Serving the Public Interest: Profiles of Successful and Innovative Public Servants: Profiles of Successful and Innovative Public Servants

This reader presents a balanced collection of 16 administrative profiles of high-level government and nonprofit officials for course use. They were originally published as part of a series for Public Administration Review and provide rich, in-depth examples of the work performed by high-level public servants and the factors that contribute to their effectiveness. Administrative profiles have long been an important instructional tool in public administration classes on, for example, leadership, management, ethics, organization theory, and general public affairs. They have also presented positive images and role models to students preparing for careers in the public service or to those already working in government and nonprofit organizations. As Cooper and Wright (1992, xii-xiii) point out, profiles of exemplary administrators provide instructive and inspirational role models both for preservice students considering careers in public service and for working administrators in a field that often feels maligned and demeaned by the public and the media. The book begins with an extensive introduction to the use and importance of administrative profiles. The profiles themselves cover a wide range of public service professionals at the local, state, and federal levels, and are written by a distinguished cast of authors. A concluding chapter by Norma Riccucci pulls together and synthesizes the various themes of the profiles.

Norma M. Riccucci is Professor of Public Administration at Rutgers University, Newark. Dr. Riccucci has published extensively in the areas of public management, affirmative action, and diversity management in the public sector. She is the recipient of several national awards including, ASPA's Charles H. Levine Award for excellence in teaching, research and service to the community, ASPA/ NASPAA's Distinguished Research Award; the ASPA Section of Women in Public Administration's Rita Mae Kelly Award for Research Excellence; ASPA's Section on Personnel Administration and Labor Relations' Scholarship in Public Human Resources Award; and APSA's Herbert Simon Book Award.