 Hi everybody my name is Jason Klein I'm the director of P20 initiatives at Northern Illinois University and I do a lot of different things with school districts and community colleges around the state of Illinois but a big part of my job is helping school districts implement the career pathways and support work-based learning. Well since the shelter and place started one of the things that went away in addition to being in school buildings with each other was the opportunity to be in workplaces doing job shadowing and internships and having those experiences so the idea of this series the career pathways virtual trail heads is to bring the workplace to you to students with a variety of different occupations available for you to learn more about as well as learn about those essential skills that cut across all careers. Today this is part of a series of interviews we're going to have with staff members in St. Charles Illinois and we don't often think of government as an important industry but it's super important. I work for the government for example and our guest today Joan she works with the government so Joan I'm going to turn it over to you and let you introduce yourself. Thank you I'm Joan Scouton and I currently work for the city of St. Charles I am their purchasing division manager. A purchasing division manager is an exciting position because you get to deal with all the other individuals and all the other departments I get to work with engineers I get to work with administrators I get to work with the guys out in the field to get their hands dirty and I get to work with the guy the finance and the HR people as well and what do I do for them anytime they need to either order a good an item something that's tangible or hire a consultant for a service or hire another company to facilitate our services they have to go through purchasing. In purchasing in a government scenario we spend the taxpayers dollars now if you like to spend money in shop this could sound kind of exciting because that's what I do I spend other people's money when you work for the government you have to be very prudent and very careful on how you spend government money you have to follow the laws and you have to follow the documentation and you have to make sure that everything is fair and transparent and ethical and accountable and professional how do we do this well use the computer a lot there you use spreadsheets look excel you communicate in on the web you use different software you might make brochures or advertisements to build your vendor base or educate your vendor base you are helping write technical stuff from the engineers or the guys out in the field on what it is exactly that they want to order or serve you have to make sure that what the vendors are getting and reading and reviewing isn't is under clearly understood so there are some writing skills that are needed sometimes you have to write very simply in your writing instructions and sometimes you're writing very visually so they can see what it is that they have to do or provide right um frequently it it is do you it is a team effort so whereas a procurement person might gather all the information the procurement person depends on the other departments and it's a team work so we have the end user and we have their boss who might be watching the money and you have a procurement person who's doing the documentation and depending on what it is you might need a lawyer to help look at contract information and you need somebody in finance to make sure all the money is available so the procurement person tends to be a liaison or team leader or facilitator to help spend the money so Joan let me let me jump in because you've given us a lot of information there's a lot involved and you know I can't help but think about my friend char who was uh one of the school districts I was in char was our our head of purchasing and she had to become an expert on everything I mean I was in charge of technology and so as we would start a process and and technology is exempted in Illinois for school districts from requiring an RFP and I'll ask you in a few minutes to talk about about those kinds of processes and explain to people what those are but oftentimes we also we did them anyways and you know when we start those processes char would know nothing about those things and by the end of it she would be maybe not quite as expert as the members of our of our IT team but but probably second after after them and so tell us about with all of these different people you work with and all of these different things that St. Charles has to purchase what does a typical day look like in your job um can't walk us through that well um while there is no two days they're exactly alike because you rarely order exactly the same thing all the time or or try and solicit and and buy it um a typical day is someone from out in the field someone from another department might contact me and say okay I need to or hire a consultant to do this or we're looking for uh we have this project and this is what we need so they will tell me what they need and maybe provide documentation which is very technical and my job then is to take that and read it and say okay but if I'm a business person I need to know this and this which isn't clear so I may work with that end user or that person from another department say okay you said all this but what is the size of it or how long do you want the service for or what is the budget for this or I don't understand where is it located or or some of the questions that they may not think of I kind of look at it as a jack of all trades and master of none and when you're a master you know exactly what you want but you may not think of it from another person's perspective so procurement brings in that other perspective so this this is a lot to keep track of I mean you've really emphasized the the team aspect of your work um so I've got a couple of questions in the planning and organizing area because that seems like that would probably be very important to be successful in your work first of all what are your tips and tricks for keeping organized what advice you know what what would you say you would tell someone coming into into your work to do to keep themselves organized well that's a very key skill at the moment um because government technologically is a little slower than the private sector so technologically government is just now getting into some of the software that can assist in tracking and managing this but before it's fully implemented and different people implemented different stages you have to be organized whether it's the a detailed calendar day planner or whether it's um post-it notes on a on a Kanban board or whether it's um as excel spreadsheets um you have to be organized and even color-coded file folders have worked in the past but now there the technology is catching up and providing us software that allows us to um track every project as it goes through the different phases and when I say phases there's probably 15 different stages for doing the solicitation and different paperwork or different approvals or different documentation that is required to go through each of those stages and I say documentation required because again in government you have to be very transparent and let everyone know why you are doing something and what the rationale and what the criteria is in order to make something proceed to the next stage and when I talk about different stages I might have the first stage might be okay I know that Ken and engineering has this project coming on and Tim over in this department has this project coming on so I know what's coming in the future meanwhile I got documents from Larry saying this is what we're working on but I got to read it through to kind of figure out okay this is good but I need to know a little more information here at the same time I have something on the street for Jen who is who I have vendors coming back to me and saying we read what you have but can you clarify this and then there's probably results we put responses coming in from three or four different vendors on something that I have out there for Chris where I have to do some mathematical analysis of dollars and hours spent and if they had all the compliance to the required government requirement and then it goes back to Chris or whoever the evaluation team is and they are looking over everything to make sure that who is qualified to do the work and how are they documenting that they are qualified and by the way are they providing exactly what we asked for and then when they say this is who we think is the most qualified with what we've asked for then we got to make sure that the contract is all in compliance and then it might require a legal review and then it might then it will have to go to the government council most likely for their blessing and their review to make sure everything is compliant and the best value for the city and it's still a good a good expenditure of public funds and then we get to start the work so it's with multiple stuff it is a lengthy process and again it's very clear how many people you interact with on a regular basis so two kind of opposite sides of the coin questions here coming up the first what is the most exciting aspect of your of your work well the most exciting what I find most exciting is is twofold one I enjoy knowing that what I'm doing and all of my attention to detail is to better the community that I live in it's my way of contributing and giving back and that's just an internal value that I have that I want to know that I'm doing good I'm not motivated so much by making money or but but I want to make the world a better place so that is exciting for me the other thing is I'm somebody who likes to solve puzzles or keep things in order or just just keep things flowing and moving I like throughput I like you here and I finish there so I get excited when I can see things come off the back end and and be complete and know that when they when they repaired that bridge or when they built that building or when they hired this company to do this I had a little part that is a sign of pride and contribution so the flip side of that then is in all of our jobs there's either work that we don't like to do or that people from the outside might not know is part of our job what is what is something in your work that that either people would have no idea you have to do or that might be whether for you or for other people that do the work kind of a source of drudgery and not maybe the most fun part of the job but we we really want to expose all aspects of the workplace as as we learn about them so we don't think that a job is just going to be the one glamorous thing that that people might be thinking it is you're right in it and every job does have a little bit of drudgery and the drudgery could be all the paperwork not most people most people do not want to enter a career saying I love to do paperwork or I love to do detail work and yet it's kind of exciting it it's a drudgery because again when you work with different people different people approach things different way and some people are easier to work with than others and some people understand I ask questions from the left field when they know exactly what they want and they thought they said it clearly so sometimes that clarification can you know personalities you gotta you gotta work with a lot of people but um probably the drudgery is a lot of the detail and they say the devil's in the detail but that could be drudgery um and then again once you put that last puzzle piece in it's done and it can keep going but until you find that last piece just sits and and pesters you so I think some of the drudgery is the detail and the paperwork um but again once you get that done there's a feeling of satisfaction cool um so kind of kind of finishing up because you really hit on some of the other questions and some really some really neat ways and certainly talked about how you feel like your work has a positive impact on the world and I appreciate uh you bringing that up on your own without without even being prompted but what what advice would you give for a student who might be kind of trying to figure out their career uh regardless of what that career is as you look back on your career experience what would just be kind of the single most important piece of advice you would give a student I think I have been asked that question before and I never knew really what I wanted to do when I was younger um I thought I wanted to be a teacher and I've done some teaching but in my job I'm teaching people the processes or teaching them and walking them through how to do how to do these solicitations at some type type in my life I thought oh law might be interesting but I am dealing with contract law and looking at things from the perspective of a lawyer of where are the loopholes um because I didn't know what I wanted to do I'm very fascinated by hearing what do these engineers do and how does how does um IT solve this problem and sometimes I'm not looking for a service as much as I'm out to buy a solution to a problem so so I find it exciting because I get exposure into all different trades and specialties um that I would have never even thought of coming from a school environment before I did purchasing in government I also did purchasing in the private sector and that had even a wider group of uh companies and businesses to get into I got to tool tour plants and I got to tour um steel melting facilities I got to tour um corporate offices and and offices overseas I got to work with dollars and I got to work with jen and I got to work with deutschmarks um so there's a pursuing purchasing which our skills does give you insight into so many different areas so whenever I meet new people I ask what they do and usually there's some connection I can make with them because I have some little familiarity with what they with what they do through my work in purchasing so to pin you down your advice though would be my advice would be if you if you are interested in learning purchasing is a good place to be because you're always learning about your clients your internal customers business and you're always dealing with a lot of new contractors or businesses who want to serve you so you get to look at things from the whole from all aspects of the supply chain yeah it as as I said earlier in this process it is an incredibly interesting job particularly in government when you think about the range of of things you're responsible for I mean again in my experiences in the school district we're doing everything from parking lots and construction to books and computers and 3d printers and so uh to to healthcare products right I mean that are part of our part of our schools and so um yeah there's there's no shortage of things I am sure that you would be hard pressed to meet somebody and not be able to have some connection from your work experiences so um well this has been super super helpful I really appreciate it you certainly have a career that highlights the importance of collaboration and the importance of organization those things are clear as you manage all of these different projects with all these different people and so thank you so much Joan for joining us today you're welcome glad to have been here for those of you watching remember this is another in our career pathways virtual trailhead series from Broadway to an electrical outlet and everything in between we've got the occupations covered and more coming if you have ideas about an occupation you'd like to see us highlight about a specific person you think would make a great guest or certain questions you would like us to ask please go ahead and share those with us on twitter our twitter account is at p20 network that's at p20 network and for example one of the questions we asked we asked uh Joan today came through that kind of dialogue uh that resulted from a twitter connection so thank you again for watching we look forward to bring you more of these and Joan thanks again for participating you're welcome