The Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC), a government agency that unifies resources and promotes cooperation and collaboration among 13 member localities, has named Craig Fifer as executive director.
Fifer is a 2008 graduate of George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government’s Northern Virginia Public Service Fellows Program, a Master of Public Administration degree program designed for mid-career professionals employed by regional governments.
The NVRC, with a budget of about $9.5 million, brings together member municipalities on programs “where there is more efficiency in working together,” Fifer said. Solar power, watershed management, solid waste management, soil and erosion control, and human services programs such as the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program are examples of projects that benefit from cooperative efforts.
The Fellows program is cohort based, bringing together students from multiple and varied agencies from around the Washington, D.C., region.
“I went to school with local government managers from the same localities that are members of the Commission,” he said. “All throughout my program I had a sense of regional collaboration and a real understanding of how Northern Virginia operates as a region.”
The MPA curriculum provided a durable toolkit for the rising executive.
“For all students in the MPA program, having a good overview of the fundamentals of public administration, such as budgeting, policy, and ethics really sets you up to be a leader in public administration,” Fifer said. “Part of the point of the MPA program is to show how many different things you can do in the public sector. It equips you to really go in any direction, and I'm fortunate to have been able to use it to get where I am today.”
Fifer isn’t just a graduate of the MPA program, he’s an instructor in the program: For the last 11 semesters, he’s been a Schar School adjunct professor, teaching ethics. This year he’s added Introduction to Public Administration to his workload.
“So, I’m teaching the first course and the last course in the program,” he said, adding that the current semester is “the 20th anniversary to the day of my first day of graduate school in the MPA program.”