Over the past year, Seth Satterlee, Sher Gallo Netto, Hannah Ford, Laura Muñoz, and Thea Pan have been balancing a lot. You honestly wouldn’t know it from talking to them because they rarely make a big deal out of it, but this group has been doing the absolute most both inside and outside of work. Between tabling events and finals, workforce development analyses and capstones, tenant outreach and studio projects, they somehow managed to juggle an enormous amount all at once, while still bringing a unique perspective and energy to the work.
As graduation season somehow arrived for all of them at once, Susana Pereyra, Public Works Business Development Manager, sat down with the group to reflect on the work, the surprises, and everything they learned along the way.
Susana Pereyra (SP): Okay, let’s start with some quick lightning-round intros. Just give us your name, school, program or major, role/title at Public Works, and maybe the main project or team you supported.
Seth Satterlee (SS): Seth Satterlee, NYU Wagner, Executive MPA program. I’m currently an analyst at Public Works. I primarily support Organizational Health projects, including process mapping and refining internal systems. I’ve also worked on projects with a few New York City agencies.
Sher Gallo Netto (SGN): I’m Sher. My school is Pratt Institute. I’m doing a Master’s in Sustainable Environmental Systems. I’m a Community Health project coordinator. I’ve been through a lot of projects, but I think the main one I’ve been on since day one is Station Plaza. HPD purchased several buildings in the area, and EDC and HPD are transforming the site into a plaza with better transit and more open space. Six — well, seven — businesses and tenants have been impacted, so I’ve been working closely with them.
Hannah Ford (HF): My name is Hannah Ford. I’m at NYU Wagner right now, about to graduate from the MPA program specializing in Public Policy Analysis, and I’m currently a project coordinator. I support the org health team across many different projects. It’s hard to choose one.
Laura Munoz (LM): Laura Munoz. I’m also an NYU Wagner Master of Urban Planning student, about to graduate, and I’m a project coordinator on the community health side. I’ve been working on a lot of community engagement projects — flyering, tabling.
Thea Pan (TP): I’m Thea. I’m a senior at Barnard College, Columbia University, studying Urban Studies and Economics. I’m a project coordinator. The two main projects I supported were a Sunset Park workforce assessment and also a Chinatown Downtown Revitalization Plan.
SP: I think it’s funny that people always come in with a slightly different idea of what the work is going to be, which based on all your responses is very true as it definitely varies. Looking back, what initially made you interested in Public Works?
SS: So I actually learned about Public Works for the first time during a Zoom chat through NYU Wagner that Moe [Public Works Director of Business Development] attended, and he spoke about the firm. I was looking at a lot of more traditional consulting firms, and Public Works is obviously much smaller and very New York City-focused. That was really interesting to me. Once I spoke to Moe a little more, I was attracted to how structured the organization seemed to be. It’s interesting that Moe was my first lead…
SGN: I first heard about Public Works Partners on Handshake. Since I’m not from New York, I didn’t know many companies, and I was looking at everything related to urban planning and sustainability. Community engagement for me is a big part of sustainability, and I connected with how the firm approaches it. I think that’s what drew me to this.
HF: I also learned about Public Works through a job board, probably Handshake or LinkedIn. I think initially I was drawn to the fact that it’s both an urban planning and a management consulting firm. I thought that duality was really intriguing…Turns out org health doesn’t specifically work on urban planning projects, but I still think the intersection of community development and all the work we do across service areas is really interesting! Also, just the breadth of project types and organizations and agencies we support is really special.
LM: I met Celeste [Public Works CEO] and Aron [Public Works Manager] at the APA conference two years ago at NYU. I was volunteering, and went to their talk, and they were talking about trauma-informed planning. It was a completely different way of thinking about urban planning projects than I had thought about before. Then I learned about all the work that Public Works was doing in urban planning and the focus on community engagement, which I think is super important.
TP: Similar to Hannah, I found Public Works through a LinkedIn post. In the past, I had planning-related internships at city agencies such as the Department of City Planning, so I thought it would be fun to work on the consulting side and treat city agencies as clients. I think that combination of planning and consulting is what stood out to me.
SP: So once you got here, what was something that surprised you or was different than what you expected?
SGN: A lot of things surprised me because, for context, this was my first job in the United States outside of university. My previous jobs in Brazil were in architecture, and architecture there can be very intense. We’d work nonstop from 8:00 a.m. until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. Coming into an environment with greater balance and a healthier separation between work and personal life was a pleasant surprise.
HF: I think consulting gets a bad rap in general. When people think of consulting, they think of corporate consultants and consultant-speak, but what we do feels very different. I’m supporting organizations that might not otherwise have the capacity to do this work on their own, which feels really meaningful. Also, in terms of work culture, I feel like my supervisors and managers are invested in my personal and professional growth, and interested in what I’m learning in school as well as at work.
LM: Coming in, I wasn’t expecting it to feel so hand in hand with school. I expected some level of overlap studying urban planning and working at an urban planning firm, but there were so many moments where I would discuss something in class and then immediately encounter it at work the next day.
SP: That’s actually one of the things I want to expand on. What’s something that school prepared you for, and then what’s something you learned on the job?
SS: There was a class at NYU — Financial Management. I forget the exact title. A lot of the benchmarking, budget analysis, and nonprofit structure work translated directly into projects here. Those types of foundational courses were extremely helpful. I don’t think I was as prepared for the inner workings of policy. No disrespect to Wagner, but I did think I would’ve benefited from a deeper dive into the nuances of New York City policy.
HF: Building off Seth’s last point, I agree, and that’s why I took quite a few urban planning courses at Wagner. The ideas from those classes really did directly relate to the work we do here. Then for the second part of the question, building decks. You definitely don’t learn about that in class, and being able to do it here ended up translating really well into leading my Capstone project team.
TP: School taught how to approach reading and writing in a very specific way, following the syllabus, which is applicable when writing for a client. But I think something I learned more on-the-job is how to navigate ambiguity. In academic work, you’re expected to resolve uncertainty. Your advisor gives comments and you solve the issue. But at work, you sometimes have to prepare materials or recommendations while things are still evolving.
SP: Can you tell me about a moment where you thought, “Wow, I’m really contributing here”?
SS: One thing I’m proud of myself for, was helping write part of the WIOA plan — the five-year plan for the city on how they’re going to spend federal workforce development dollars. We had to do an industry and career pathway analysis. It required taking a previous model, updating it, and thinking through which jobs would be in demand over the next five to ten years. We had to come up with a methodology. It pushed the limits of what I felt able to do, but I learned a lot from it.
HF: Two of my projects, one with the Center by Lendistry, and also our work for the NYC Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). The people we worked with were really, really happy with the tools that we built. I got to lead some of those deliverables, which made me feel like I was contributing to something bigger. Also, on our HPD project, the Chief Digital Equity Officer was very, very happy with our work, and I was driving a lot of that.
LM: I’d say community engagement tabling, either with Chinatown or Conduit. People were genuinely involved and interested in participating in the activities and what we were bringing forward. Some people were even like, “Oh, thank you for doing this. This is so fun. It’s so great that you guys are out here talking to people.” That made me feel very involved, actually doing good work.
SP: Final question. You can pick between two options. Either: what’s one thing you’re taking away from this experience moving forward, or what advice would you give to a future project coordinator or analyst?
HF: I think the advice I’d give a future PC or analyst is don’t be afraid to ask questions, and don’t be afraid to try. I think sometimes people don’t feel like that’s cool to try or something, but it’s important.
LM: Be prepared to do a lot of different things and be open and ready to talk to a lot of people and learn a lot. Every day is a little different.
SS: Similar to that, be prepared to switch focus frequently. It’s important to build in small moments to reset and give yourself headspace because the work moves quickly.
TP: A takeaway for future project coordinators is that all sorts of community development work is kind of slow. Trust-building with stakeholders is a slow process, and projects often move carefully and deliberately. Patience is really important.
SGN: I’d add that some weeks you’ll be balancing several projects at once and constantly switching between them. You have to be organized. I do think the experience really improved my communication skills. Especially with the Station Plaza project, I spent a lot of time supporting tenants through a really difficult transition, and I had to learn how to balance being empathetic while still staying professional. That’s definitely something I’ll take with me moving forward.
SP: Awesome. Thank you guys again for doing this and obviously, huge congratulations on graduating. We’re all really proud of you guys.
