Joel A. Miller, MPA alumni and Associate Circuit Judge Worth County, Missouri reflects on his career.
I entered the MPA program in August of 1995 and graduated in 1997 thanks to Dr. Mark Rushefsky’s encouragement to apply for a graduate assistantship. I graduated from the University of Missouri in 1992, and held various entry-level jobs until he invited me down for a campus visit that he personally provided. Although I have never told him until now, his recruitment efforts fundamentally and profoundly changed my professional life. I am always indebted to him for setting me on a career path I would have otherwise never had but for his efforts. I am also grateful to him for preventing me from throwing a desktop computer out the second-floor classroom window as I tried to learn DOS-based programming for his Quantitative Analysis class. Dr. Rushefsky, you are a kind and patient man. (We’ll just have to take his word for that)
I took a job with the Northwest Missouri Regional Council of Governments in Maryville, Missouri immediately upon graduation as a community development planner. I worked with fellow Missouri State alum Tom Bliss (MPA 1998), who served as the economic development planner. Writing grants and serving rural communities with my talented friend Tom was both fulfilling and fun. Together, we were responsible for bringing over $10 million in grants to the region. To date, that time was the most rewarding professional experience of my life. The hours were long, and the pay was low. Nonetheless, working with another trained public professional really facilitated an exciting work environment that spawned new ideas and fundamentally helped some communities. We were literally implementing ideas and concepts taught to us in the MPA program at Missouri State. We also played a lot of Frisbee in the office hallway (our boss was a patient man).
In the end, Mr. Bliss was better at community and economic development, since he is now the executive director of the Southeast Nebraska Development District in Lincoln, Nebraska. I went on to law school at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
I received a full-tuition scholarship to law school as a Public Service Scholar. The committee told me I received the award because of my grades in graduate school and, more importantly, because I used my degree to assist an underserved rural area. Thus, they were confident I would continue to serve in a similar capacity as a lawyer.
I have served as the Associate Circuit Judge of Worth County, Missouri since 2006. As a court of general jurisdiction, I hear everything from felony criminal cases to probate matters. In addition, by local order, I serve as the juvenile judge for the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Missouri, which is comprised of five counties in the northwest corner of the state. During my tenure, I have served on the Missouri Supreme Court’s State Judicial Records Committee and the Committee for Access to Family Courts.
There is a surprising amount of administration as a judge. When one thinks about it, one will realize that the judiciary, as the third branch of state government, is a large bureaucracy like any other state agency. Additionally, you work with many other state and federal agencies on a daily basis. As such, having a working knowledge of both organizational theory and personnel management really pays dividends. There are still grants to write, people to manage, and budgets to prepare.
Many judges are exclusively students of the law. However, being an expert in law does not necessarily make one an expert in management, preparing a budget, or understanding subtle political machinations. It is not uncommon for my brethren to seek my counsel on such matters. And although I could not cite the authors (apologies, Dr. Patrick Scott), I can recall the principles learned in the MPA program, and still rely on them to assist them in navigating the bureaucratic waters that accompany the position. In other words, law school teaches you to be a lawyer. It does not teach you how to run an office or manage staff.
The MPA program taught me to research, write, and synthesize multiple ideas into a coherent, singular thesis. These skills served me well as a grant writer, law student, lawyer, and judge. More importantly, through hard work, it gave me the confidence to attack and solve problems both as an individual and in a group setting. Most importantly, it exposed me to a group of wonderful, interesting fellow students that I would have otherwise never known. Each of my classmates (and especially my fellow graduate assistants) taught me something during group discussions in class and “studying” outside of class. I am forever grateful for your kindness and patience.
If you are unsure what the next step will be for you professionally, I would encourage you to do what I did: Take a visit to the MPA program at Missouri State. You never know what it might lead to in twenty years. I sure didn’t.