Most young people get their first job babysitting for a friend, mowing the lawn for a neighbor or working at a local restaurant or retail store.
At age 16, Maura Sullivan got her first job working for the mayor of the biggest county in Tennessee, Shelby County Mayor Bill Morris.
“I got to see how government worked and how local government can make a difference and I fell in love with it,” Sullivan recalls.
Two decades and a half dozen jobs later, Sullivan is still working in local government. But at the end of last year, after working in a variety of planning, court and local government administrative posts in Memphis, Sullivan agreed to leave her hometown, cross the state and take a top job at Chattanooga City Hall for Mayor Andy Berke.
Sullivan is chief operating officer for the city of Chattanooga, responsible for working with city department heads to help coordinate functions, implement the mayor’s programs and help oversee and direct the 6,000 employees in Chattanooga’s city government.