Her Story
About Molly
I started my career in a pretty non-linear way. Prior to Buffalo Grove, I worked with the City of Elgin for almost 9 years, which is the 6th biggest municipality in Illinois. I actually started out there part-time in their Parks and Rec Department as their Nature Center Coordinator, which is kind of an odd place from where I am now. My background from school was tourism and recreation, so I was somewhat related on the sustainability aspect. I got to know some folks over at City Hall as I was trying to organize some events, and found out about their sustainability commission, which I was very passionate about in my personal life. They ended up wanting me to help with some initiatives at the city level, so I transitioned to having that as kind of a dual role. A lot of what I was doing was marketing the Nature Center and the different programs, and they had a position open to help with social media for the entire city, which was something I was doing a lot of and doing well with, so they offered me a position over at City Hall. In local government, especially, we can be kind of a scrappy bunch. We don't have as many resources, so sometimes you wear many hats. I started showing what I was capable of and really boosted our online presence, kind of took us out of that traditional, mundane government look and feel, and started really making an impact on their social media. I was asked to take over website and some other multimedia communications, graphic design, all of that. My role just kind of morphed over time. By 2019, I had the option to pick a lane instead of doing the dual roles, and I chose to go in the communications direction and let sustainability move to another position. I took on several additional things, such as our public relations and media relations. I continued to climb the ladder in that role and left there as a team of one communications manager for a much bigger organization. I knew that my next professional step was to be a department director and actually be able to lead a team and start things from scratch, and that's when I saw the Buffalo Grove opportunity open up.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Molly
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think networking is one of the keys to finding your group, finding people that you would maybe want to work with, and even just making your interest in different things known. I'm a classic example of someone who thought I would just be, like, you know, a ranger working on a mountain, and here I am leading communications for a local government, so you never know where you're gonna end up. Just take chances, and you never know what'll happen. I also think it's important that people even consider local government as a field to enter, unless they're going for a public administration's master's. It is a very great place to work. There's a lot of opportunity, and like I said, you get to experience in so many different industries all at once. So it's a great option, especially in the communications field. That's a growing need. I think people are realizing the need for coordinated communications and brand efforts.
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