James Joseph Hedrick

Job
Presidential Management Fellow (PMF)/CPD Specialist, Department of Housing and Urban Development

Location
Washington, D.C.

Education
Undergraduate: Bachelor of Arts, Anthropology and Sociology, University of Texas
Graduate: Master in Political Science, American University

What I do in my job
In my job, I assist local, rural non-profits in locating funding for whatever projects they have in mind.  I come from a rural area in Texas and this issue is near and dear to my heart.  On a day-to-day basis, I maintain a website, manage a 1-800 Technical Assistance number, schedule conference calls on issues ranging from biofuels to green building, and a whole lot more.  I manage interns and review grant applications.  I even, occasionally, get to educate my urban-centric coworkers on the importance of rural America.  Every day I’m learning more and more about how local, state, non-profit, private sector, and federal resources come together to create livable, desirable communities for rural and urban residents alike.  It’s an amazing, if complex, system.  

Coolest thing about my job
Constantly learning how the ‘system’ truly operates.  The interaction of all the different stakeholders and organizations is breathtaking.  It takes so much work to put together a community development project, and I get to see almost every aspect of it in my job.  It’s such an amazing and humbling thing to see how dedicated and passionate the people are about their communities. 

Why I chose federal service?
I joined the federal service primarily because of the PMF Program.  Even without it, I would have been working in public service, possibly for a non-profit or the legislative branch, but the opportunities of the PMF program strongly influenced my decision to come to a federal agency.  Even after grad school, I was unsure exactly what I wanted to do.  The PMF Program gave me the opportunity to satisfy my desire to serve while allowing me to improve my management and technical skills at the same time.  The automatic promotion, ease of hiring, and 80 hours of training a year didn’t hurt either. 

Most important issue the nation is facing
The national debt is overwhelming our country.  Discretionary programs such as CDBG and HOME within my agency are starved for funding.  The nation currently spends approximately 300 billion dollars a year on just interest for the national debt.  With that kind of money, just the yearly interest, we could fund HUD about 9 times over.  If the annual budget deficits continue at the current rate, we will not be able to continue funding agencies like HUD, the Department of Education, the VA, etc.  We need to balance the budget, and we need to do it yesterday.

Interests
Drumming, webcomics, reading, writing, kickball, cooking, biking, and fishing.  Not necessarily in that order.

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