Q: What was the path you took to get to where you are now?
A: After I graduated from Drew University with a Poli Sci major/History minor, I was trying to choose between government work and a graduate degree in history. I went to work for the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site. From there I was an intern for the Governor of New York which led to a job with NY State Assembly in the Environmental Conservation Committee as a Committee Clerk. I knew at that point my public service interests were leading me to continue government work. I looked around and applied to graduate school. I was drawn to UNC-Chapel Hill because of the strong alumni network and small size of the program.
In retrospect, the Program’s focus on organizational behavior gave me a framework for how to think about people and institutions. The MPA program taught about how organizational structure influences the way that work gets done and the experiences of employees. While at UNC, I applied for and was successful in getting a Presidential Management Internship (now Presidential Management Fellowship – PMF) with the federal government. Through an UNC MPA alumni at US EPA, my resume ended up on the desk of the man who became my boss and mentor for many years. I have enjoyed tackling air pollution problems at the Agency for nearly 30 years. Reducing emissions of soot, smog, and toxic air pollution in neighborhoods improves people’s health and quality of life. I didn’t expect to work at the federal level when I started graduate school but my two years at UNC broadened my interests and perspective, and I was open to new things.
Q: Have you pursued/attained any other degrees since your MPA?
A: Not degrees but I’ve taken a number of leadership classes/fellowships. One through the Brookings Institute and one through the USDA Grad School. I’ve worked on Capitol Hill twice through those fellowships. I also took classes at Duke on the science of air pollution soon after I started at US EPA.
Q: Is the field you are working in now relevant to your MPA degree?
A: Definitely. Working on air pollution issues for the federal government, public service is the core of what I do now. Serving the American people is incredibly important to me, and I certainly developed and refined my sense of what public service meant to me while in the MPA program at Carolina.
Q: How did the MPA program specifically prepare you for future work experiences or inform what you do now?
A: I credit the excellent professors in writing, organizational development, ethics, and communications. It gave me the tools and foundation for exactly the work I do now. The UNC MPA provided access to an amazing network of classmates, alum, and pipeline of talented students, some of whom have become colleagues at US EPA.
Q: Have you been able to fulfill goals formulated while in the MPA program? If so, how?
A: The MPA program informed my public service journey. The PWE gave great appreciation for direct service and economic development work in small communities in western NC. While it seems far away from the work I do now, it was actually the foundation for my current work . Commitment to making sure that people in neighborhoods and rural areas can breathe clean air is rooted in the experience I had in the summer between my first and second year in grad school. I learned lessons about how to communicate effectively with people in crisis. I give a lot of credit to my classmates as well. After that summer of PWE, we all came back and shared stories about what we had been through, comparing experiences. Having smart peers and professors who could help dissect why things worked and didn’t work was really helpful in processing and learning. It helped us tackle issues and potential solutions from a lot of different angles. I am grateful for the support that the MPA program offers to students and alum at all stages of our careers.
Dylan Russell is the executive director of Lead for North Carolina at the UNC School of Government and a co-founder of Lead for America. Lead for North Carolina places students in high-impact fellowships in local government across the state. He has secured over $6 million in private support to advance Lead for North Carolina’s mission and has placed 110 young people in local government fellowships across the state. Dylan also launched the NC COVID-19 Student Response Corps with the Office of Strategic Partnerships and placed 300 student interns in local governments and nonprofits across North Carolina. Prior to serving as executive director, Dylan was a development officer at the School of Government, a policy analyst at the NC Department of Public Instruction, a fifth-grade public school teacher, a White House intern, and a member of the Board of Trustees at Appalachian State University. Dylan served as president of the Graduate Student Body at UNC and president of the Student Body at Appalachian. Dylan was awarded the Robert E. Bryan Public Service Award from the UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor and the Plemmons Leadership Medallion by the Appalachian State University Board of Trustees.
Russell is an instructor in the UNC School of Government’s Master of Public Administration program. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Appalachian State University, an MPA from UNC-Chapel Hill, and is pursuing his Ph.D. at North Carolina State University.
The UNC MPA Program gave Dylan the tools, network, and skills he needed to launch Lead for North Carolina and co-create Lead for America. The UNC MPA Program was where he first studied the silver tsunami and human capital pipeline concerns in public management. The School’s commitment to bridging scholarship to practitioners inspired Dylan to create a similar model to connect future talent with high impact positions in local government. The faculty’s mentorship, guidance, and support were and continue to be critical in Lead for NC’s operations.