Jamie Kuhn Appointed Interim Dane County Executive: Experience and Heart (Part 1 of 2)
Interim Dane County Executive has served in elected and appointed positions in municipal, county and state government, most recently in Governor Tony Ever’s Office.
by Jonathan Gramling
During her over 25 years of public service, Jamie Kuhn, the interim Dane County executive, has seen government from just about every angle — from overseeing a staff of 1,200 as the State of Wisconsin Medicaid Director for WI Dept. of Health Services to representing a relatively small Dane County supervisory district, not to speak of as a tax payer as she and her husband raised her family on Madison’s east side.
Over the years, Kuhn has quietly amassed a wealth of experiences that allows her to transition to the role of Dane County’s top executive. What also allows her to transition easily is her commitment to people and public service and a love for Dane County. And it doesn’t hurt that she grew up in the rural setting of River Falls near the Minnesota border and the city of Madison — or Milwaukee — for pretty much her entire adult life
And then there is that politics bug that bit her when she was a student at UW-Green Bay where she was studying sociology and environmental studies.
“I was engaged in student government and that is what really brought me down here,” Kuhn said. “I continued working for the state student association. And then one day, I ran into Tim Sullivan who said, ‘Where do you live? You should run for office.’ And I said, ‘Sure, why not? What do I have to lose? I care about what is going on in the community.’ And that is how it happened.’”
Kuhn ran in 1998 and won her Dane County Supervisor seat. She admits she was surprised by how few votes someone needed to win. But it reinforced her knowledge that it is all about the people you serve, no matter how many or how few.
“I think what I learned from that experience, much like others, is if you work really, really hard and talk with people where they are at, they will trust in you as long as you are communicating with them,” Kuhn said. “I think that leads over into everything. When you take the time to sit down with people, whether you agree with them or not, it’s not always the end goal. It’s about making connections. I think that is partially why I do enjoy county government. You are close to the services that are being provided and the people who are providing them. This is a growing community, but still a reasonable sized community where walking around and you are interfacing with all of that, it’s not so distant from you. You can have meaningful conversations and you can make meaningful change, small or big, by doing the work. That’s the reason why I do what I do. I care about the community, not just because I live here, but because I have always believed that my parents always taught me that if you want to do good, you have to be out there doing the work.”
Much of the work that Kuhn has done in government has been in service to constituencies, even as chief of staff to former Senator Mark Miller. And it is that dedication to service that led her to earn a master’s degree in social work from UW-Madison.
“When I was in the legislature, I was having conversations with constituents of the senator, trying to connect them to resources and services and even determining who was the right person to connect them to,” Kuhn reflected. “I realized that in order to do that, I thought it would be useful to get trained in how do we actually work with people and how do people think and how do we respect them while sometimes having to say no to people. How do we engage and empower people, which is really the key, being an ally and doing things to empower people. I think I’ve taken opportunities that have been in front of me. But it’s never been my mission for it to be anything about me. It really is about who we are serving in the community and how we are making changes that benefit people.”
Kuhn was fortunate to work for an understanding boss in Rep. Mark Miller who was willing to be flexible. And that probably paid off in Kuhn’s expertise in working with the community.
“I was very fortunate that Rep. Miller at the time was a huge believer — I think it goes back to when Midge was in the legislature — in supporting your staff through educational opportunities,” Kuhn said. “He was very supportive of me doing both. And at the time, it basically made it work. I did a lot of stuff on the weekends and did a lot of going back and forth. The university was rather generous with their flexibility with me because at the time, it was not necessarily a part-time program at the university. I didn’t do it all in one year like is normally the case. It took me a little bit longer.”
Kuhn served on the Dane County Board twice, from 1998-2000 and then again from 2018-2019 when she resigned to focus full-time as Governor Tony Evers’ director of External Relations to avoid any conflicts or sticky situations.
During the first time around, Kuhn served on the zoning committee, which gave her a bird’s eye view of the diversity within Dane County.
“With zoning, there is a lot of interaction with town officials and rural community members who were obviously outside of the city,” Kuhn said. “And so the amount of knowledge that I gained from that experience was helpful in figuring out how we talk about land use. How do we talk about services that are provided whether they are in urban areas or rural areas? As someone who grew up in rural Wisconsin, it was still very important to me that we are focusing on both because there are certainly different issues, but they have similar solutions. And we do a lot to try to divide the issues and talk about them separately. And I think it is really beneficial for us to talk about it together. There are so many similarities that we can do this work in a way that benefits everyone.”
And on the second time around, Kuhn was chair of the Health and Human Needs Committee.
“There is always a lot to do to maintain the services that we already provide,” Kuhn said. “And so that is important to me. In addition, as time changes, new issues come to the forefront. I think that no one can argue that after the global pandemic as we were working through important issues in mental health, it’s huge in the overall health of a person. That work that the county does in that space, whether it is crisis work or whether it is providing access and resources to mental health through all of the ages, particularly with children, has always been something that is very important to me. The county touches everyone, whether people know it or not. Anything that we can do as we are going through the process moving forward and in general to enhance the services that we provide in a meaningful and responsible way, but also just thinking about where the gaps are and if it is our role to do that or in partnership with others and how all of that intersects with one another is where I have lived over my past experiences.”
Jamie Kuhn is a former Dane County Board Supervisor who served as chair of the Health and Human Needs Committee during her tenure on the County Board. She has almost twenty years of public service and served the state in both the executive and legislative branches as the Director of External Relations for Governor Tony Evers and Chief of Staff to State Senator Mark Miller. She also served as the State of Wisconsin Medicaid Director at the Department of Health Services and led the intergovernmental affairs team in Milwaukee County. Jamie has a Master’s of Science in Social Work and currently serves on the Professional Consultative Committee for the Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work at UW-Madison. She and her family live on the east side of Madison.
Dane County is the second largest county in the state and has the highest private sector job and population growth in Wisconsin. Jamie is excited to be serving the more than 500,000 Dane County residents again.