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Women hold less than a third of municipal offices across the country, according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics. Things are a bit more balanced in municipal workforces according to a study conducted by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Its research indicates that 55% of workers in city and town government are female. However, when you drill down, the data tells a different story:
“In city and town government, female workers make up the majority of the workforce (55%). However, this number is skewed by education, training, and library workers – 76% of them identify as women. For other occupational groups, females account for about 41% of workers, about 2% less than their share in the civilian labor force.”
The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) has had a task force dedicated to women in the profession since 1974. At the time the task force was formed, only 1% of chief administrative officers were women. That number has increased to 23% in 2024, according to ICMA, and still falls well below the female share of the civilian labor force.
What About 01776?
Sudbury doesn’t quite follow the national and international trends, as it is significantly outpacing national and international averages with regard to women in leadership roles. While Sudbury’s current town manager is a man, two of the last three town managers in Sudbury were women.
Women are well-represented in senior roles in Sudbury’s town government, too.
Of the 21 departments listed in the Town budget, 10 are led by women. That includes departments in fields of work that historically have had very few women. Sudbury’s new Director of Public Works, Tina Rivard, is perhaps the most striking example. The American Public Works Association found that only 10% of public works employees are women, whether they’re working in the field or in the office. Rivard’s department has the largest budget of any department other than Subury’s two school districts.
Similarly, Sudbury’s Combined Facility Department is led by Sandra Duran. Women occupy just 15% of leadership roles in facility management, and just 25% of the facility management workforce overall, according to the International Facilities Management Association. Duran’s career was highlighted in a 2021 American Builders Quarterly feature.
With solid female representation among department heads across the Town, Sudbury also has representation in assistant chief administrator roles that are tracked by the ICMA. Sudbury’s assistant town manager, Maryanne Bilodeau, has been pulling double-duty for years. In addition to assistant town manager, she’s also the head of Human Resources, and has served as Sudbury’s Interim Town Manager on multiple occasions when the town was searching for a town manager.
The largest cost center in the town is Sudbury Public Schools, which is led by Superintendent Brad Crozier. Annette Doyle is in her first year serving as the Assistant Superintendent. Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School was led by a woman, Bella Wong, as principal/superintendent, until last year.
Several of the women serving as department heads have been hired in the last few years. That includes Vivian Zeng, who leads the Sudbury Health Department. While women account for roughly 70% of global health workers, Women in Global Health found that they hold just 25% of the top jobs. Zeng previously served as an environmental health specialist in Wellesley.
Lori Capone leads the conservation department in Sudbury, and she is this year’s recipient of the Sudbury Valley Trustees’ Distinguished Public Service Award. Most research indicates that women are underrepresented in conservation work, particularly at the senior leadership levels. There are also widespread reports of gender bias and a “green glass ceiling” in conservation. Capone leads her department as a coordinator, whereas other department heads more frequently have director-level positions.
What’s unique in Sudbury is not just the share of leadership positions held by women, but the fact that women are well represented in the fields that are still heavily dominated by men. Sudbury Weekly asked Town Manager Andy Sheehan how the Town was able to build the leadership team it has today:
“I am really proud of the team we have in Sudbury. I inherited an excellent group of employees and we have built upon that foundation.
Fit is really important. You can have a person with excellent technical skills, but if they aren’t the right fit it won’t work. It’s a variation on the idea made popular by Jim Collins in Good to Great: hire the right people, skill them up, and then find where they best fit within the organization. In smaller organizations like Sudbury we don’t always have the ability and capacity to bring people in and let them move through levels in the organization.Andy Sheehan, Town Manager – Sudbury
I approach hiring decisions pretty simply: get people who fit well within the organization and who have the skills to do the job. I approach hiring without preconceived notions, such as gender. I am also willing to take a chance on someone who may not have done this exact job before, but who demonstrates room to grow. This approach has resulted in the successful hires we have made. I am also a firm believer in professional development. I encourage and support employees’ efforts to grow and advance. Sudbury is a pretty mature organization and we expect to see a lot of transition in the coming years, particularly retirements. So we need to be ready for transitions and find successors when that is possible.”
Representative Representatives?
Beyond the Town employees, the town government includes 43 elected seats on boards and committees. In elected positions, 63% of Sudbury’s officials are women, and the 2020 census indicates that 50.7% of the town’s population is women.
There are three elected committees with just one gender represented. The Sudbury Public Schools Committee is 100% women, as are the Goodnow Library Trustees. The Board of Assessors, which has three seats, is 100% men, though the Director of Assessing on the town staff side is a woman.
Looking at two powerful elected bodies – the Select Board and the Planning Board – things are a bit more mixed. The Sudbury Select Board has had a female majority since Lisa Kouchakdjian was sworn into office back in 2022. The five-member Planning Board only has one woman serving, and prior to Julie Perlman’s election in 2023, the Planning Board was entirely men.
On the whole, whether it’s town staff, elected officials, or women in senior leadership roles, Sudbury has stronger representation of women than the averages nationally and globally.