Employee profile: Maria Lee and Erin Chrusch
(Cross-posted with permission from The City of Calgary's employee intranet: myCity)
It's been just over a month since our Mayor announced Mayor Nenshi's Walk Challenge. myCity decided to learn a little bit more about a couple of staff members who took the challenge on, Maria Lee and Erin Chrusch.
Positions at The City:
Maria: Communications Specialist, Fleet Services (left)
Erin: Citizen Liaison in the Office of the Mayor (right)
How long have you worked for The City?
Maria: 11 years … with a three year “break” in the middle. I've been with Fleet Services for 2 years.
Erin: Since January 2011, so three years and three quarters?
What has your career progression been like?
Maria: I started with the City of Calgary back when we launched the first iteration of Calgary.ca, and had a progression of roles with Corporate Web Services throughout that six year period, Web Editor, Content Managing Analyst, Portal Publisher. When I had my second child, I decided to quit so I could stay at home with my children. Then a few years ago, I came upon this part-time opportunity with Fleet Services, and could not pass it up. The balance between work and home life is just perfect right now.
Erin: I have been in this role my entire time at The City.
Can you tell us a bit about your current role? What are your typical daily tasks?
Maria: I am fortunate to be the communications resource at Fleet Services. My main focus is internal communications – our diverse and widespread group of Fleet employees challenges me to think outside the box when it comes to communication delivery. I also support Fleet’s communication with our internal customers. On any given day, I can be updating our website, writing newsletter articles, drafting safety messages for employees, or editing project updates for our customers. I really enjoy the variety of work, and being the sole resource enables me to really get to know all aspects of my business unit, the people in it, and all the different work that we do.
Erin: My main responsibility is overseeing and responding to all of the citizen correspondence that comes into the Mayor's office. Where appropriate I will liaise (hence the job title, lol) with the various business units to ensure that the citizen’s concerns are being addressed. I also help manage the Mayor’s Facebook page and assist with other communications duties as required.
What do you like best about working for The City?
Maria: The work life balance can’t be beat. With two young children, the flexibility in my job allows me to be with them the entire time they are not in school. The value in that arrangement is worth so much to me. Plus, it feels good to serve the community by being a civic employee. I feel lucky that I had the chance to make great connections across the organization when I worked corporately. Now, working for Fleet, I like that I can directly support the people I work with every day. These folks are some of the nicest, most sincere people I've worked with, and I still haven’t met them all yet!
Erin: I really enjoy working for an organization that has a tangible impact on people’s everyday lives. It gives what I do a sense of purpose that I don’t know you’d find anywhere else.
We hear you are taking part in Mayor Nenshi’s Walk Challenge, can you tell us what the challenge is, and why you were interested in trying it?
Maria: Calgarians are being encouraged to walk, bike or use other active forms of transportation to get to and from school. When I heard about it, I thought, that’s what we've been doing for years! I knew this would be a great way for the kids to celebrate what tthey'vealready been doing, and it allows us to talk to our children about some good reasons around why we choose to walk — namely protecting the environment and staying healthy.
Erin: If your kids take the bus, then they should walk to the bus stop. If you have to drive them to school, then maybe park a few blocks away from the school and walk from there (that also helps ease congestion and makes it safer for everyone around the schools). We are fortunate enough to have a school within our community that’s within walking distance and we walk to school as often as we can anyway. Taking part in the Challenge was a natural fit.
How has your progress been in keeping up with the challenge? Any tips for readers who might want to start with their kids?
Maria: On our block, we have a Walking School Bus (WSB) (pictured below), which has been active for four years now. Over the years, we've had nine families with 15 children involved, all under the age of 10. This year we have six families with 11 children on our Walking School Bus. We all live on the same street, if you can believe it! One parent makes up a rotation schedule of adult walkers, typically one or two adults, depending on the size of the school bus that year. We each take one day per week or two walking all the children to school.
We’re lucky that we live 6-7 blocks away from school, but with one busy street, wrangling 10+ kids can be a bit like herding cats!
The WSB has been great in so many ways. Our school has many students who are bussed in and don’t have the option to walk. So, when we walk, it alleviates the congestion of busses and cars stopped at drop off and pick up times. It is also creates a great sense of community – of neighbourhood community as well as school community. Our children range from in age from kindergarten to Grade 4. It thrills the younger ones to know some of the “older” kids at school, and gives them all an opportunity to catch up with each other, as often they are not in the same classroom. And any reason to have children outdoors is a bonus.
Walking with a group definitely makes the walking part easier, and more fun. The days us adults tend to dread - the snow, the rain – these are often the kids’ favourite walk days. It does talk longer to get to school though, with all the puddles and snow angels and whatnot. The day of Snowtember I remember the kids were so excited – there was so much fort building material out there!
We do cancel the walking school bus when it gets too cold, usually colder than -20 c. I think the most we've had to cancel was that one week stretch last winter, that was pretty cold.
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| Erin and her kids enjoying Calgary weather |
Erin: Our progress has been good. Because of my work schedule I am only home with my kids one day/week so we don’t get to walk every day. Last week I drove to pick up my daughter from half-day kindergarten because I’d been out running errands and wouldn’t get there on time if I’d stopped at home first, but that’s been the only time I’ve driven to pick them up or drop them off. I personally find it stressful to be driving in an area where there are so many kids darting in and out that I will gladly park a few blocks away and it adds just a few minutes. If you’re worried that your kids are too young to walk very far, then start with one day/week. You could let them ride their bikes or take their scooters to make it more fun. I know that if you have a dawdler (like I do), then you have to budget for extra time and pack a lot of patience, but you will get there. Eventually. I should also add that it has been great for meeting other parents in our neighbourhood who are also out walking with their kids.
What are your other hobbies and interests outside of work?
Maria: Spending time with family, mostly. I also actively volunteer for my children’s school and our community helping with community cleanups, and in the past, our community farmer’s market. I love urban agriculture – growing veggies, harvesting fruit, canning, preserving, etc. and enjoy being in nature and going for walks in the woods.
Erin: I also like getting outdoors with my family.
It’s hockey/soccer/dance season now so that takes up most of our spare time. I also blog at
http://www.workingmotherchronicles.com/ and am really excited about a new initiative I’m launching soon called
MomsVote Canada that is designed to get Moms across Canada more involved in their community and in the political process.
Thanks so much to Maria and Erin for chatting with us! If you'd like to get more involved in the Mayor's Walk Challenge, you can find out more at calgary.ca/walkchallenge.
