Dan Sargent, 2010

Q: What was the path you took to get to where you are now? 

A: So the shortest way to answer: I took the part time job I had while in the MPA and turned it into a full-time job.  I’ve never left.  I started with Rebuilding Together of the Triangle as the first employee in fall of 2008 and when I finished the program in 2010, they offered me a full-time role, and I’ve been there ever since. The oranization has grown – my title is the same, but my job has changed very much over the last 6-8 years 

Q: Have you pursued any other certifications since your MPA? 

I’ve done a few speciality licenses in my field – like Licensed General Contractor, Licensed Septic Installer, and all sorts of things like that.  Since I have a leadership role in housing preservation, I’ve had to learn about contracting.

Q: Is the field you are working in now relevant to your MPA degree? 

A: Yeah – Housing and non-profit.  Public interest in affordable housing is at an all-time high right now.  I went to the MPA interested in housing recovery and disaster management, and it ended up a lot of what I did and the opportunities I had were around addressing housing quality issues.  A lot of the work I do is done in partnerships with local, state, and federal gov and their housing efforts, so it’s been a great degree for me.

A lot of the relationships I formed initially through the program have also been a big part of my professional life.  In an MPA group project I did with Catawba County and the [then] Assistant County Manager Lee Worsley, UNC MPA alum – now Executive Director with Central Pines Regional Council in the Triangle is a primary local partner of mine now.  We formed a relationship in the program that has been instrumental to our current work.

Q: How did the MPA program specifically prepare you for future work experiences or inform what you do now? 

A: The biggest thing was helping me more thoroughly understand the way that the governing process worked internally and providing an understanding of how to develop programs and strategies that work in public-private-non-profit spaces.  Also, the relationships that elected officials and organizations have to approach challenges and problems and how they can become community partners to come to the table with solutions.  The MPA program gave me the tools to be a good partner and to build programs that we can actually work with.