Her Story
About Jean
I spent 40 years in government public service working in city planning and community development. I started in local government working for cities in Greater Boston, with the highlight being my work for the City of Somerville on the Davis Square Revitalization Project when they brought the red line to Davis. I then moved to the MBTA where I worked in real estate development on transit-oriented development projects, looking at creative ways to incorporate retail into newer stations across 101 cities and towns. After that, I returned to local government, first in Saugus where I wore multiple hats, then in Peabody as head of community development and planning. In Peabody, I was involved in flood mitigation work and redevelopment projects, including working on Brownfield sites from old leather factories, and I did a lot of work on the zoning ordinance to streamline and simplify things. I then went to Reading as the town planner, doing city planning work and zoning, and was promoted to Assistant Town Manager. Now I'm back part-time focusing on community preservation work, which has been the highlight of my career. I love working on projects like saving open space, preserving historical resources, and funding affordable housing projects through the Community Preservation Act.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Jean
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
There's a lot of ways to do it, and I find a lot of people are kind of intimidated because they think, oh, I never have a chance at that. There's a lot of opportunity, first and foremost, in volunteering. That's a way to see if that's something that you would be interested in. We're always looking for people to be on the volunteer boards. It's really hard to get people. So for anybody who's interested, I would say try a volunteer position first. There's such a shortage of people who have that kind of time to commit to it, because it's a big time commitment. Kind of put your toe in the water that way to see if it's something you would like to do.
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