Darlene Rhodes

Darlene Rhodes brings executive-level human resources business perspective to every project in which she is involved.  Her diverse private and public sector experiences during her thirty year career honed her ability to see across traditional roles and responsibilities and develop innovative, yet practical solutions for the most complicated workplace challenges.

Darlene provides leadership coaching as well as expert advice in the areas of human resources, organizational effectiveness, and change management with special emphasis on employee relations, performance management, workplace investigations, legally-defensible disciplinary action, complex classification and compensation oversight, as well as employee development and training.  Darlene is a highly experienced and effective human resources professional who has earned an excellent reputation in the field.

Darlene’s successes include designing and implementing consolidations and reorganizations of struggling, failing or misallocated divisions/departments, and maximizing service delivery and structural efficiencies.  Darlene is also a skilled facilitator and has led many stakeholder groups to consensus on contentious organizational issues. She created Napa’s Management University, a leadership training curriculum. 

Prior to affiliating with MRG, Darlene held key administrative positions with the City of Napa, the City of Oberlin (Ohio), the Town of Moraga, and the City of Norwich (NY).  She served the City of Napa as the Human Resources Director for five years (2013-2018); the City of Oberlin as the Assistant City Manager and Human Resources Administrator (2008-2013); and the Town of Moraga as the City Clerk/Assistant to the City Manager, the Human Resources/Risk Manager, and Public Information Officer (2007-2008); as well as the City of Norwich (NY) as the Deputy City Clerk and Assistant to the Mayor (2005-2007).  Darlene also has non-profit and private sector administrative HR and accounting experience, gained while serving as the Assistant Executive Director for Catholic Charities of Chenango County, and working for several organizations, handling their personnel management and accounting systems. 

Darlene is a Board Member of the Northern California Chapter of the International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA-HR).  In addition to her significant field experience, she holds a Juris Doctor from John F. Kennedy University School of Law (with an American Jurisprudence Award for Corporations Law), is an IPMA-SCP (Senior Certified Professional), and a certificate holder of the Association of Workplace Investigators (AWI-CH).  She has been a guest lecturer and presenter at workshops, conferences, and colleges such as the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University, covering topics including executive development, public service careers, performance management, and platinum-level public sector customer service.