An interview with Steve Mermell
By Larry Hammond
The City of Pasadena, California, with a population of approximately 140,000, is the 44th largest city in California. Pasadena is a complex city for a municipality of its relative proportions. It operates more like a large city than one of comparable size. It is known around the world for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and the Tournament of Roses Parade. It is also the home to California institute of Technology, the ArtCenter College of Design, and other internationally known institutions.
The city’s complexities extend to managing a truly diverse population, ethnically and economically, as well as a deep historical commitment to its cultural and physical structures. First, it owns and operates a football stadium and does not have a football team. It operates its own water and power department that supplies water, sewer services and electricity to Pasadena residents and businesses. It has its own police and fire departments with over five hundred dedicated public safety staff that includes a helicopter operation. Running a city that is laser focused on its citizens’ diverse needs, with over 2,300 employees and has an annual budget approaching $1 billion, takes a certain type of dedication and leadership. Enter, Steven B. Mermell, who served as this city’s city manager from 2016 through 2021.
Steven B. Mermell
Pasadena City Manager (2016-2021)
Before becoming the city manager, Steve’s more than 30-year stent with the city included serving as assistant city manager, finance director, budget administrator and purchasing administrator, just to name a few. Steve’s resume states that his areas of expertise include improving operations, municipal budgeting, policy analysis and project management and that he has a history of creative problem-solving, building consensus and strategic management.
I went on to explore Steve’s journey to become city manager and I asked him what he thought helped him to ascend to this position. He replied that he believed that his writing ability and analytical skills gave him a leg up. These attributes helped him to shine and get noticed. He also sees himself as a generalist which allowed him the flexibility to work in a variety of roles and not to be pigeon-holed in one area.
Steve said that one of the things that he believes made him successful in bringing his team together was that he never saw himself the smartest person in the room, “you can’t be totally egocentric and be an effective leader.” Success requires a team effort. You pull from their strengths, manage weaknesses, and support the team. He relied on his team to get things done. During the COVID Pandemic he met daily with his leadership team to assess the situation and discuss options. “When facing a problem, you are just looking for an answer.” He says that he does not have to be the person with the innovative idea but that he knows a good idea when he hears one.
Then, there was the response to COVID. While this certainly was an extraordinary event for all cities and was challenging for all municipal leaders, Steve pointed out that one of the major highlights of the pandemic was that the City of Pasadena did not lay off any employees as a result of the shutdown. This was not the case for many other cities. All staff pitched in to help get through the crisis. “The staff responded fabulously! It was a true team response. The pandemic rolled out in a crazy way. We all thought that the shutdown was only going to be a brief time.” As we know, that was not the case. The shutdown dragged out for months and the pandemic continued to get worse. Steve took immense pride in the team he was able to put together. During the pandemic, he saw them come together and do an amazing job keeping vital services going in Pasadena. Staff were eager and able to step in and help wherever needed to keep things going. When a crisis occurs, a talented team will rally and work collectively to keep operations functioning. This is the sign of good leadership. No one person gets through tough situations alone. Amassing a strong and capable team will help ensure that an organization can be agile and adapt to any situation.
After becoming city manager, and having been awfully familiar with the city’s budget, Steve knew that there were short and long - term issues that needed to be addressed. He immediately began to focus on these budget concerns. He was instrumental in modifying the contribution agreement with the city’s legacy fire and police pension system that ensured stability in this substantial financial obligation for years to come. The city’s budget needed a long- term structural solution. This problem was addressed, in large part, due to the efforts of Steve Mermell. He was the driving force that pushed a sales tax proposition that won approval by the City Council and the citizens of Pasadena to increase the local sales tax that helped to stabilize the city’s budget. These actions helped to secure the city’s AAA credit rating, a critical factor in fortifying the city’s financial status and borrowing power.
During the lockdown, Steve said that he sent out encouraging messages frequently to uplift the staff. People thanked him for the messages and talked about how much they appreciated personal concern. Leaders can play a key role in encouraging and uplifting staff during tough times. Showing support during a crisis and extolling positivity are crucial to coalescing a team.
When I asked him, what kept him up at night? He replied, “lots of things.” When you go to sleep, there are always five other conversations going on in your head. The city’s budget was a big worry and the times that he had to make big presentations to the City Council usually rose to the top. Concerns with the city’s health department, which was in a serious budget emergency, was one of the issues that caused him to lose sleep. Pasadena is one of only three cities in the state to operate its own health department. The department is a unique and vital service provider to the city’s residents. It is true benefit was fully revealed during the pandemic. The department was losing $2 million/year out of a $14 million annual budget. This could not be sustained. Helping to rectify this problem is also one of the things that he is most proud to have resolved. The reward comes when you can truly make a difference. “We did right by the people that used the JWCH - Andrew Escaped Clinic – three hundred patients in the clinic receiving care for HIV were about to lose funding. Finding a solution to that issue had an immediate and direct impact on the people needing the services of this vital clinic.” He reflected on a time when he had seen one of the patients on the street. She saw Steve and said the care was even better than before and expressed how happy she was that the clinic was providing excellent assistance to her and the other patients. “Situations like that makes it all worthwhile."
In the leadership realm, there are many different approaches to leading. When asked to describe his leadership style, Steve described himself like this: “I am a shy person. Being out in front is not my first choice.” He said that he had to step into this role and go beyond his comfort level to function in the limelight. He says when he makes decisions, he sticks with them. He says that he tries to always “lead by example” and model the behavior that he would like others to emulate. He always tries to lead with integrity, honesty, and a sense of what is right, what is ethical - even when it would be easier to do something else or not having to tell your boss no.
One of the most important leadership qualities that Steve thought served him well was his ability to compartmentalize issues. He also says that his ability to compartmentalize was a benefit. In the city manager role, you need to be able to go from one extreme situation to another on a dime. While not everything matters equally, every problem is important in one way or another to some facet of the community.
Leaders are often faced with conflicting, often dueling, concepts and issues. Leaders that can effectively compartmentalize, can provide laser focus on complicated matters. The issues concerning local residents, are of paramount importance to various constituencies. As city manager, every issue must be delt with at an appropriate level of concern and diligence. Leaders also must set aside their personal thoughts and feelings to get the work done.
Leaders often have mentors that they look to for inspiration and guidance. When asked did he have a mentor or a leadership figure that he learned from to help him lead, he responded that he did look up to others for inspiration and he also looked at people that did the wrong things where he learned not to follow their example. He saw historical figures like Churchill and Roosevelt as leaders that knew what needed to be done during their challenges. He admired people in the city over the years that had more experience than he did. Great leaders do not operate in a vacuum. We have already established that having a formidable team is key to a leader’s ultimate success. I believe that it is equally important to seek out others that have set to right examples and build on other’s strengths, successes, and mistakes.
“A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”
-- Winston Churchill
This leads into how he managed really difficult situations. He did not consider dealing with problems to be difficult. He sees problems as challenges; “dealing with them is my job.” Of course, problems related to police shootings that legitimately upset members of the public are disconcerting and are “angst ridden” bring about a great deal of anxiety and apprehension throughout the community. Getting to the root causes of these issues are complicated but not insurmountable. Steve believes that there are so few things that are so intractable that they cannot be solved.
He says that “What was difficult is when you have a solution to a problem and now you have to get others to sign on.” One example of this is what to do with the historic YWCA building. In this case, there was a solution placed on the table and for other political reasons the city did not avail itself to the solution on the table. Now the problem continues.
One of the things that is getting lots of attention these days is finding work/life balance particularly in high demanding jobs like his. When asked about how he found balance in his life, he responded, “There was none.” In this job you could get a call from the police chief in the middle of the night or while you are out to dinner informing you of a situation or even a tragedy that has just occurred in Pasadena. These types of circumstances happened relatively frequently and need to be addressed 24/7. He also stated that the City Council demanded immediate answers and when you have eight bosses that require answers to a variety of issues then you need to be constantly updated on the issues and prepared to provide answers. “You are expected to know everything.” Steve was meticulous in staying on top of emails, text messages and whatever other forms of inquiry or communications that he needed to be addressed.
“Life balance is not really true. That’s a joke.” The idea of letting a text or message wait was not an option for him. That just caused more anxiety. For Steve, it was job first and, yes, his family did suffer for it. Even when traveling on vacation he still responded.
It is a tremendous benefit to knowing the organizational culture but Steve points out that within any large organization, there are many micro cultures. Cultural perceptions for all employees are shaped mostly by their specific experiences in their particular work groups. Getting to work in the different areas gave him a good sense of how the city functioned overall. This was especially important in managing the entire organization. The city is a multipronged organization that does a wide variety of things. It doesn’t just produce one kind of product. The city is responsible for multiple lines of work ranging from many extremes like public safety, water and power, transportation, libraries, to emergency medical care and much, much more. There are certain things that you need to know. “When you have been around as long as I have, you have seen where things have worked and where things have gone wrong. That is a good way to learn stuff. “
A leader’s success is directly associated with their ability to maximize working in their strengths. One of Steve’s dominant strengths is that he is an insatiable learner. This talent has served him well as he has climbed the ladder within the city. His ability to learn new things, coupled with a really good memory, allowed him to move from one job to another with confidence and competence. He also says that his ability to remain calm was a positive attribute. A large part of remaining calm in challenging situations is a leader’s confidence in accepting that their actions are the only thing that they can really control and knowing that those actions will surely find a way out of difficult situations is the root to remaining calm. Also, knowing that difficult situations are a part of life and certainly in jobs like city manager. Problems and difficulties are part of self-development and should be seen as an opportunity to gain experience and learn.
We all have reflections on the decisions that we have made, paths we have chosen and things that, if we could, do differently. When I asked Steve, what would he have done differently if he had the chance, he said, “nothing really. There are a few things that I may have wished turned out otherwise, but I would not change anything. There are some things that you look back on that didn’t work out that well and you can say maybe I shouldn’t have tilted that windmill but those are few and far between.” He is proud of what he has done. He did add that he would have networked more because he did not do much of that. Although, it should be noted that during the pandemic, networking events and conferences were extremely limited.
Motivating team members in the best of times is a challenging task. When asked how he kept his team motivated during the pandemic, Steve said, that “it was always important to keep it top-of-mind that people are the most important aspect when leading any organization.” His approach was to treat people as peers. He was not one that attempted to use gimmicks or tokens to motivate people. He felt that it was really important to be genuine and sincere and he believed that if you show people that their contributions are important, that was usually the best motivator. People will see right through you when you lack sincerity, and you will surely lose credibility.
One of the most important factors in leadership is the ability to prioritize effectively. Steve’s approach to prioritizing is to focus on big issues and to push decision making down to the lowest reasonable level. People tend to push things upwards, and leaders have to learn not to get bogged down with smaller issues that should be managed by others. In his role as city manager, he would prioritize about a half a dozen issues that he would focus on in a year. He would direct his attention to work to get those things done. If you lose focus on the really important things, then you will find yourself lost and bogged down with lesser priorities.
Because of his lengthy experience with matters in Pasadena, Steve believed that you have to develop a feeling for issues, that he had acquired a “six-sense,” so to speak, about how certain things would play out. He believed that this acumen served as a vital part in setting the right priorities for the city that he was charged to lead.
In the 2009, documentary concert-film, Michael Jackson’s This Is It, about the Pop star’s rehearsals for his upcoming concerts, depicted the artist’s proficiency of his artistry. In one particular scene, Michael needed to hit an exact mark at a certain time to coincide with video exhibition that was running simultaneously while he was performing. In a discussion with the Director, Kenny Ortega, about how he was going to pull this off since he could not see the video from where he was positioned, Michael confidently responded, “I’ll just feel it". In the next iteration of that scene, Michael nailed it and hit his mark perfectly – he felt it. This is a demonstration of the mastery of his craft from his years of preparation.
Steve uses the analogy that some people have a very unique skill of determining the sex of newborn baby chicks. You just have to know… by looking at feathers, coloration, and other components that you just know by holding the chicks in your hand. He used the example of when he worked at Chucky Cheese, and he had to put 7 oz. of cheese on the pizza that after doing it over and over you can just pick up the cheese and you know that it is the right amount.
In his job managing the city, he asserts that with experience, you learn how to feel when you need to jump on something or wait – the level of importance of issues and whether or not it is important to your overall goals – and like Michael Jackson, you just have to feel it.
When asked, if he ever doubted himself, he replied, that “the good news is that nothing immediately comes to mind.” That means that he did not have any nagging regrets. Leaders have to be comfortable in their decisions. Some decisions will be right, and some will not. He reiterated that everything was not just on him alone and that he had an amazing team working with him. He also pointed out that they did things incrementally by moving big decisions slowly and thoughtfully. He always acted in the city’s best interest.
The job of city manager is an incredibly challenging position for the reasons explained heretofore. So, I asked Steve how he would rate his performance and what he thought of the job in general.
“The job is incredibly interesting. It was great. COVID gave a great opportunity to lead.” Problems of this magnitude show whether or not you have any leadership skills or not. It gives you an opportunity to step up to the challenge. When everything is copasetic you do not really know if you can lead or not. That’s when you see people fail when they are not up to it. Inertia is such a powerful force. It is hard to do something different and it can be a very heavy lift to get things done but it is gratifying to make important things happen. Crisis force you out of the zone of inertia. Leaders understand that one of their primary responsibilities is to solve problems. Leaders that see problems as opportunities thrive in their roles as leaders.
In reference to how he would grade his performance, he made a baseball analogy and said that he felt that he had a Rod Carew batting average. Rod had a batting average of 0.328 – 34th of all time. Average for the league is about 0.250. So, I would put that in the top percentile in the world of public administration. While certainly many others will have varying opinions about Steve’s performance, it is amply apparent that his leadership skills and acumen were the right combination of aptitudes for a very unusual and demanding time.
Conclusion:
Excellence is not achieved in isolation. Excellence is created through the merging of people's differing strengths and creating teams that that are aligned on goals. Finding the right leader is where the true excellence and success happens.
It is said that great leaders motivate others; assert themselves to overcome obstacles; build trusting relationships; make informed, unbiased decisions for the good of their team and organization; and create a positive culture that will flourish. Finding the right person to fulfill these responsibilities is a daunting task for any organization. While the debate as to if it is more advantageous to promote leaders from within or from the outside will continue, the bottom-line is that whichever decision is made, the new leader needs to be effective and consequential in moving organizations forward. When a person comes from within the ranks of your organization that can stand up and lead the organization through an unprecedented pandemic and the many challenges that have faced the city over the past several years, then, for this city, the answer of leadership, for this time period anyway, has been answered.
Sometimes saying goodbye to a place, to a culture and to the people, who have been so much a part of your life can be extremely difficult. The memories, the successes and the challenges that were faced have become an integral part of you and will never be forgotten. In the case of Steve Mermell, saying goodbye to “the dome” is bittersweet. The friends left behind the laughs and maybe a few tears too, will all continue to be a big part of him and will guide his future endeavors. As for Pasadena, Steve’s legacy of leadership with the City of Pasadena will be part of the tapestry of the history of this great city for years to come.
City Hall, Pasadena, CA
