Mel Gregg: Public Service Means More Than Numbers

Mel Gregg spent more than 15 years as an HR leader in the private sector. She wasn’t exactly unhappy in a corporate setting. But, over time, she realized that “something was missing,” she says now.

“I was not happy with decisions being made on profit margins only,” says Gregg, who has served as human resources director with the City of Woodburn, Ore., since December 2016. “I realized that serving the community mattered more to me than numbers.”

Gregg’s exposure to the public sector was limited throughout the early years of her professional life, having held a role as a personnel coordinator with Washington-Centerville Public Library in Dayton, Ohio from August 1997 through September 1998. It would be nearly a decade before she made her way back to public service, but she jumped when the opportunity came.

“I applied to a county position and started the second half of my career,” says Gregg, who got the job as an HR specialist with Missoula County in Montana, a position she held from November 2007 through June 2008. “I’ve never regretted that decision.”

Gregg, who holds a master’s degree in business and industrial management counseling from Wright State University, moved to Oregon in 2008, taking a role as a senior HR analyst with the City of Salem in July of that year. She stayed in that position for more than eight years before taking over her post as HR director with the City of Woodburn.

2008 proved to be a pivotal time in Gregg’s professional development, as she also joined PSHRA as a member that same year.

“When I moved to Oregon in 2008 and started working in a city HR department, joining PSHRA was the smartest decision I made,” says Gregg, who also holds a bachelor’s degree in guidance and psychological counseling from Boğaziçi University.

“It helped speed up my learning curve of public sector HR know-how, through very affordable training opportunities and, more importantly, networking with passionate, competent and experienced HR professionals.”

“I was welcomed and no question was dumb,” says Gregg, who has also served as a director for PSHRA’s Oregon chapter. “I found my community.”