- April 26, 2024
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As city manager of Ormond Beach, Joyce Shanahan makes it a point of putting herself in her workers’ shoes — even when those shoes are knee-deep in sewer-line trenches.
BY MIKE CAVALIERE | ASSOCIATE EDITOR
If you were lucky, and you got up early enough, you might have spotted Ormond Beach City Manager Joyce Shanahan up to her knees in mud last July, digging trenches on Beach Street with the city’s sewer and water crew.
Days like these she calls “field days.” They’re when she gets out from behind her desk at City Hall and into the actual city, to work a day for her employees — and they don’t take it easy on her, either, Shanahan jokes.
On that particular day in July, she was out at 7 a.m., dressed in trench-digging clothes in the heat of the summer. And the crew put a shovel in her hands. And she started digging.
“If you saw me on the side of you road, you wouldn’t have known what I really did for a living,” Shanahan said. “It really gives me a deeper appreciation for (these jobs).”
Walking a day in her workers’ shoes each month also allows her to see firsthand exactly how her city operates.
But even though this kind of thing is common for Shanahan after 10 years managing cities in Florida (before taking over Ormond four years ago, she managed Fort Walton Beach, in the panhandle), this kind of work is not common for all city managers. She’s the only one she knows of, in fact, that clocks days in the field — a tradition she started her first month on the job in Fort Walton.
“I do everything from roads to commodes,” Shanahan said of her position. But at its core, a city manager’s job is to ensure that the city runs smoothly and uses its resources most efficiently.
And for Shanahan, the best way to do that is to get her hands dirty
To friend Pam Brangaccio, though, who manages the city of New Smyrna Beach and has known Shanahan more than a decade, this kind of double-duty is par for the course.
“She’s an amazon, basically,” Brangaccio said, citing Shanahan’s after-hours service on the United Way board of directors and for the Rotary Club of Daytona Beach, her presidency of the Florida City and County Management Association and how committed she is to marathon-running.
“She can be a very serious person,” Brangaccio added. “Type A. Serious. (But) she excels at everything.”
Having gotten into bicycling from spinning at the gym, Shanahan started long-distance cycling, and now she takes semi-regular trips from Ormond to Saint Augustine, up State Road A1A. She also “was determined to become a marathon runner,” Brangaccio said. And so she became one.
In the past two years, Shanahan has run 10 half-marathons and a full marathon. In the next month, she’ll run in four more races.
Pulling at an animal charm she wears around her neck, Shanahan says that the turtle is her mascot.
“I’m not fast,” she said. “But I finish the race. … Attitude is everything. You can train for skill but if you don’t have the right attitude, you’re dead in the water.”
So Shanahan thinks a lot about her attitude. She truly believes that she can effectuate change “on the grassroots level,” and that keeps her passionate.
“That’s what draws me to the government,” she added, “the great ability to impact lives.”
In 2013, the most major changes Shanahan hopes to facilitate locally are the remodeling of Granada Boulevard and Andy Romano Beachfront Park (“the newest jewel in the Ormond Beach crown”). A $20 million wastewater treatment plant upgrade is slated to finish early next year. And she hopes to work with local police and fire unions, as well as the state legislature, to negotiate pension plans.
Longer range, stormwater and street improvements on John Anderson Drive and Hand Avenue, as well as interconnecting lakes in Central Park, to make for better drainage and recreation, are also on her to-do list.
“She has such a huge professional job, and so much responsibility. And yet, she still has time to do (nonprofit work),” Rotary Club of Daytona Beach President Susan Perry, who’s known Shanahan about six years, said. “If Joyce is involved with (one of our events), it attracts other people.”
And that’s thanks to her high level of commitment, which Brangaccio says translates directly to Shanahan’s (who is also a gourmet-caliber cook, she adds) personal life.
In order to move up in government administration, Brangaccio says, you have to move around. And so if you want to keep contact with old friends, you need the make an effort.
So Shanahan organizes her friends to come together for annual Disney marathons. She themes each run, orders t-shirts and makes sure everyone’s coming.
“She uses running as a chance to stick with her friends,” Brangaccio said. “She’s amazing. I don’t know how she does it.”
But if you asked Shanahan, she’d tell you she does it because it’s what she loves to do. She wants to make a difference. And there’s no point resting until she does.
“Every day is different,” Shanahan said of her work for the city. “That’s the real beauty in what I do, and that’s what keeps the job exciting. You never know what problems will come to the forefront.”
But whatever they are, Shanahan will face them — even if it means grabbing a shovel and hitting the trenches.
Joyce Shanahan
Age: 51
Family: With her significant other, Chris, she has three rescue cats, Chloe, Gracie and turkey.
Occupation: Ormond Beach City Manager
Quirky fact: She's a marathoner, and she has run 10 half-marathons and a full marathon in the past two years.
