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Alumni and friends of 51����’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service and the Voinovich Academy for Excellence in Public Service gathered recently in Columbus to network and support the school’s Public Administration Program.

The event was held in the downtown location of Jackie O’s Brewpub, which expanded in recent years from its Athens roots.

Among the attendees at the event was Deanna Clifford, who earned her undergraduate degree in 1985 and eventually an MA in Communication from OHIO. She started her career as a public information coordinator for the university’s Telecommunications Center.

“I went on to a career primarily focused on public service,” she said.

Clifford’s focus on aging policy led her to a job with the Ohio Department of Aging, where she would eventually rise to serve as the manager of access and integration. She would eventually return to the University, where she now works out of the Dublin branch as senior program manager of the Voinovich Academy for Excellence in Public Service.

She found reward in “helping to train future leaders and helping people find the leader in themselves,” Clifford said.

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Others at the event also shared their experiences with OHIO programs.

Attendees who participated in the Voinovich Leadership Academy included Nathalie Bravo Cardozo, who went through the program along with her husband. She today works as a senior business underwriter at the Ohio Department of Development.

“We decided to do it together. We learned a lot and we loved it,” she said. “It’s a great resource, not just for the work we do but for us personally.”

She cited information on emotional intelligence and other leadership qualities as among “a lot of important information you, as a public servant, you need to learn.”

Tom Evans was part of the 2022 executive MPA cohort at OHIO. He earned the degree in between jobs with the Ohio Senate’s communications office and now with U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, as the lawmaker’s deputy state director.

“The best part for me was how it fit so seamlessly into my life,” he said of the MPA program. “It was balancing my work, being a husband getting a new job and being in grad school all at the same time. Really overall it was a great experience.”

“As far as my professional career, it advanced my knowledge of public service beyond communications,” Evans added, citing the numerous aspects of public policy covered by the program. “It really just elevated all that knowledge.”

Scott Wingenfeld earned his undergraduate degree in 2008 and his MPA two years later.

His experience with the program “gave me a lot of good skills in budgeting, data analysis, management – basically everything you could use in a job,” he said.

Upon graduation, he quickly entered the field with a job at the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, now called the Department of Behavioral Health.

His ongoing career with the state has focused on overseeing federal grants as a program evaluator.

“It’s been my lifelong passion to continue doing that work,” which currently includes managing an entire portfolio of federal grants. “That’s one thing I really appreciated about the program for the MPA is that it taught you every part of how to manage a grant, manage a federal program or any kind of publicly-funded program.”

Donations to the Voinovich School’s Public Administration Program can be made

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