PSHRA's Public Eye Podcast

Created to help job seekers with federal experience find opportunities within state and local government organizations, Work for America's free Civic Match hiring platform is now open to any job seeker seeking state and local government career opportunities, regardless of whether they possess any government experience.

Shifra Goldenberg, WFA's chief program officer, recently joined the Public Eye podcast to talk about this expansion, and what it means for the job seekers and government agencies utilizing the Civic Match platform. 

Gerald Young, senior researcher at MissionSquare Research Institute, recently joined the Public Eye podcast to discuss findings from the 2026 State and Local Government Workforce Survey.  

Gerald was the lead researcher on the 2026 survey, which PSHRA, MissionSquare and the National Association of State Personnel Executives (NASPE) have partnered to conduct annually since 2009. 

As always, this year's survey sheds light on the biggest trends and developments in public sector HR at the moment, and Gerald shared his unique insight into some of the key findings!

Speaker, author, adviser, culture scientist and self-described “amateur comedian" Jamie Notter will deliver the opening keynote at PSHRA’s national conference, to be held Sept. 28 – 30 at the Portland Hilton Downtown in Portland, Ore., where Jamie will help PSHRA kick off the celebration of its 120th anniversary. 

Jamie recently joined the Public Eye podcast to offer up a preview of his keynote presentation, and to talk a bit about the concept of “good conflict,” which will be the focus of Jamie’s opening keynote, entitled The Secret to Good Conflict in Organizations. 

Tucker Bryant is a nationally renowned artist and a veteran of Silicon Valley, where he spent nearly four years as an associate product marketing manager and product manager at Mountain View, Calif-based tech giant Google. 

Tucker is also our closing keynote presenter at PSHRA26, PSHRA’s national conference, to be held Sept. 28 – 30 in Portland, Ore., at the Hilton Portland Downtown.  

Tucker will bring his unique background to this year’s event, where he will encourage our audience to “Do Different Things Differently,” which includes leaning on creative principles to generate breakthrough ideas. He recently joined the Public Eye podcast to give us a preview of what to expect at his PSHRA26 presentation. 

Catherine Burns, chief of human resources with the Baltimore City Department of General Services (DGS), recently joined the Public Eye podcast to walk us through how DGS revamped its recruitment practices to reduce vacancies and shorten time to hire for hard-to-fill trade roles in a competitive labor market. 

Pamela Pine, PhD, founder and director of Stop the Silence® (a Department of the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma), recently joined the Public Eye podcast to discuss the concept of trauma-informed HR - what it means, its hidden impact on the workforce and the steps that public sector HR leaders can take to make trauma-informed HR the new standard in the public sector. 

 Jodi Outland, director of human resources with the Town of Cape Charles, Va., recently joined the Public Eye podcast to chat about the Town’s Wellness & Health Incentive Program, or WHIP.

The Town developed the program in 2023, to encourage employees to be vigilant about preventative care and to adopt a healthy lifestyle, offering workers a financial reward in the form of contributions to the Town’s employer-funded health reimbursement arrangement. 

 Anni Evans, director of human resources with the Town of Bluffton, S.C., recently joined the Public Eye podcast to give us an overview of the Town’s intern exit surveys – which she says have become a standard part of the Town’s intern lifecycle.

Anni discussed the role of the Town’s HR team in creating the survey, the questions the survey includes and why, and how the feedback the Town receives figures to help shape its internship plan going forward. 

Shifra Goldenberg, chief program officer with Work for America, recently joined the Public Eye podcast to talk about WFA’s upcoming Transforming City Hiring Processes workshop. 

The free, virtual workshop is part of Work for America’s Talent Accelerator Program, and runs from April 21 through June 9. In our recent chat, Shifra told us about the Talent Accelerator Program’s origins, what this upcoming spring workshop will entail, and what’s on the horizon for the program in the months ahead. 

Wally Bobkiewicz is the city administrator with the City of Issaquah, Wash. He is also spearheading Local Gov 250, a national effort to honor and elevate the role of local government as the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2026. 

Wally recently joined the Public Eye podcast to talk a bit about this initiative—which PSHRA is proud to be a partner on, along with a number of other organizations—and what it has in store for the rest of 2026.