“…Which I need to do desperately,” she mumbles.

Apparently, she also enjoys working with budgets.

Meet Jennifer Pae, 37, the newest finance director for the City of Lakewood.

Pae seems at ease drinking coffee at Phoenix on a Thursday morning as Sonic Youth plays loudly in the background.  She looks professional in a white button-down shirt, but has a casual attitude that makes her an easy interview.  Her short, blond hair frames her thin face.  It’s one of the warmest days of the season and it’s especially balmy in the coffeehouse.

“I should have ordered an iced coffee,” says Pae, who orders a medium to avoid being over-caffeinated, she adds.

Between hot coffee sips, Pae talks about a recent trip she took with her father to see wildflowers.

“There’s this place in Huron along the river called Coupling Reserve that’s just full of Virginia Bluebells.  Bluebells as far as the eye can see.”

The question is inevitable.  How did an outdoorsy woman land a career working in an office occupied with numbers?

“I kind of fell into it backwards,” laughs Pae.  “If you told me this is what I’d be doing, I’d be like, ‘What?!’ Even five years ago, I’d be like ‘No, really…’.”

She was promoted to the position of Finance Director in September 2006, after being unanimously recommended by a search committee for the post appointed by the mayor.  Before her promotion, she served as Assistant Finance Director for almost a year.

After graduating from Lakewood High School, her college education focused more on administration than on accounting and hard numbers.  She’s previously worked as a community organizer, performance auditor and she studied anthropology as a University of Notre Dame undergrad.  She earned her Masters in Public Administration from Cleveland State University.

Nowadays, she oversees many administrative tasks within the Department of Finance, everything from financial reporting, risk management and income tax collection to information systems, payroll and purchasing.  She supervises 26 employees altogether.

“It’s definitely a lot of things at once,” Pae says about her responsibilities. “You've got to have good knowledge in a wide spectrum of areas.”

The move from assistant to director wasn’t easy — she faced challenges in that short transitional period.

“I probably had to go through some things that another finance director wouldn’t see in their entire career,” says Pae. “It’s been one of the fastest years of my life.”

For example, Pae entered her job in the midst of Lakewood’s largest capital bond issuance in decades and while the department was at the tail-end of budget hearings.  She says her co-workers supported her through the learning process and they’re one of the reasons why she loves her job.

“They help me tremendously.”

Overall, she’s much more positive than negative about her work.

“The best thing about the job now is I have so much exposure to so many different types of organizations and people that I really understand how processes work,” says Pae.

She loves having an opportunity to contribute to her hometown and being able to effect change.

There have only been a few months in her lifetime when Pae hasn’t lived in Lakewood.

She finds that being a Lakewood resident helps her make decisions and plan strategies that are beneficial to the city.  She especially likes having an immediate impact on how the city government is run.

She was born here, and attended and graduated from Lakewood schools.  Pae and her husband, Mike, a fitness equipment sales associate, have owned a house in the city for two years and they’ve even been the managers for an apartment building on the Gold Coast.

Her parents, John and Marianne, also live here.

Pae says, “As a Lakewood resident, I know what I value in the community and what’s important to me.”

She explains how a previous finance director lived in a community without backyard trash pickup.  To him, backyard pickup was not important, so he tried to get rid of it in Lakewood.

“But as a Lakewood resident, I see how important that service is to our community,” explains Pae.  “I’m always very conscious of any decision I make.  I always have to think how is this going to impact my family?  One thing I’ve learned is you can’t make snap decisions when it comes to city services.  Things have to be well thought out before you can act.”

Her early experiences with nonprofits and governmental work infused her with a sense of how governments and communities should and shouldn’t run.

Pae says her viewpoint is that the biggest disservice to a community is a dysfunctional government.  This happens “when departments don’t get along, administrators don’t get along and legislators don’t get along.”

With that view, one of Pae’s goals is to build relationships between city institutions and the community.

“There’s a very collaborative atmosphere right now,” says Pae. “But I want to take it further.”

Outside her career, Pae has a different goal...  to get her son interested in hiking.  She's the mother of two children, Audrey, 7, and Thomas, 4.

“We take them out as much as we can.  My daughter loves hiking, she’s a little nature girl.  But my son,” Pae sighs, “...we’re working on him.”

She describes a recent road-trip to Quail Hollow State Park in Stark County.

“Well, we had never been there before, and…” Pae cautiously stops before adding:  “And I wanted to see a bog.”

A bog?!

“When I was working in Jackson Township, they had bogs and I wanted to go to a bog,” she explains with a laugh. “It’s sort of like a swamp but it’s peat, a lot of peat and moss.  Because of its ecosystem, it has really unique flowers and plants.”

“So I was like, ‘I found my bog!’” Pae proudly exclaims.

She jokes that her interests are “bogs, just bogs,” but that’s clearly not the case to this reporter.

“I’m a big alternative rock fan,” reveals Pae. “I was like, ‘Oh my God! Sonic Youth!,’” referring to the music now playing in the Phoenix.

What other bands does she like?

At the enormity of the question's possible answers, she groans, “Oh, God…”  She eventually narrows down her likings to Built to Spill, the Shins, Modest Mouse, the Decemberists and, of course, the Pixies.  She pines to attend more concerts, then adds that her children are currently on a big Billy Idol kick. 

While working at the state auditor’s office, Pae got into an internet radio station that allows listeners to hear bands 12 months before they're being played on local radio.  When the office decided to manage bandwidth usage, to make their point they graphed everyone’s usage levels.  Pae's graph had a big red line for her radio listening.

“They told me, ‘You've got to get a (conventional) radio,’” grumbles Pae. “I was like, ‘Ughhh…!’  I listen to music all day long while I work.”

Pae has more goals for Lakewood, as she rocks out to alternative music.  One is to increase the financial strength of the city.

“It’s not as strong as I’d like it to be,” she says.  But, she adds that Lakewood is moving in the right direction.

The administration of Mayor Thomas J. George has embraced a new performance-based management system called CitiStat that is based on measurable facts instead of projections, says Pae.  The management tool also depends upon open forums among different levels of government to address issues and improve efficiencies.

She reports the city’s finances are looking up. The city received its latest bond rating in April 2007 (You can read the city's official announcement in the sidebar by clicking here).

“We’re an Aa3, which is actually really good.”

In 2005, the city scored the same rating, but was given a negative outlook. Things have changed.

“The negative outlook is gone, which is huge,” Pae proudly states. “It’s a really good affirmation that we’re headed in the right direction.”

Lakewood received the same rating as Bay Village, Cleveland Heights and Orange. Westlake scored the best rating, but there aren’t many communities that scored higher than Lakewood, she notes.

Pae says the ratings reflect not just the economy of the city, but that of the surrounding communities as well. Lakewood's economy is directly impacted by the City of Cleveland's, for example.

The city's tax department is looking good, she believes, explaining that revenues and income tax filings are up this year.

“The tax department is excellent, and things are strong.”

Her boss, Mayor George, also provides a positive review... of Pae.

“She’s doing very well,” says Mayor George. “She was very instrumental in the city recently getting its bond ratings.  She’s done a very good job with the CitiStat program and overall as a finance director for the city.”

Pae, as outdoorsy as she may be, says that there’s nowhere else she’d rather be in her career now than inside the walls of Lakewood City Hall.

“It’s an exciting time in the city and I can’t be more enthused to be where I’m at and to be able to contribute, ” says Pae. “It’s a rare opportunity and I appreciate it.”

When asked what she would be doing if she wasn’t finance director, Pae pauses and reframes the question.

“What I’d most likely be doing or what I’d want to do?  I’d probably be involved some way with nonprofits,” she says. “I’ll probably always be in some sort of service sector.”

Listening to her, she seems to have found her niche in her hometown.  Asked what type of philosophy or motto she lives by, or who her mentor has been, Pae thinks for a minute.

“My all-time favorite quote comes from my mother... 'Kill them with kindness',” she says. “It always catches people off-guard when you’re friendly.

“I try to approach things as much as possible with an open mind,” Pae reflects. “I always remind myself that I’m part of the big picture and I need to do my part, as best I can.”
 

As reported, the City of Lakewood received its latest bond rating in April 2007.  You can read the city's official announcement in the sidebar, from its beginning, by clicking here.