In December, Clemons will have been employed with Williamson County for 18 years, most recently serving as the senior director of human resources prior to her new managerial role.
On the one-month anniversary of her start date as county manager, Community Impact sat down with Clemons to discuss what the job entails.
What brought on the need for the county manager role?
As our population has grown, obviously, the complexities of what a county has to address has grown also. Whenever you look at the fact that we have over 16 county leaders and 25 county departments that report up to the Commissioners Court, it's hard to keep that oversight whenever you're a county of our size. ... It made more sense to bring somebody in that could help centralize things, follow up on some priorities and policies and funnel stuff up to the court as needed.
You’ve been employed with Williamson County for almost 18 years. Why do you enjoy working here, and what’s kept you around for so long?
Hands down, it's the people. It's the citizens that we serve; it's the people that we work with. Service is a really important aspect to me. I've always enjoyed having a job where I feel that I can help others and contribute, and I think that that's something that definitely spoke to me. As far as keeping me around, I really love what I do, and I like the people that I work with, and so I am excited that I keep getting different challenges and different opportunities and I'm able to stay within the county, and utilize my skill set to do that.
How do you feel like you've been able to apply your previous work experience as the senior director of HR to your county manager role?
One of the things I love the most about HR is that I got to interact with so many other departments, from leadership down to entry level employees. I think building relationships across the county is really going to help me going forward, as well knowing how a lot of the departments function and work. I know who I can reach out to for assistance on something, or maybe if there's a more efficient way we could do something, I have that relationship with that leadership. ... I think it's just going to benefit me because both of these positions—my previous role and my current role—are so relationship-heavy; it just helps to already have that foundation.
You’ve been in this position for one month. What has this role been like so far?
It's been busy; I think that that's no surprise. I'm still wearing two hats, as I just recently found someone internally that we promoted into my previous role, and so doing a lot of training and stuff with that, working with the departments that have already been assigned to me ... and then just getting out a little bit more into the community and meeting community leaders; starting to set up those meetings.
Tell me about what your day-to-day role looks like.
Right now, [a] main focuses [is] getting my replacement up and trained. ... I'm working a lot with the Pretrial Services team. ... We are starting up the death inquest investigator department, and so we're working on policies and meetings and stuff for that. And so right now, that, and getting to know other people that I haven't maybe had to interact with as much along and around the county, I think are the main priorities.
What do you see as the biggest challenge within this role?
The biggest challenge is probably just the fact that it's new. And so really getting people to understand what my role is going to be within the county, and probably the philosophy of the court as to what they would like for that to look like over the next year.
Where are you from originally, and what brought you to Williamson County?
I grew up in the north Dallas—Plano area. ... Whenever I was in high school, we moved to East Texas to a really small town named Canton. ... I ended up at Texas A&M, I graduated from there and met my husband. ... We just always really liked the Central Texas area, we're both very into [the] outdoors and thought it'd be a great place to raise a family, and so we ended up moving to Round Rock.
Is there anything else you think Williamson County residents should be aware of with your new position?
One of the things that excites me about the role is the fact that I do think it will be very impactful over the next decade as we have so much growth. We're always at the top of the fastest growing cities list. You know, we're the 12th largest county in the state of Texas—I think that we'll probably move up on that list. I think our last number was the 10th fastest growing county in the nation. ... Along with all of this growth [are] a lot of changes, and my hope is that this position can help provide some of that stability as we move through that.
