by Mary Egan | Oct 30, 2025 | Ask Mary, Mary Egan
Ask Mary is an advice column for public sector leaders hosted by MRG Co-Founder and CEO Mary Egan. In today’s column, Mary responds to a question received at the Annual MMANC Conference 2025 in Monterey, CA. Dear Mary, I work in a City Manager’s office and oversee...
by MRG | Oct 29, 2025 | Conferences
The 2025 MMANC Annual Conference brought together local government leaders from across California for a week of learning, inspiration, and connection. This year was the 75th anniversary of MMANC’s founding, and its members showed up energized and engaged. MRG was...
by Jessica Deakyne | Oct 13, 2025 | Conferences, Leadership Development & Support, MRG Perspective
We are knee deep in conference season and leaders keep telling me how much they dread networking. The loud ballrooms, the business card bingo—it can all feel very “ick” when you think of networking in the traditional sense. I get it, we are not all up for the gauntlet...
by Mary Egan | Oct 13, 2025 | Ask Mary, Leadership Development & Support, Mary Egan
Dear Mary, Our City Manager is retiring. He has been a great leader (from my perspective). He’s also been a champion for several initiatives that are still underway that are important to our community and won us a lot of credibility. I worry that these initiatives...
by MRG | Oct 7, 2025 | Conferences
Are you going to the annual Municipal Managers Association of Northern California (MMANC) Conference this year? If so, we’d love to connect with you at the event. The MMANC Annual Conference is a yearly event where municipal leaders, administrators and managers from...
by Mary Egan | Sep 15, 2025 | Ask Mary, Coaching & Training, Human Resources Services, Leadership Development & Support, Mary Egan, Organizational Audits & Strategic Solutions
This is Ask Mary, an advice column dedicated to helping public sector leaders address common issues and challenges with grace, humility and wit. In this column, MRG CEO and founding partner Mary Egan offers her unique perspective and wisdom honed over two decades of...
by Patty Francisco | Sep 15, 2025 | Human Resources Services, Organizational Audits & Strategic Solutions, Project Management
As part of the HR On-Demand suite of services offered by MRG, I routinely receive requests from HR Directors who will ask me to come to their agency to perform an organizational assessment. They’ll describe a very specific set of problems in their organization in...
by Shirley Concolino | Sep 15, 2025 | Human Resources Services, Leadership Development & Support, Organizational Audits & Strategic Solutions, Project Management
In the last eight years working with MRG, I’ve performed organizational assessments at cities across California, often focused on City Clerks’ offices. Recently I’ve noticed an alarming trend of what I’ll call “policy deserts”: policies and procedures are often...
by Mary Egan | Aug 26, 2025 | Ask Mary, Leadership Development & Support
Welcome to Ask Mary, an advice column dedicated to helping public sector leaders address common issues and challenges with grace, humility and wit. In this column, MRG founding partner and CEO Mary Egan offers her unique perspective and wisdom honed over two decades...
by Lisa Sullivan | Aug 11, 2025 | Human Resources Services, Organizational Audits & Strategic Solutions, Project Management
Sometimes as HR professionals, the most challenging projects are the ones that feel personal. What’s more emotionally charged than assessing someone’s pay? No matter how excellent the study, or how practiced the HR professional doing the work, there’s always the...
