Her Story
About Angelica
I have been working in government for 19 years, going on 20, and it's been an incredible journey of growth and learning. When I started with the City of Dallas, I began as an office assistant, and over the years I've received 12 promotions, which has brought me to my current role as superintendent. What started as a temporary stop became my life's work when I realized there's so much work to be done in government and so many opportunities to improve the way we serve our community. One of my notable skills is finding ways to improve our processes and challenge the stigma that government employees are slow when it comes to getting things done. I really take it as a challenge to see what we can do to get things done faster. What a lot of people misconceive is that we are intentionally slow, but really, we're working with very limited resources and a very large scale of management, so it takes a lot of creativity and problem solving to work in government. My day-to-day responsibilities include reviewing policy for our operations division in the park industry and working through problems presented by residents or employees, which requires a lot of political acumen to navigate dealing with the public and managing maintenance staff. What I love most about my career is knowing that I'm leaving a legacy behind. I know that there will be generations of other government employees that come behind me who are going to build on top of the policies and programs that I've implemented or led, and that it's always going to be a new, better starting point. My goal is to leave it in a better spot than when I first got here.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Angelica
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to the community that I work for. Just knowing that working in government is not the most appealing job to most, but it is definitely a very rewarding job to see what impacts you can make in the community as a policy maker. That's what drives me and keeps me going.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received is 'just keep swimming.' When things get hard, don't give up, and keep going. It's only temporary. This advice has carried me through so many challenges in my career and reminds me that difficult times will pass if I just persevere.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Things don't happen unless you make them happen. You have to be proactive and take charge of your own career and success. Don't wait for opportunities to come to you - go out and create them yourself.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the biggest challenges I currently face is not having processes to follow and trying to document the way that we do things so that I can figure out what we need to do to make things better. In government, you always have a lot of employees that have been here for 30, 35, even 40 years, and what I find is that those employees hold a lot of value in what they do, but they also carry it with them. When you're working for an organization where people are always holding it together and it's not necessarily always documented through work instructions or policies, it makes it really hard when that person leaves because they leave with a lot of knowledge. So we're constantly fighting that and trying to figure out how do we make this better when we don't have a baseline yet as to what we're having. We're in that data collecting stage and trying to promote data decision making, but not having all of the pieces there. Creating a culture of change and process improvement is one of the biggest challenges.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
My values are to work hard, to work ethically, to work smart. I have a value of trying to achieve excellence. I'm just trying to make things better. There's always room for improvement, and I believe in constantly striving to do better in everything I do.
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