LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The Board of Selectmen hosted public interviews of three candidates for the vacant town administrator position on Wednesday.

 

Judy Frazier, Joshua Lang and Jeffrey Roucoulet were asked a series of questions over Zoom about their experience and how it would benefit Lanesborough. In addition to the Selectmen, interim Town Administrator Robert Markel and consultant Bernard Lynch of Community Paradigm Associates were present. 

 

Frazier, director of risk management and operations for Rutland, Vt., and chair of the Proctor, Vt., select board, said working in municipal government has become a passion. 

 

"Once I started getting into municipality work, it just became a real interest to me," she said. "The dynamics, the culture; totally different than what I was used to in higher education and corporate and private industry." 

 

Working in a small town like Lanesborough in a managerial role, Frazier said, is the kind of job she has been seeking out.  

 

"It just seemed like an awesome location, and just seemed to be a role where I'm really striving to get to," she said. "So that's where my interest lies."

 

Before working in municipal government, Frazier worked in education at the College of St. Joseph in Rutland. 

 

"I had a staff there that I managed in admissions," she said. "And I was also kind of overseeing the logistics and the management between our maintenance department and our student affairs department, trying to link them together to make sure that projects and processes and all the workload was being well received."

 

Frazier said she tries to be as open as possible in her management style. She said she honed her skills by coaching basketball.

 

"I kind of coached the way I manage. I'm very approachable. I'm very communicative. I like people to come to me when they have issues and problems," she said. "I'm not a closed-door mechanic person. I'm an open-door person. I like to return emails phone calls as quickly as possible to try to get answers back to people. I'm very warm; people feel comfortable talking to me. That doesn't mean that I'm a pushover or that I don't see issues when they come up."

 

Lang, a former county commissioner in Bedford County, Pa., with a background in business analysis, technical training and operations management, said public service is something he has always loved doing. 

 

"I was able to do a lot of great things and really be innovative and work collaboratively with the Board of Commissioners in Bedford County as well as community leaders and municipalities to really move us in the right direction," he said. 

 

Lang, who served in the Army in Afghanistan before being elected to county government, said there are many similarities between Lanesborough and Bedford County.

 

"I saw this as an opportunity to be able to utilize my skills. You have a lot of the similar issues that we faced in Bedford County," he said. "Keeping people, young people there, infrastructure, economic development, things of that sort. So I really saw myself as being able to fit in nicely with the Lanesborough." 

 

Lang said he tries to work closely with and understand everyone. He said this is crucial to his management style. 

 

"I realized that first, it's very good to have positive relationships with the folks that you're working with day to day, that you have an open-door policy, that you're there to be a resource for them to assist them," he said. "No individual's the same. Some individuals need a little encouragement. Some need to be more firm. So I'm very much somebody that likes to collaborate. I'm a firm believer in effective communication and having regular meetings, having discussions, working collaboratively to move in the right direction." 

 

Lang said something he dislikes about local government is people who are reluctant to change. 

 

"Some folks will really fight you tooth and nail on every single thing," he said. "We had some departments that were elected officials in Bedford County that, if they didn't get everything that they wanted and when you had to say no on certain things, they played the political games, unfortunately. You had to deal with that, and that would probably be my biggest frustration that I dealt with." 

 

Roucoulet, a native of Berkshire County, is director of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program of Pittsfield and Berkshire County.

 

 "While there, I really liked the idea of management and working with people in the municipal level in the management level. So I started to pursue a degree, my master's in public administration with a concentration in public management," he said. 

 

Roucoulet also worked as a code enforcement officer for Pittsfield, and as case worker and kitchen manager. He said despite not having a background in municipal government, working as town administrator for Lanesborough was something that strongly appealed to him. 

 

"By looking through various jobs and roles and where I could land, I really liked the idea of a town administrator and providing impact for the community," he said. 

 

When asked about his management style, Roucoulet said he tries to work on an individual level with people and play to each other's strengths and weaknesses. 

 

"What I like to do is bring to light some of the things that aren't going so well, for communication, a work breakdown, and then try to identify the areas where we can make improvements and areas where we can compromise," he said. "I strongly believe that we should work on our strengths more so than our weaknesses because sometimes our weaknesses are just not going to get any better for whatever reason." 

 

Roucoulet said building a team that can work together is crucial for any organization to be effective. 

 

"You have to identify where we help each other and where we intersect," he said. "So we all have our own jobs to do, but sometimes doing one job is relied upon somebody else. I think you identify those intersections, and you explain how important they are in order to continue with the project." 

 

The board expects to invite two of the finalists for in-person interviews this week and potentially offer one of them the position.  

 

Kelli Robinson had resigned in June after three years in the post; she had replaced Paul Sieloff.