Meet 2025 PSHRA President-Elect Candidate Amy Blake: Serving the People Who Serve the Community

Amy Blake graduated from the College of St. Benedict in 1993 with a degree in social work. Her first job out of school was managing group homes for individuals with disabilities, but it didn’t take long for the HR bug to bite Blake, and she would soon find herself on a new career path.

“I enjoyed the HR side of my position—recruitment, training and so on—and decided to take my career in that position,” Blake, 2025 PSHRA President-Elect Candidate and 2026 President Candidate, recently told the Association.

“My first public sector position was with the City of St. Louis Park, Mn., in 2001, and I fell in love with serving the people who served the community. I felt like my duties mattered; that HR made an impact. And I never looked back from there.”

Indeed, she has spent the rest of her 20-plus professional life in public service, and has served as the HR and risk management director for the City of Liberty, Mo., for the past 18 years.

A member of PSHRA since moving to the Kansas City area in 2003, Blake’s introduction to the association was as program chair for PSHRA’s Greater Kansas City chapter, where she has assisted with every regional and national PSHRA conference within the Kansas City area since joining the Greater Kansas City chapter.

She has also served as president-elect, president and past president of the same chapter, and has received the Thomas F. Lewinsohn Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Chapter. Blake, a Central Region Board member from 2021 to 2023, is also a recipient of the Chapter Award of Excellence from PSHRA National.

The mother of two teenagers and “two of the cutest and silliest dogs on Earth, and one salty kitty cat” is hopeful that she will have the opportunity to serve the PSHRA community in a number of ways as its President-Elect. Blake has already identified three primary goals for a potential term.

“Supporting and growing chapters in their grassroots, community-based programs and training and networking opportunities has to be a priority,” Blake said. “Local chapters provide volunteer and leadership roles to you, as members who otherwise might not have those experiences. To all the chapter-less members, those without connections and opportunities, I see you. I want to help PSHRA in supporting you.”

Blake also plans to implement quarterly roundtable discussions, whether in person or virtual, to facilitate more teamwork, solution sharing and strategic collaboration.

“The best ideas within our communities are the ones solicited and shared via group chats, emails and virtual discussions,” she said. “Red tape already slows our public sector processes down. Not recreating the wheel and using each other’s ideas and work as our templates provides quicker results to our internal and external communities.”

Finally, the IPMA-HR Senior Certified Practitioner wants to ensure that each and every PSHRA member is aware of and uses the association resources at their fingertips.

“Communicating and marketing our vast library to every member allows each of you more time to handle important matters within your roles,” said Blake. “No more ‘herding cats’ or wasting time researching. PSHRA has answers and solutions for you. Ensuring that each member feels the support of the association through its resources is vital to our reputation and member satisfaction.”