| attorney in representing children as a guardian ad litem over the years," Jackson said. "And of course I was certified as a solo practitioner with the state to do MBE/DBE work." She then moved over to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and served as delegate for community services, which put her on the archbishop';s cabinet. Jackson represented the archbishop on many community boards including Catholic Charities and the Interfaith Conference. But downsizing hit the archdiocese and Jackson's position was effectively eliminated. Jackson then took a social justice position with Pax Christi out of Erie, Penn. Jackson had an injury and was allowed to work out of her home in Milwaukee. In some ways, Jackson was sitting in limbo when she was invited to apply for the secretary's position. "I was really ready for a change," Jackson said. "What intrigued me about the position was it was a cabinet level position, an opportunity to really have an impact in an area of state government. So I had some connections in that regard. But I saw it as just a great opportunity. And it was something new and fresh. I just took it on in that vein. I had a little bit of regulatory experience from my work with the Board of Bar Examiners and the Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility, which are regulatory agencies for attorneys with the Wisconsin Supreme Court. So there was some experience I had there doing regulatory work. I just thought it was an interesting challenge. It's been a great opportunity. I have really enjoyed the work. I had a lot of challenges and learned a lot of different things. I'm working with the legislature in a different vein than I have ever done before. I'm having the opportunity to work at this level of government and with other state agencies. And I'm having the chance to make a difference. You know social justice people are always trying to make a difference. You don't get the chance to move mountains, but at least you get the chance to plant seeds." Whereas Jackson's experience is primarily public in nature, Wyatt Sibley's is the complete opposite. She is proud that she is a success story of the Milwaukee Public School System. And she worked for one company during her working career. "I spent probably 30 plus years at AT&T, which was SBC, Wisconsin Bell and so on and so forth. Basically, I spent most of my career there in a management/operational site environment. I worked in human relations, operations, network planning, and field operations. I retired in 1997. Since then, I've been doing all of the things I like to do, which is still more of the same. I worked as a consultant with Fortis Health, which is now Assurant, as a business representative of a team that was putting in a new call center. So I have a lot of customer service background, which is a very complementary job in terms of the people that we serve and the whole idea around consumer protection. From there, I went to Time Warner cable where I was general manager for Milwaukee. I had all of the field operations and the call center." It was only then, upon leaving Time Warner after two and a half years, that Wyatt Sibley began to dabble in public service. She became the executive director of the Milwaukee YWCA, which provided services primarily for women and girls at multiple sites in the Milwaukee area. It was also facing a $5.5 million deficit. "I came in November and committed for 90 days and ended up being there for two and a half years," Wyatt Sibley said. "By the end of the first year, we were at break even. That was huge. It was a horrible experience. Everyday you go in and you were on the hot seat because we had five different banks that we dealt with. By the time I left, they were on stable footing. Things were starting to turn around and I made the decision to leave." "We had known each other from a volunteer perspective," Wyatt Sibley said. "I knew her because we had been on a board together. And when I was at the Y, we had reconnected because she was at the archdiocese. Then we kind of lost track of each other. I got the phone call and she said 'I need your help.' I thought 'What kind of volunteer thing does she want me to do?' I didn't know she had come to Madison as secretary. She asked me if I could help her and I said 'I guess so.' Then when she told me what she was doing, I said 'I don't think I could do that.' So, she kind of backdoored me. I knew her background. She was an attorney. I told her I wasn't one. She told me she didn't need an attorney. She needed someone who knew how to run an organization. That is my job, to run the inside of the agency. So we started talking in February. I said okay because I never thought I would get through the vetting part of it. So I just kind of applied and forgot about it. Then I got this phone call asking me when I was going to start. I thought 'Start?' Then it started to become real that this was going to happen. So I started the Monday after Easter." Although Wyatt Sibley's credentials and skill set from the private sector applied to the public sector, it was still a "cultural shock" for her because the purpose of private and public sector organizations are so different. "For me, there isn't a sense of urgency in government compared to the corporate environment," Wyatt Sibley observed. "In corporate, you are living and dying by meeting your net income requirement. So from an operational perspective, every body has their goals, their bonuses, and their compensation is tied to how well the company performs. You stay very focused on what you need to accomplish. The public sector had a much different orientation. "I think, in some ways, you have this legislative-political component that kind of weighs in on everything," Wyatt Sibley emphasized. "What I found interesting in just a short time is how decisions are made while not really looking at the financial implications of those decisions. Many times, an agency like this is expected to implement something, but isn't really given the resources it needs to do it. For me, when I came here, I looked at it from my perspective and that is I think of taxpayers as people who have invested in the state of Wisconsin because they pay taxes. So as a state employee, it is my responsibility to take those revenues and to maximize them as best as we can. But unfortunately, that isn't the mindset of people. As a taxpayer, we are way back there in terms of whom the state employees feel they are responsible to. I look at the Governor as sort of the CEO for the state who puts a plan in place and says 'This is the goal,' which we will hear in the State of the State address. And we as an agency will look at that and see how that relates to DRL and build our plan around that and take that all of the way down to every employee so they see the connection and we are all on the same page, moving in the same direction. That doesn't always work because you have legislators and lobbyists and associations who have different interests and agendas that now feed into that. That makes it a much different dynamic." Next: Ensuring voices of color are heard in the decision-making process. |
| Consumer protection The one-two punch at Wis. Dept. of Regulation& Licensing by Jonathan Gramling |
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| Celia M. Jackson, secretary of DRL (l), and her deputy secretary, Barbara Wyatt Sibley |
| The Wis. Dept. of Regulation & Licensing (DRL) is one of the more "quiet" state agencies. It rarely makes headlines; its management team is rarely seen on television. Yet, as conventional wisdom goes, the real decisions affecting the everyday lives of thousands of people and touching the life of every Wisconsin resident at some time in his/her life, are rarely made under the spotlight's glare. While the consumer protection office in the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection does receive a lot of attention when it successfully uncovers a case of fraud, DRL doesn't receive attention for the fraud it prevented in the first place. In April 2005, Governor James Doyle tapped Celia Jackson to succeed Donsia Strong-Hill as the secretary of DRL. One year later, Doyle approved Jackson's choice for her deputy secretary, Barbara Wyatt Sibley. Together, they are the first African American women to hold the top two positions in a state department. They are also a great combination to head a 110 staff agency that regulates 128 types of credentials in 57 different professional fields. Over 340,000 professionals, from funeral directors to physicians to dentists, are credentialed by DRL. Jackson is the community activist of the pair with a broad experience interfacing with local and state government. Wyatt Sibley is the corporate manager lured out of retirement by Jackson's entreaties. Together, their different skill sets blend together to make an effective management team. Jackson's professional career has been centered on public service. She worked in the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office before entering private practice as a lawyer. "I had been an advocate on issues not necessarily these types of regulatory issues -- concerning child welfare in my role as an |
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