Angela Pushard: From High School Apprentice to Public Servant

As a student at Hall-Dale High School in Farmingdale, Maine, Angela Pushard had an idea that she wanted to pursue public service. It was an apprenticeship program starting in her junior year that helped get her there within months of graduation.

“I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to participate in a work apprenticeship program, where I landed my first job in my career,” says Pushard, secretary specialist supervisor with the State of Maine.

“I learned all different activities and responsibilities working in this field, and I absolutely loved helping people, processing paperwork, building and running data analytics queries and being a primary point of contact for human resource needs for the workforce.”

That first role was as a clerk typist with the State of Maine, tracking vacancies, onboarding and offboarding employees, posting job vacancies and reviewing applications, for example.

She stepped into that position in 1997, becoming a payroll supervisor in the state’s HR department in May 2001. In that role, she calculated and processed payroll for more than 300 employees, implemented an automated payroll system, distributed paychecks and much more.

Pushard, who is on track to graduate in May 2026 with a bachelor’s degree in human resource management from Southern New Hampshire University, hopes to move into a business administration role, an HR position “or a combination of the two within state government” after she earns her bachelor’s degree.

She’s also maintained her PSHRA-SCP certification since shortly after joining the association as a member in April 2019.

“I was fortunate enough to be invited to join my employer’s PSHRA membership and train and become certified on behalf of my employer,” says Pushard, who also holds an associate’s degree in business administration and human resource management from the University of Maine at Augusta.

“I’ve kept up my certification ever since, and I take great pride in having this and other human resource certifications,” she says. “PSHRA has been a wonderful organization to work with, and the webinars are a great asset to continued learning and development.”

PSHRA has “provided the tools necessary to get certification and makes it easy to get required training courses in to maintain certification,” Pushard continues. “PSHRA has individual chapters, and allows members to be on committees, which also enriches the experience.”