or what can my council member do for this or for that. And there was one particular person who I called and she was soon to be evicted from her home because a subsidy program that she was enrolled in had eclipsed and she needed to figure out a way to now continue paying her rent. And back then there was a thing called the green book and it was a physical little phone book almost, but for government offices. And so I went through that and I called every single housing agency there was in that book and I was able to help her enroll in a new program to finish paying her rent and make her ends meet.
Speaker 1:And she called the next day and she was crying and bawling and she was like you saved my life. I would have been homeless if it. You saved my life. I would have been homeless if it wasn't for you. I don't know what I was going to do and I was just like what I'm like a college kid who's just interning for the summer, and I just made some phone calls and I was able to change someone's life or make them feel like I did, and that, to me, was like this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to help people and I want to make their lives better, and I realized that I didn't need to do that with a law degree either.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I love that.
Speaker 2:And I think you said a few things in there, right, like one the determination and foresight to print out a bunch of resumes, not email them.
Speaker 2:Print out a bunch of resumes and have a plan to go to different offices with physical copies that in itself is a lot of initiative, especially for a college student. Right, that's not the norm, but you saw something as an opportunity and said you know what? I need? A good experience and I need to make an impression, so let me go do this. Then you were placed into this internship and instead of just having something that is just for your resume sake and for the sake of saying you did it, you really took it seriously and you're able to really bring yourself, bring your experiences, bring your community-driven mindset to actually impact people's lives. So you know, it's remarkable for me to hear that you went into this mostly as a resume builder that can get you to law school. And then you get there and it like completely changes your perspective on things and you're like you know what. I could actually do something in this area to help people, and that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think that's what you know, that particularly that perseverance part, something that I think resonates with me and it's one of the things that I think is a constant throughout my trajectory so far is that, you know, I may not be the smartest, I may not be the best or in certain areas, but I will not be out hustled, that's guaranteed, you know, and that's one thing that I've always had. When I turned 14 and I went and got my worker's permit as soon as I turned 14 and I was like I'm going to get a job. And I walked up and down Fordham, tremont, burnside and I went on every single storefront it was a 99 cent store or a restaurant and I was like I want to work, what can I do? And I found a job working at the library, at the Francis Barton Library, right in front of BCC on University, and that was like that's how I got my first job was again that kind of perseverance. When I wanted this internship, I was like you know what? I'm gonna go out there today, I'm finding an internship.
Speaker 1:And when I was almost ready to graduate, similarly, I had printed and drafted a cover letter and a resume and I did the same thing where I was like I'm going to find a job in one of these government offices and I did that for every single government office in the Bronx.
Speaker 1:So that's like three congressional office, five state Senate offices, 12 assembly offices, nine city council offices offices, 12 assembly offices, nine city council offices, and I was literally at my desk folding these into a triple fold and putting them in envelopes when I got the email that I got into the Urban Fellows Program which was my entry into government. It's almost like Teach for America but for government, where you get placed in a fellowship and placed at an agency for nine months to obviously give back in public service but also get your entry into this career path. But one way or another I was going to find that job. It happened to me that I got it through the fellowship. But if I didn't get that fellowship, one of those letters was going to be read and I was going to find a way in.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. So you apply for this fellowship and still continue your job search, in case you weren't accepted into the program.
Speaker 1:Oh, and still continue to job search in case you weren't like accepted into the program and of course you got to have backup plans, plan C, plan.
Speaker 2:D, plan E. I love it. I love it. So tell me more about your experience with this fellowship. Where were you actually placed and what was that experience like?
Speaker 1:I still credit so much to that program for my career path you know I mentioned it's like the easiest way that I explain is like Teach for America, because everyone knows about that educational fellowship. Twenty five people get around twenty five every year get picked across the nation to start their careers in city government and the idea is that there needs to be a more structured pipeline into those career paths so that folks aren't necessarily going just to med school or to law school or elsewhere, but finding other ways to get into government and to give back to their communities. And so each of those people gets placed at a senior level position in city government for nine months, for a paid position, and they're able to learn at a very high pace in a senior level to, you know, really get their feet wet. And again, it's a pipeline because these are folks who may have otherwise gone into other fields, who were already excelling, whether through education or through extracurricular activities, and it's a great way to really bring good people into good positions.
Speaker 2:So what was your actual like how long is about a year, right? So, or like nine months or so of the fellowship, yeah, it's nine months.
Speaker 1:So I was playing at the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, which is the city's public-private partnership nonprofit. It's a way to bring in private support through corporation philanthropy and also working directly with community-based organizations but pairing them with agencies and their programs and initiatives. I loved it because even that particular role was able to give me like a 30,000-foot view of how government works, because I was able to work with so many different agencies. You know I was able to work with educational programs and after-school programs and alternative to incarceration programs and working with seniors and veterans and it was like, oh, look at all the different cool things the government can do. And even, just as a concept, the idea that government cannot do everything by itself and arguably should not do everything by itself, that there are better ways to get things done with other partners, whether it be working, I mentioned, with a community-based organization that has that grassroots support, that has that credibility on the ground, or working with people in the private sector who have that expertise that can move more nimbly and have the resources to do so.
Speaker 1:But government gives you the ability to reach people in the masses, particularly in New York City. If you just think about the volume. There's 8.5 million people, there's 1.1 million students. Just think about that particular piece by itself. We have a department, the Department of Education, that has a direct connection with 1.1 million families, that with one email can reach that many people. That's something that a private company would die for. That kind of access, that kind of reach. But that's one thing where every different component or stakeholder has a different thing that they bring to the table. And so being at the table from the government perspective, I think is a really cool aspect to be able to think about, like how can we solve this problem and what can I do to be able to do?
Speaker 2:my part Absolutely. And you know just in you know this sounds like. Very early in your career you were able to see how government can actually have impact in different ways, how it intersects with the private sector, how it can have direct impact on communities sector, how it can have direct impact on communities. And that's a lot of exposure for someone coming straight out of college, right? Because on one end you grew up in New York City and you at least were aware of government interventions that played a role in your life. But now being on the other end and seeing how well, sometimes it's not just government, sometimes it's government and foundations, government and a corporation and just seeing how that works and then applying that to your knowledge going forward, it seems like a lot of really interesting exposure.
Speaker 1:Already on, yeah, and I think it's just finding ways to think outside the box to solve a problem that there isn't just one path or one solution or one cookie cutter approach. I think about even the. It's kind of simple, but it was what worked for me, or what resonated with me at that point was, you know, one of the first initiatives that I was tasked to work on was helping expand summer youth employment service SYEP that give a work experience to young adults in New York City starting at the age of 14 up to 24, gives them a summer job. And at that point there were 110,000 young New Yorkers who were applying for this program but there was only enough funding to give 30,000 of them jobs. So you know, over 80,000 people were disappointed in their families and who needed that income, who needed that experience, who needed that activity in the summer to avoid summer learning loss when they're not in school. And I was tasked to help find ways to help increase the funding. And so we found different foundations and grants and so forth of fundraisers to support that program.
Speaker 1:But one thing that resonated with me was I was working with this one person who worked at the Department of Youth and Community Development and one of the solutions that he had was trying to figure out, well, what if we, you know, reduce some of the hours or change around how we do the pay structure, and if we like tweak all these different components in the formula, we're able to increase the number of participants by like 30%. And that just like blew me away, like I was like what you could do, that Like you can just like redesign how a program is structured and you're able to increase its reach and impact. And I was like that's cool, that I want to do that. You know, I want to figure out. It's not just all right, here's a problem.
Speaker 1:I mentioned 110,000 applicants, 30,000 spots, x amount of dollars. What's the other side of the equation? The simplicity is raise more money or get less applicants, but there's way more ways to really get in there and make tweaks to it. And I think that kind of like it, almost it made the world so much more three dimensional to me. You know, it's not just black and white or two-dimensional in that way and I was like that's, it gave me a new perspective in terms of how I can have my role in trying to solve society's problems.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Wow, that's a great again. Just exposure early on, right? So, like now, I'm sure you carry, if not that exact solution, right, but just the thought of thinking outside the box to solve some of these problems, and as a former SYEP graduate, I appreciate that there are people in government that are trying to solve these problems in unique ways given constrained resources. Right, like taxpayer dollars only go so far. So thinking about ways to think outside the box and to provide opportunity to more families is remarkable. Tell me about how you were able to position yourself because you stayed at the Mayor's Fund beyond your fellowship, right? So tell me how that transition happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know, by design the program was almost like a matchmaking service. We started with a booklet that listed about 60 different positions at different city agencies. It was just a paragraph about what the agency did and what the role would be, and then we picked from that booklet which spaces we wanted to apply for, and that was all done in a span of a week. So we basically did 25 interviews in one week, four to five interviews per day, and then you ranked where you felt you were the best fit, and then the people interviewing also ranked the folks that they had met with, and so from the get-go we had each ranked each other at the top, and so we knew it was a good match in terms of what I had to offer and what the work they needed. So at the end of the fellowship it was more so. It was like a contract extension. It was just like, hey, let's make this official. This worked out so far. I think there's more work to be done.
Speaker 1:It worked out well for me as well, because of the timing in that administration. It was Bloomberg's third term. It was his 10th, 11th and 12th year in office, and so I was working with seasoned government veterans who had been doing it for at least a decade or more. It was like a well-oiled machine At that point. It was also a mayoral transition. There was an election that year. That's when Mayor Bill de Blasio was elected, and I think a lot of folks who were in those positions either stayed within the Bloomberg world or went to work at his foundation or went to work at his corporation or found jobs elsewhere.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of times, obviously, in a more practical sense, folks don't want to be left flat footed in a change of leadership, where you may be left without a job. But I was in a flexible position because I was so young. You know I could take a risk. You know I was. I just had my first apartment. All I had to figure out was how to pay 800 bucks that month. As long as I could do that, you know I could take some risks. So I was able to stick around and it worked out well too, because towards the end, the final months and a year of that administration, folks, there were vacancies that were coming up and I had to step into some roles in an acting position.
Speaker 1:So for a while I was acting director of finance and I was like 24 years old managing like $60 million in philanthropic funds and I had to figure out how to do Excel formulas. I had to figure out what the hell it meant when someone asked for a no-cost budget extension, and those are things that you learn on the job, trial by fire. I think in an ideal scenario you probably learn it much earlier on in an educational setting, like at a master's degree, but it was like a master's degree in real time. You figure it out as it went because there was no other choice. I took advantage of that because I learned everything that I had to do. I had to figure out how to onboard a new employee, how to do their HR, what COBRA meant when it meant for health insurance, and these are things that I just had to figure out how to step into. And that was a really big learning experience for me and, I think, really trained me almost like a bootcamp to just figure it out which makes sense.
Speaker 2:right, and especially being so young and being tasked with so much, and figuring out how to actually use that to your advantage. Right, like you could have also jumped ship, but you saw an opportunity there. You're like, you're right, all the senior folks are going to leave. This creates a gap within our organization. How can I bring my best self and actually get through some of this right, which led to you basically having like three or four different roles within three years in that organization? Right, and being able to, like, continuously progress your career accelerated right, in an accelerated way that you would not have had that opportunity anywhere else at that time.
Speaker 1:Right that you would not have had that opportunity anywhere else at that time. Right. And as it relates to the theme of this podcast, career Cheat Code that's one of the things that I leverage as well when it comes to how my professional career trajectory is being reflected. So on my resume I break down particularly the mayor's fund track all the way down, so I put the organization and then I list those four or five roles and the time span that it shows, because it shows that progression. I came in as an urban fellow, which is basically a glorified internship, and then I was a program associate, then I was a manager of special programs, then I was the associate director of special programs, then I was the acting director of finance and that shows how quickly I was able to do that, because I think that's something that's helpful for a prospective interviewer who's looking at the resume to see like, oh look, this dude like rose up quickly and did a bunch of different roles and figured it out.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, you want to tell that story.
Speaker 2:It definitely tells a lot about you. If someone is just reading your resume, at the very least sparks curiosity, like how were you able to, like get four roles in three years? Like what were you? This guy must be remarkable, right. And it sparks the conversation. And then it leaves the window open for you to be able to explain well, this is what happened, right, like we were at a point where we needed a lot of things and I was able to step into that. So you know, I appreciate that you did that.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say you. Part of the beauty there, too, is just like it's being in the right place at the right time too. You know some of it. Like I mentioned, it happened that I graduated college towards the end of a 12 year mayoral administration. That was a once in a lifetime thing too, or to some extent, because, you know, the third term was extended temporarily and then rescinded almost. So it just happened to work out that I was there at that time and I just leveraged it in that way. So it's not even just like. I don't want to belittle some of the path that I took, but I'm just saying some of it is just working hard and perseverance, and some of it is just taking the cards that you're dealt and playing them Right, and I think other folks can definitely find whatever that window of opportunity is within their press right.
Speaker 2:So there are federal government administrations, state government administrations, city government administrations that will have that transition period. And how do you strategically place yourself to be able to be either part of that or be there through some of that and, as you said, just position yourself to actually undertake more, learn quickly and provide more value to the organization? So you know, I think, while that was unique to you, I think those opportunities will come up again, as terms are limited for elected officials generally. Tell me about the moment when you realized you wanted to actually, or you were ready to, leave the Mayor's Fund after a couple of years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, that's actually interesting how it all played out there too. For that I had actually left to study full-time when I started a master's degree at NYU. So I had applied and got into a dual degree at NYU for Stern and Wagner for a business degree and a public administration degree, stern and Wagner for a business degree and a public administration degree. I had done one semester while I was working and going to school, but I felt like I wasn't giving enough of my time to either one. I felt like I was doing schoolwork at work and I was doing work, work at school. And so that's why I said you know what? This is just a good time for me to really focus on one thing and figure out what the next step is. Had already worked at least a year and a half in this new mayoral administration. Things are going well. I had helped like kind of rebuild the office with a new team or the leadership of a new executive director. But I also wanted to learn more, figure out what was my next step. And that's why I was like you know what I'm going to do a full dive into grad school. And that's when I left the Mayor's Fund to really immerse myself in that experience.
Speaker 1:But even then, when I was at school, the schedule didn't work out for me that well, because when you're taking three, four classes a semester especially I was at NYU down in Manhattan and I'm living in the Bronx I'd go downtown for a class at 9 am and the next class not till like 2 pm and the one after that it's like a 630. So what the hell am I doing between those hours? You know, I was like at every coffee shop and I was like rereading every material that I could at the library. But I just I was so used to a much more fast paced lifestyle and being busier. My first job out of college was working for the mayor's office and I was doing all this work nonstop, and so the pace of just a full-time student life was difficult for me to adjust to. And then, as life happens, I got a call to see if I was interested in taking a dive into politics.
Speaker 1:There was a change in leadership at the Bronx Democratic Party where the previous chair of the party, carl Hastie, was named Speaker of the Assembly and he didn't want to do both roles, to have that legislative leadership position and the political post. So in that transition. A new leader came in, marcos Crespo young guy. He was, I think, 34, maybe 33 when he got the position and he wanted to refresh the office. And he was like I want to find somebody young, somebody fresh, with a different perspective.
Speaker 1:And somebody told me hey, there's a guy named Anthony that was working at the mayor's office. I think he's in school right now, but it might be good for you to connect with him. We had a really great interview. We talked for a while about what it could look like, what it really meant to really try new ways to engage people in the political process, to get people registered to vote. I ended up getting the job and so then I had left the mayor's fund just to focus on grad school, but then I was focused. Then I got a different job right afterwards. It's not like I wanted to leave for those different reasons. It's just how the progression happened and opportunities come up in different times and you got to take count in terms of the cards on the table at that moment.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I appreciate that, right, because I think sometimes it's easy for people to look at us and or look at professionals that are successful, like yourself, and think about everything being linear, right, like oh, he probably did this, then he did that, then he did that, and everything be strategically planned, and sometimes that's just not it, right. Sometimes it's like I thought I was going to go to grad school. Then you actually like pause grad school for a long time, right, like you like decided that. Okay, you know what.
Speaker 2:This is an interesting opportunity, that it makes sense for me to actually do this, and, combined with, I'm actually not even feeling the pace of grad school right now. So you know the timing aligned, but you know, sometimes it's not as thought out or not as linear, and it's part of our story. So, you know, I appreciate you sharing that and even just thinking about this being a. This is a very important position going into the Bronx Democratic Party. That is a very pivotal post within politics in New York City, right? So can you also talk a little bit about what that meant and what you were actually tasked with doing when you got there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and again, everything in this story, or my story, should be contextualized with the time. And now, at this point in the timeline, we're talking about 2015, 2016. This was the big election with Trump and Hillary, and to be involved in politics at that point was huge to me. That, you know. A lot of folks got involved in their own ways. Some people, like, joined clubs or volunteered or, you know, phone banked, but I was able to help professionally. That was my day job from nine to five and obviously extended into the evenings and the weekends. Like, my job was how do we get more Democrats elected and how we, particularly in that year, get Hillary elected.
Speaker 1:And that played a big role in how I didn't finish my degree either, because at that point at least, what I told myself was I'm going to take this fall semester off because the election's coming up in November and I'm just going to fully work on this.
Speaker 1:And I thought that Hillary was going to win. I thought I was going to go to DC and I was going to work in her administration or something, and that was the mindset then. And then a different election happened afterwards and a different task, and then I was like, oh, I still haven't gone back and after a while I was like, do I have to go back? Should I go back? And I just never did because life just kept continuing moving forward and I ended up in different jobs after that and I'm in a place now where things are going well and I haven't needed it yet. Maybe I will at some point. I haven't closed that door either, but again, just my story has its own path and the world has its own path, and where you are at that point in time will determine what your next step is.
Speaker 2:Certainly. That makes a lot of sense. So, hillary did not win Spoiler alert and you stayed within this role, right? So tell me what does it mean to be in that role For people that may not this role? Right? So tell me what does it mean to be in that role, like tell for people that may not be familiar? Right, because I learned about that type of role when I was at the New York City Economic Development Corporation doing government community relations work. I needed to understand what the heck you were doing. So you know, and at that point our paths had crossed in different ways and we connected generally around that time more.
Speaker 1:But tell me, tell me about kind of the importance of that role, how you were able to bring some of those things that you spoke about in the interview to life over the next couple of years. Yeah, you know, in the Bronx in particular, there's been the political organization for the Democratic Party is the Bronx Democratic County Committee. It's the actual campaign account that's registered with the state of New York for the Board of Elections and through that instrument we're able to pool resources to help elect more Democrats, and through that there was the ability to have full time staff as part of that. And so what that looks like on a daily basis is voter registration drives, it's organizing fundraisers for different candidates, it's database management, it's figuring out who are the more engaged voters, it's looking at what we call triple prime voters, people who have voted in at least the last three elections that are there. Those records are public in the sense that you can't see who someone voted for, but you can see whether they voted and you can see what their voting record was in terms of attendance, and you can use that in ways to further engage people, and I think it's one of the things that it's part of the cycle of public service too, because you want people to get engaged in picking our city and state and nation's leaders, because those leaders then have a direct role in the policies and laws and legislation that impact our daily lives.
Speaker 1:So, you know, in terms of being someone that came into this career path through direct government service, the political side of it is important too. You know it's important to know who our leaders are, what their mindset is and who are the people that they're going to employ to help execute their plans. So for me, I think I also viewed it as a different perspective, a different stakeholder, as part of that larger equation. You know I had worked from the nonprofit side through the Mayor's Fund, even though it was part of government. I had worked directly in government since and city council and now in infrastructure and transportation in my current role, and I wanted to also see what it was like from the political side of things, kind of like on that side of the arena, and it's an ecosystem, and so it's important to get all different views, points that are all attacking the same mission of like. How do we help people at the end of the day, how do I help my fellow Bronxites, my neighbors, my family and people that are in similar situations.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Okay. So you were in that role for about three years. Right, tell me about what? Because this sounds like a really exciting role and a really unique opportunity to have, as you said, a different impact from a different lens. At what point do you realize you know there's something out there that I need to try, that's different. Even at that point in your career, I think you have certainly shown a lot of progress in your life, right From public housing and living in the Bronx and different socioeconomic status. So, like now, being tasked with so much responsibility and growing so much professionally, one could just stay there and retire and your life is like a great professional chapter. So like, at what point do you realize, all right, let me, let me try another challenge, let me try something else.
Speaker 1:You know back to just contextualizing where I was at that point. You know, when I got hired. This is like 2015,. I'm 25 years old and I'm the executive director of the Bronx Democratic Party. It was humbling in that sense to be like, wow, it was a privilege for me to be in this role and have these responsibilities and get to work directly with all of our borough's leaders, from the borough president to the assembly members, the council members and our judges and everything else as well. And I think that was part of it too, that I think I appreciate the experience.
Speaker 1:I went through it full throttle. I worked late nights and weekends and I was always available to learn and to forge deeper relationships in the industry as well. But also, as it is by design, you know, I went through at least three years of work there. So that means that I had been through an odd year election year, an even year election year, and at that point that means I had gone through the full cycle as well, because I had done a presidential election, I had done a city council election, I had done a mayoral election, I had done a judicial election, I had done even a district leader election as well. So at that point I had gone through the full cycle where I had already worked on all these different campaigns at all these different levels. And so after the three or four years you're kind of just repeating the cycle, you're doing the next mayoral election and the next city council election. So I felt like it was a good point for me to switch over because I had gotten that experience in those different aspects. But also for me, I feel like I like politics I studied political science but more than anything, to me it's a means to an end.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, the political cycle. The purpose is the policy is to get the right people in place to do the work. And sometimes people get lost in that, like there are people and you know no shade to them and their industry. But there are people who, like are political consultants or work on campaigns or do like fundraising and for them, like the war is the result, like they love that. It's like oh, now I'm working on this campaign, we're going to kill our opponent, we're going to win this election, and then you work on the next campaign and the next candidate and it's just a never ending cycle.
Speaker 1:But I didn't want to get so wrapped into that, because I wanted to do more of the work that happens after the finish line, what happens after the election. You know, how do we actually end up helping the people that we said we'd help during the campaign and execute on the promises that were made in those speeches. And that, to me, was more interesting in terms of what I can contribute. So for those three or four years I could say, well, I helped elect good people that represented my community. But then I was like I want to go back directly into government and figure out how am I part of that actual service, not just helping the people that do the service.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. So what was your role immediately afterwards?
Speaker 1:So at that point again, just how time works. That was the start of a new administration at the city council, where a new speaker was elected, corey Johnson, and I had met him a couple of times prior and I had already had council experience. My first internship was at the city council many years prior, so it was kind of like my return back in there and I was able to apply an interview for a job to work at the speaker's office, working directly at the city council, managing all the city's like hundred billion dollar budget and also working on programs that are funded through expense and executing those agencies and following up on different issues. So I was able to work more directly again into the type of public service that it's more. How is government directly talking to new yorkers and helping them in a more practical and tangible way got it okay.
Speaker 2:You know, I think so far you have masterfully managed your career right. You have purposely, and sometimes just by virtue of timing, found your way into different roles, but all impact-driven and all very intentional about who you're serving ultimately and who the end recipient is and ways to make New York City better. I think you have shown ways to do that in different arms of government, which I really appreciate. Right, because it's not just the agencies, it's not just the elected officials, it's not just the mayor's fund. It's like all of this has to work together and everyone has to come together. For us, as New Yorkers or as citizens, to just see the impact and to see our communities get better, to see you so craftfully do that is. You know. I've told you this before, but you know I'll just be in awe when I watch you. I'm like man you crushing it bro.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you and, by the way, that's my dog reverse sneezing. I have an English bulldog. I don't know if you heard that in the background.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know what a reverse sneeze is, bro.
Speaker 1:It sounds like snoring. It's the weirdest thing ever.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know, you know, shout out, that's. You know, this is a two featured podcast. That's cool. So we've had the whole family at this point. That's great. That's great. Basically, after your time with with the speaker's office, you ended up going back into an agency. Tell me a little bit about that role, because I know it was kind of also a good segue into where you are now. But we'd love to hear about kind of your time within the Department of Parks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's another one of those, you know, kind of like storybook senses where things just worked out, because you know, I mentioned how I started in my career in government through the Urban Fellows Program, but my actual first job was actually at the Parks Department, because the Urban Fellows Program starts in the fall, in September, but I graduated college over in May that same year, so there were several months of a gap before I started this fellowship and I had to figure something out. And one of my friends was actually working at the Parks Department and he had told me about a job opening where I worked as a summer mobile unit supervisor. So I basically managed a small team and we had these vans and we drove around to different parks and we opened up the van and there were hula hoops and balls and a screen where you play a Wii and it was just like a park event on wheels and so I really love that job. It was one of the funnest jobs I ever had, and I only did it for that summer because I immediately went into the Mayor's Fund through the Urban Fellow Program. But when I was looking at different agencies in terms of what would be my next move, the Parks Department was one that I had my eyes on, because I always said, you know, if I ever worked for an agency like Parks is definitely on the top of my list. It's just like you get to directly help people.
Speaker 1:I grew up, obviously, in New York City, in the Bronx. You know. Going to my parks in my community were like my saving grace, where I met friends, where I found things to do, I got more connected to my community and it helped my community feel more like a home and it was literally my first job that paid me after college and so I had applied for a position there, which was for the borough commissioner position, and I ended up being hired as Manhattan borough commissioner at Parks. So I was in a similar role to where I'm at now, but more focused on the borough of Manhattan, so overseeing all the park operations, from Battery Park down at the bottom of the island up to Inwood Hill Park at the top of the island and everything in between. And I talk about how the progression of the work going from the mayor's fund into politics, into the council and to now in this agency role, I think it's there is some linear sense of me finding more ways for me to have a more direct role in the public service. And so where, at the Mayor's Fund, I was supporting partnerships and programs that already existed.
Speaker 1:Then, when I was at the Democratic Party, I was helping candidates who would then advance some of these different bills or programs or improvements to society as we saw them. And then I worked at the council where we're actually passing the bills to put them into writing and make them actually happen. And then I worked at an agency where it's like, now that these things are billed, that are already legislation, that are already funded, how do we actually make them happen? How do we actually serve the public in that way? And again, also doing it in a role where it's directly related to infrastructure and tangible improvements, like I can say, like I was part of rebuilding that part, you know, from the design stage through the procurement to the actual construction, to the ribbon cutting and to now seeing kids playing down that slide and using that water fountain. Like that is an actual physical thing that I can touch and say I had a role in and and again, to me it's always purpose role in, and again, to me it's always purpose-driven.
Speaker 1:To me it's like why do I do public service, why work in government or why do what I do today? It's one of those words. I flip it back and I think, like why am I waking up today? I would love to sleep in, I would love to just stay in my sweatpants and chill on the couch. But why am I going to get up early in the morning and leave my daughter and my wife and leave the house? Why am I going to put on that suit and that tie? It's because I can justify it to myself, because I made an improvement in somebody's life in some way in the community, and to me that's what makes it worth it. To me it's like you know, the reason why I'm making these sacrifices is because it's worth it that I get to help somebody, and then even more so when I can point to it and say, look, that's why I did it. I was part of that.
Speaker 2:Certainly Do you have a. I know they're all like your babies, but do you have a project that you're like super proud of, that you walk past, or that you see that may not even still be completed, that you're like man? I played an integral role in that, in that project there?
Speaker 1:My wife Julissa like man, I played an integral role in that, in that project there. My wife jelisa, who you mentioned, she's been on this uh podcast. She's one of your original uh guests. You know, I I kill her to death. We're in the car because I'm pointing out every little thing where I'm like, oh, see that light right there, that was broken. We were able to get that fixed in two days and it was an issue. Or like there's a pothole where I'm like, yeah, right there, there was an issue because there was a water line that was broken and we want to get it done.
Speaker 1:And the smallest things to me are what I focus on, like when I'm just walking around, I'm looking up, I'm seeing where the wires are connected to, I'm seeing whether the street light is working as I'm walking down the street. You know, to me it all relates back to the personal. When I see like a sidewalk that's cracked, I think about me and my daughter and her in the stroller and how that makes it difficult to walk through. When I think about long distances and a crosswalk, I think about my mother who's starting to age and she's getting to retirement age. She's having difficulty with her knees. Can she make it across this in a safe, timely manner, or would she have difficulty or be in danger?
Speaker 1:My grandmother was killed in a traffic violence. She was. She was run over by a car. My cousin, david Fernandez, was killed two years ago crossing the street, actually just standing in the corner in a car crashed into each other and killed him there. And so being able to have some role in making these streets safer so that we don't have another situation where a grandmother like mine or a cousin like mine gets killed, or I think about prospectively like to make it easier for my child or for my mother to traverse their own communities that, to me, are the small wins that make the bigger picture all worth it. And I'll walk down the street. I'm like you know what? Hey, I was part of rebuilding that crosswalk, so now it makes it easier for those kids to get to that school, and that, to me, is like there's no one particular project. But it's those small things. It's fixing that light, it's fixing that crosswalk, fixing that sidewalk, and those are the wins that are worth it all.
Speaker 2:No, and that's great, right, because that's how you contextualize the impact, right, and like, really like bring it down to like safety and when you talk about like you've lost family members to this right and like, how do you make it safer for other families? How do you make it safer for other children? So you know, it's just. I just appreciate your intentionality in your career so far to make sure that you have an impact in everything you do and a ripple effect that goes from there. One of the things that I'm very clear on is we don't have to sacrifice doing good for doing well, right? So growing up, it was either you're going to work in like finance or lawyer or doctor and make money, or you're going to be broke and do really good things, potentially Like. That's not the case. We'd love to hear about generally how much money people can make in this type of field, given your level of expertise at this point, senior level, executive level position at an agency.
Speaker 1:If you're, like at a commissioner level assistant, deputy commissioner, all those positions you're already in a bracket where usually it's between like 150 to 250, I would say, uh, you know the the mayor himself, I think, makes like 245 by by the charter of new york, like our constitution for city of new york. So usually the other positions fall within that. So you, so you're in that range. But, like you said, I think it's something that is not chump change either. I think that you could probably find similar roles with similar responsibilities and the sacrifices you have to make in terms of time and commitment. If you find something like that in the private sector, it's plausible that you would be paid more depending on what industry that it's in. But I think that there's additional compensation on top of that. I mean there's obviously the practical sense of working for a city job. You have the pension, you have that kind of job security. You can take a civil service exam to have that kind of protection.
Speaker 1:There are significant benefits that are tangible, that makes it worthwhile to have the city job, that are not just reflected in a digit that you can put on a piece of paper, but there's also, like what I mentioned in terms of that purpose, that idea that, like I get paid in, like knowing that I help somebody, you know. So, when you think about again, why would I wake up in the morning? I don't know if I could do the same thing if I was waking up to make the partner at my firm more money. And I don't know if I could do the same thing if I was waking up to make the partner at my firm more money. And I don't know if I could wake up tomorrow just to increase the profit value of a company that I work for. And again, no shade to anyone that works in the private sector or does that, but just for me, I feel like I need that purpose, in addition to the financial compensation, to really make it worthwhile for me?
Speaker 2:Are there any forms of media that could be books, podcasts, newspapers, anything that you have read or that you read consistently, that impacts you personally or professionally?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I I think in terms of media, I I follow a lot of you know different inside baseball, like government media firms, like city and state. I read all, all the the dailies in New York. I start my day that way, just like I open up like 30 tabs and read like every article there is about New York City government, particularly the Bronx, particularly transportation, and I read through those on a daily basis. It's important for me to know what's happening, to do my job well and to know the changes in time. In terms of books, I'm more of an audible person. I use the app and I get through books on my commute, so I'll be listening to something while I'm getting through to where I'm going. In terms of a particular book that I would recommend, this is going to be kind of low hanging fruit for people that are in the government and urban planning industry industry, but I think it's worthwhile, given that this podcast in particular is more wide ranging people from different walks of life and different jobs. So it's important to highlight this as a preeminent book to look into. But the Power Broker by Robert Carroll, and again, if you talk to anyone that works in government or public policy or urban planning they'll be like. Of course, you read the Power Broker. You have to read the Power Broker. It's one of those things where it's like an intro into government, but for those that are not familiar with it, it follows the life of Robert Moses, who was called the Power Broker because he had all these different positions.
Speaker 1:He was the head of the parks department. He was head of the city planning division. He was part of the state's parks department. He worked under different mayors and governors and was able to use and leverage his influence and connections to advance his ideas and projects, and that led to the building of most of our highways and parkways, a lot of our parkland and how our city is built today.
Speaker 1:Personally, I don't agree with all of his ideas and what he pushed for in terms of what resulted in them.
Speaker 1:I think that we're an overly car-centric city now because of the way that we were built, and there are certain things that, for example, that he did wrong. He built highways with tunnels that were shorter, just so public buses couldn't go through them. But, with that said, I think it's almost like a good playbook to figure out how he did it, not what he did in terms of how he was able to write those bills to benefit his mission, how he was able to leverage the federal funding to build those parkways around the time when FDR and other presidents were putting all this infrastructure funding in place, how he was able to even structure agencies to make them more productive and get more things done. I think that's something that's worthwhile to look at. Again, you don't have to agree with it, you don't have to like him, but it's interesting to see how it was done and it's almost like a playbook in terms of how government can be leveraged to get the results.
Speaker 2:Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I mean, I actually heard that as an audible. It's like 24 hours worth of listening. So you know I completely get it. But I, you know I do understand and I think it's really important, especially if you're in this work, because you realize also how, in the implementation, there was not community engagement, there was not, there was intentionality around excluding certain folks from some of these public assets, right, so you know you can learn from that and figure out how to implement things differently in in this, in this decade and I think I said in the beginning, you know it's like, uh, that's part of my daily job.
Speaker 1:Now, you know, I think when I when I talk about that sunday meeting that I have with my wife in terms of what my week is like, I might have to say oh well, sorry, but I have three late nights this week because I have to go to these community boards and do these presentations, and it's time away from my house, it's time away from my family, and sometimes it's consensual, sometimes it's adversarial in terms of the conversations that we're having at these meetings, but the process is necessary for the result. You can't do it on your own. You can't just hard hand demand these things to happen, and if you don't include the public and the community in the process, you end up with results that don't benefit everyone. One of the things where my favorite quote that I always say is African proverb you know, if you want to go fast, you can go alone, but if you want to, go far, you have to go together.
Speaker 2:Is there anything else we haven't discussed today that the world should know about? Anthony?
Speaker 1:You know, I think, another part that we didn't really touch as much throughout the interview, but I think I probably highlighted itself throughout. But you know, family to me is one of the most important things. It's one of the reasons actually why I did my most recent transition from Manhattan Borough Commissioner at Parks to Bronx Borough Commissioner at DOT was particularly and realistically, the proximity to my home, the idea that, you know, conceptually, I get to work on projects that are directly in the communities that I grew up in and was raised in, but also, literally, that these are the streets that I do live in right now, that my office is 10 minutes away. You know, there were days where, when I was working in Manhattan, I would have to leave earlier than my daughter woke up and I'd get back home when she was already back to sleep, so I'd have a full day without seeing my daughter at all, and those nights, those days, killed me, and so I was able to find a way to to also balance out my personal life. But that's an important thing about your career too, and especially as men, to say that too.
Speaker 1:Life but that's an important thing about your career too, and especially as men, to say that too, that it's not just for women to figure out how to be parents and be moms, but for men to also be dads, to have that as part of your job, so that when I say I'm Anthony, I'm Anthony, I'm a father, I'm a husband and I'm also the concentration commission for the Bronx. But some of those titles are more important as well, and I think that's an important thing too, to balance out, that it's not just how do I get the highest ranking job or the highest paying job, but it's like how do I live a fuller self of me? And part of that is balancing your personal life too. So to me, I think, part of my fuller being is also being a father and being a husband and figuring out how that fits into my professional life too.
Speaker 2:I love that and that's a great note to end on. Thank you for joining us today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me, and I'm happy to be part of this illustrious crew of guests that you've had so far. Appreciate it, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, and believe on Instagram and LinkedIn at Career Cheat Code and tell us people or careers you would like to see highlighted. See you next week with some more cheat codes Peace.
