Make Room for Possibility
From Military Leadership to Community Building: How Making Room for Possibility Changes Everything
Some of the most important opportunities in my career began in places where I did not necessarily look like the person others expected to see.
Others began with an idea that was much bigger than the resources immediately available to accomplish it.
Both have taught me the same lesson: leadership often begins with the willingness to see possibility before there is proof of what that possibility can become.
My career has taken me from military logistics and leadership in a male-dominated Infantry organization, through private-sector project management, and eventually into municipal government and community development.
The environments could not look more different. But the leadership lessons have been remarkably consistent.
Breaking Into the Infantry - and Finding a Team
One of the most defining experiences of my military career came when I became the first female to serve as the S4 Logistics Officer for the 1-168th Infantry Battalion.
As a Logistics Captain entering an Infantry organization, I understood that I was stepping into a space where women historically had little representation.
What I remember most about that experience, however, is not feeling like "the female officer" in an unusual position. I remember being part of the team.
My colleagues in the 1-168th respected the expertise I brought. They trusted me to do my job. Just as importantly, they invested in what I did not yet know.
They mentored me, expanded my understanding of Infantry operations, gave me opportunities to develop professionally, and treated me as one of their own.
That experience taught me something about inclusion that has stayed with me throughout my career.
True inclusion is not simply allowing someone into the room. It is trusting them once they get there. It is recognizing what they bring to the team while also investing in what they can become.
I had to prove that I could perform, but I was also surrounded by leaders and colleagues who gave me the opportunity to do so.
Their confidence in me eventually led to another significant opportunity: I was selected to command the Forward Support Company for the 1-168th Infantry Battalion.
For me, that progression represented much more than another assignment. Someone had made room for possibility. And then they trusted me with responsibility.
What the Army Taught Me About Leadership
I served in the Iowa Army National Guard for more than 12 years in roles spanning human resources, transportation, logistics, project management, and command.
The military taught me to plan carefully, communicate clearly, understand the mission, manage resources, care for people, and remain accountable for outcomes.
It also taught me that leadership and expertise are not the same thing. A leader does not have to know everything.
Some of my greatest professional growth came from working alongside people who knew things I didn't. Strong leaders did not expect me to walk into every assignment already knowing every answer. They expected me to learn, ask questions, contribute my expertise, and improve because of the people around me.
That lesson would eventually become central to how I approach community leadership.
From Managing Projects to Building Community
After my military career, I continued managing complex projects and operations in civilian environments, ultimately overseeing hundreds of projects worth more than $80 million.
Project management taught me how to take something complicated and make it executable.
- What needs to happen?
- Who needs to be involved?
- What resources do we have?
- What are we missing?
- What is standing in the way?
- And what is the next action that moves us closer to the objective?
Today, I ask many of those same questions as the Director of Parks & Recreation and Community Engagement for the City of Granger, Iowa. Only now, the project is often the community itself.
Seeing an Opportunity for Granger
One of the best examples began when I learned about the University of Iowa's Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities (IISC) and its Community Partnership program. The concept immediately caught my attention.
Through IISC, communities can work with University of Iowa faculty and students from multiple academic disciplines on real community challenges and opportunities. I saw the potential almost immediately.
Granger is a growing community with big aspirations. Like many smaller cities, however, we don't have unlimited staff or a department of specialists for every challenge we encounter.
We have ideas involving parks and recreation, community development, infrastructure, accessibility, economic development, public spaces, communications, and long-term growth.
What if we could bring university expertise together with the knowledge of the people who actually live and work here?
I decided Granger needed to pursue the opportunity. That meant researching the program, identifying the challenges and opportunities where the partnership could create meaningful value, and writing an application compelling enough to demonstrate not only that Granger had needs, but that we were prepared to be an active partner in addressing them.
Granger was ultimately selected as an IISC Community Partner. But selection was only one step. An opportunity is not the same thing as implementation.
The next challenge was making the case locally.
Leadership Means Building the Case
For a partnership like IISC to succeed, it could not simply be something I was excited about.
City leadership needed to understand the value. The City Council needed to approve the partnership. Community stakeholders needed to participate. Residents needed opportunities to contribute. Eventually, volunteers would need to sit alongside university students and faculty and help ensure their work reflected the community they were studying.
My role became one I know well: connect the pieces.
- Explain the opportunity.
- Build the case.
- Answer the questions.
- Identify the potential return.
- Bring the right people into the conversation.
- And turn an idea into something executable.
The City Council approved the partnership.
What began with discovering a program became an opportunity to bring university students, faculty, City leaders, residents, businesses, schools, volunteers, and community organizations together around Granger's future.
That kind of work energizes me most.
Small Communities Should Still Think Big
Working in municipal government has reinforced something I learned much earlier in my career: limited resources do not require limited ambition.
Small communities may not have enormous staff or endless budgets, but they often have something equally powerful: people who care deeply about where they live. The question becomes how to connect those people with the right resources and opportunities.
- If we cannot accomplish something alone, who can we partner with?
- If we do not have expertise internally, where can we find it?
- If we cannot afford the entire vision today, what can we accomplish first?
- If residents have knowledge and ideas, how do we give them a meaningful role in shaping the outcome?
The IISC partnership reflects the kind of leadership I believe in because no single person at the table is expected to have all the answers.
- University students and faculty bring academic and technical expertise.
- City staff bring operational knowledge.
- Residents bring lived experience.
- Businesses and organizations bring another perspective.
Together, those pieces create something none of us could produce as effectively on our own.
Building the Table
My experience with the 1-168th Infantry Battalion taught me what it feels like when people make room for you at the table. Community leadership has taught me that eventually, you become responsible for building the table for someone else.
That may be the lesson connecting the seemingly unrelated chapters of my career.
The leaders and Soldiers I served alongside did not reduce me to being the first woman in a particular role. They expected me to contribute. They shared their knowledge. They challenged me. They trusted me.
Today, I try to create that same environment in a completely different setting.
- When residents volunteer for a project committee, I want them to know their knowledge of their community matters.
- When a student participates in a community project, I want them to know their ideas belong in the conversation.
- When a business, school, nonprofit, volunteer, or regional partner has something to contribute, I want to connect that contribution to the larger goal.
Community engagement should not simply mean telling people what government is doing. It should mean creating meaningful opportunities for people to help shape what their community becomes.
Growth With Purpose
Granger is growing, and growth creates both opportunity and responsibility.
The decisions being made today about parks, recreation, infrastructure, public facilities, accessibility, economic development, community identity, and public spaces will affect people who may not live here yet. That changes the question.
Success can't be measured simply by whether Granger grows. The question is whether we grow with purpose.
- Are we thinking far enough ahead?
- Are we listening to the people who built this community and the families who are choosing it today?
- Are we creating places where children want to grow up and where older residents can continue to belong?
- Are we building partnerships instead of assuming government must solve every challenge alone?
- Are we making today's decisions with tomorrow's community in mind?
Those are questions without simple answers. But leadership doesn't require having every answer before you begin.
Making Room for Possibility
Earlier in my career, I measured success through missions accomplished, projects completed, budgets managed, contracts executed, and deadlines met. Those things still matter. My definition of success has simply become broader.
- Did we create something that will outlast us?
- Did we make an organization stronger?
- Did we give someone an opportunity?
- Did we bring people together who otherwise would not have been in the same room?
- Did an idea become possible because someone was willing to advocate for it?
- Did we leave the community better positioned for the next generation?
Looking back, I see a thread connecting experiences that once seemed unrelated.
A group of Infantry leaders looked beyond convention and trusted a female Logistics Captain to become part of their team. They invested in me, expanded my experience, and eventually trusted me to command.
Years later, I discovered an opportunity that I believed could benefit a small but rapidly growing Iowa community. I wrote the application, advocated for the partnership, built the case for approval, and began bringing together the people who could turn that opportunity into something meaningful.
In one chapter of my life, other people made room for my potential. Today, much of my work is about making room for the potential of others and for the potential of an entire community.
That may be the leadership lesson I value most.
See possibilities in people. See possibility in ideas. See possibility in places.
Then bring the right people together, give them a reason to believe in what is possible, and do the work required to move forward.
Sometimes leadership means earning your seat at the table. And sometimes leadership means realizing it is now your responsibility to build a bigger table.
