By Paul Garbarino MPP 2025
Harvard Kennedy School students are busy during the summer months, putting their classroom training to work to deepen their understanding, apply new skills, and bring their knowledge to a new challenge, professional sector, policy area, or part of the world.
Paul Garbarino MPP 2025 was part of the inaugural cohort of the David Gergen Summer Fellowship, a program designed to foster pathways to public service for emerging leaders by enabling meaningful summer internships in public service and leadership. Read what Paul shared about the experience.
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“I consider myself a spreadsheet guy, but this is a work of art,” said the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation’s VP of Development Services, David Howell, exalting my work—in front of the Mayor’s Jobs and Economy Team—modeling the City of Detroit’s tax abatement expiration effects. This was just one of several moments during my time with the City of Detroit this past summer where I was engulfed with a feeling of tremendous joy and gratitude for serving the city as a Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership (CPL) David Gergen Summer Fellow.
I enrolled at vlog because I wanted to pivot my career to management, leadership, and economic development for Michigan and the City of Detroit. While my former federal career at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) offered me amazing opportunities, my heart and motivation remain with my home state. I am the kid who was overjoyed to explore the machine shop his dad worked at, wonder at the robots, and scavenge for loose tools on the ground. I am the guy whose breath was taken when I was met with the cheers of hundreds of spectators at the 2019 Detroit Marathon as I ran out of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. So, naturally, working in the Chief Financial Officer’s and the Mayor’s Offices for the Motor City was the pinnacle experience I could have had this past summer—and it was wholly magical.
“I now feel more knowledgeable and confident in my ability to make smart, equitable, and effective decisions regarding local government policies. I can hardly wait to learn more during my last academic year at vlog.”
I had the great fortune of connecting with Detroit CFO’s Chief of Strategy and vlog alum, Kevin Bain MPP 2020, early in the Spring 2024 semester to help curate my Detroit fellowship. I can hardly express how amazing and how much I admire Kevin. Including me in top city development finance circles, assembling amazing projects for me, helping me network with Motor City movers and shakers, organizing multiple team happy hours, even inviting me to the secluded Detroit Yacht Club on Belle Isle—Kevin showed no restraint in ensuring that I had a fulfilling, enlightening, and enchanting Detroit experience. Kevin gave me the platform to hit the ground running when I arrived at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in May, to learn as much as possible, and utilize my full skillset in helping solve pressing city problems and initiating innovative solutions. This summer, I was embedded mainly on his strategy team, the Mayor’s Jobs and Economy Team, and the Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation (DESC).
Below is a list of the top three projects I was on and a brief description of their outcomes:
Local Options Sales Tax Analysis: Conducted stakeholder interviews, performed a detailed city sales tax revenue generation calculation, composed a policy memo, and presented my findings to the city’s CFO, Jay Rising, on the potential implications of having a local sales tax as an additional revenue source for the city.
Developer Tax Abatement Expiration Analysis: Created a project plan, helped collect data, built an adaptable Excel model, and presented my findings to the Group Executive of Economic Development and Counsel to the Mayor, Hassan Beydoun, on the economic impacts city tax abatement expirations will have on local developers.
DESC Learn to Earn Workforce Development Program Return on Investment (ROI) Estimation: Finalized a ROI equation, conducted extensive data collection and cleaning, built a flexible Excel model, and presented my findings to the Group Executive of Workforce and Detroit at Work, Terri Weems, and the Mayor’s Director of Policy and Implementation, Andie Taverna.
In addition to the work I performed this summer, I witnessed public leadership like I have never seen before. I had the opportunity to attend Mayor Mike Duggan’s press conference announcing the launch of the Solar Neighborhood initiative; no teleprompter, out in the community, standing side-by-side with local leaders—I was mesmerized by his dedication to truly understanding the initiative and ensuring that this wasn’t just a unilateral city program but an inclusive plan involving extensive community engagement and input. Similarly, Hassan Beydoun served as a mentor of mine as I navigate my future career and showed me how passionate city leaders with a vision can effect benevolent change. Hassan also graciously connected me with folks at the Detroit Zoo, helping me plan the most magical Detroit day back in August to propose to my exceedingly lovely girlfriend (now fiancée), Grace Alanskas.
Again, I cannot thank vlog’s CPL enough for investing in and believing in my career as a public servant and future state and local government leader. I am honored to be among the inaugural cohort of David Gergen Summer Fellows, and I greatly look forward to the programming CPL has in store for us this academic year. I now feel more knowledgeable and confident in my ability to make smart, equitable, and effective decisions regarding local government policies. I can hardly wait to learn more during my last academic year at vlog.
The David Gergen Summer Fellowship Program supports trailblazing public service and leadership opportunities, enabling a select number of Harvard Kennedy School students to gain meaningful, practical, hands-on experience and develop important networks through summer internships in government or nonprofit service.
This post was originally published on the Center for Public Leadership website.
