A new borough manager for Wrangell will be arriving in the middle of July.
Lisa Von Bargen was selected from a pool of candidates by the City and Borough Assembly earlier in April, finally hired following several weeks of negotiations over terms. She has been the director for community and economic development in Valdez since 2001, and has worked for the city’s Chamber of Commerce and its Convention and Visitors Bureau prior to that.
“I was born in Anchorage. My father was transferred to Valdez when I was eight,” Von Bargen explained. Graduating high school in Valdez, she received her undergraduate degree in philosophy from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington.
“I missed Alaska so much I moved back,” she said, heading to Anchorage. She would eventually acquire her master’s degree in project management from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2011.
Von Bargen returned to Valdez, serving as tourism manager for the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau from 1998 to 2001. She also served concurrently as director of the community’s Chamber of Commerce over the same period.
Once she was promoted to bureau director in 2001, in the years since Von Bargen has been involved in a diverse range of projects, including the Valdez waterfront redevelopment a decade ago and an initiative to get the city’s Economic Diversification Commission off the ground in 2014. The commission has since developed into its own city department.
In her present position for the past 16 years, Von Bargen explained her move to Wrangell is an upward step in her administrative career. As with Wrangell’s own economic development director position, many of the grant and project management roles of the position overlap with roles held by the city manager, and Von Bargen explained she will be prepared for her new managerial duties as a result.
“I wanted to be a city administrator, and I feel like I have all the experience I need in the job that I have,” she said. “It’s just time for me to move on to the next phase of my career.”
Before applying, Von Bargen spoke with Wrangell counterpart and current interim manager Carol Rushmore about the position.
“We talked a little bit about the community and about the job, and what the opportunity would be. From there I just decided it would be a good thing to apply. It sounded like a good fit,” Von Bargen said.
She had been one of the two candidates chosen for an on-site interview, arriving the second week of April to meet with members of the Assembly and wider community.
Her first impression of Wrangell was a positive one. “Everybody was so friendly and welcoming, and that’s what I’m looking for,” she recalled. “It’s funny, when I told people – friends and colleagues – I was interviewing for the job in Wrangell, people started coming out of the woodwork with stories about Wrangell. … It seems like everybody has a Wrangell story that I never knew about before until I mentioned it, and all of them have been exceedingly positive.”
Due to other work responsibilities, Von Bargen was only able to spend a couple of days in the community, much of that tied up with meetings and interviews.
“I didn’t spend as much time as I would have liked,” she said, adding, “I think I have a pretty good introductory understanding of the community.”
Von Bargen has also gotten a crash-course in some of the upcoming challenges the community faces, notably summertime production problems with its water treatment plant, but also an assortment of infrastructural needs and capital projects that need financing. There are parallels to be drawn with her experience in Valdez, but only to an extent.
“I have a lot of initial ideas churning in my head, given the information I have. I think it’s extremely important to get a handle on the community. I need to have much more in-depth conversations with people who have far more experience in Wrangell than I do now,” she explained. “That’s something I don’t want to do, is come in and say, ‘We need to try this,’ and ‘we need to try that.’”
Von Bargen admits that will take some time, but looks forward to the new opportunity. “There is a lot of time that has to be spent to get to know Wrangell really, and to understand how things need to evolve in the community, and how I can be a part of that equation.”
Prior to her transition to Wrangell, Von Bargen will be headed to a three-week program for public executives at Harvard University, in Massachusetts. “It’s an intensive course for peers around the nation and internationally,” she said. “This was something that was in play before I applied for the job in Wrangell.”
While there she will meet and learn alongside other public administrators, about leadership issues, budgetary management and other such skills. Von Bargen said she will also have an opportunity to make new peer contacts, professionals she can turn to for advice or counsel in the future.
“I’m extremely excited to have this opportunity to meet and talk about issues that I’m going to be dealing with directly now,” she said.
She will complete the course June 23, returning to Valdez. She starts work in Wrangell July 17, but will be in town the preceding week to transition.
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