Serving the Public Interest: Profiles of Successful and Innovative Public Servants

This reader presents a balanced collection of 16 administrative profiles of high-level government and nonprofit officials for course use. They were originally published as part of a series for Public Administration Review and provide rich, in-depth examples of the work performed by high-level public servants and the factors that contribute to their effectiveness.

Administrative profiles have long been an important instructional tool in public administration classes on, for example, leadership, management, ethics, organization theory, and general public affairs. They have also presented positive images and role models to students preparing for careers in the public service or to those already working in government and nonprofit organizations. As Cooper and Wright (1992, xii-xiii) point out, profiles of exemplary administrators provide "instructive and inspirational role models both for preservice students considering careers in public service and for working administrators in a field that often feels maligned and demeaned by the public and the media."

The book begins with an extensive introduction to the use and importance of administrative profiles. The profiles themselves cover a wide range of public service professionals at the local, state, and federal levels, and are written by a distinguished cast of authors. A concluding chapter by Norma Riccucci pulls together and synthesizes the various themes of the profiles.


Selected Contents:

Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Making of Effective Public Servants

1. Elmer Boyd Staats and the Pursuit of Good Government, Kathe Callahan

2. Leadership and the Transformation of a Major Institution: Charles Rossotti and the Internal Revenue Service, Hal G. Rainey and James R. Thompson

3. Leadership with an Enduring Impact: The Legacy of Chief Burtell Jefferson of the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C., Brian N. Williams and J. Edward Kellough

4. Qualified to Learn the Job: Donna Shalala, Beryl A. Radin

5. William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management Rightly Understood, Terry L. Cooper and Thomas A. Bryer

6. Lillian Borrone: Weaving a Web to Revitalize Port Commerce in New York and New Jersey, Hindy Lauer Schachter

7. Leadership and Change at NASA: Sean O'Keefe as Administrator, W. Henry Lambright

8. George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA, Richard D. White, Jr.

9. Colleen Jollie, State Tribal Liaison: A Story of Transformational Change, Cheryl Simrell King and Megan Beeby

10. Being There Matters--Redefining the Model Public Servant: Viola O. Baskerville in Profile, Janet R. Hutchinson and Deirdre M. Condit

11. Managing the "New Normalcy" with Values-Based Leadership: Lessons from Admiral James Loy, Heather Getha-Taylor

12. Nancy Alfaro as an Exemplary Collaborative Public Manager: How Customer Service Was Aligned with Customer Needs, Katherine C. Naff

13. Chrik Poortman: A World Bank Professional, Xu Yi-chong and Patrick Weller

14. The Pracademic and the Fed: The Leadership of Chairman Benjamin Bernanke, Anne M. Khademian

15. Bill Gibson and the Art of Leading Across Boundaries, Ricardo S. Morse

16. Prosecuting Nazi Collaborators and Terrorists: Eli Rosenbaum and Managing the Office of Special Investigations, Jerome S. Legge, Jr.

Conclusion: What Are the Ingredients of Effective Performance Among Public Servants?

About the Editor and Contributors

Comment(s): " Serving the Public Interest is invaluable because this unique text simultaneously educates and inspires students, those new to the field, as well as the old hands. Sixteen contemporary profiles of remarkable public service leaders vividly recount why they succeeded, how, and what difference they made in government as well as for the betterment of our lives." -- Richard Stillman, University of Colorado-Denver

"In 1928 a former head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce proclaimed, 'The best public servant is the worst one,' unfavorably comparable to the 'black plague' in his or her threat to humanity. Serving the Public Interest is a powerful and necessary antidote to this. Riccucci has done a great service by pulling together profiles of public servants who greatly advanced the public interest by promoting justice and better government as well as substantially improving the lives, health, welfare, and safety of millions. This inspiring book should be required reading in all U.S. Master of Public Administration programs for its provision of analytically insightful profiles of exemplars of excellent practice along with a foundation for systematically understanding what contributed to their outstanding successes." -- David H. Rosenbloom, American University

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