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By Dakota Antelman, Contributing Writer
Marlborough – Former Marlborough Community Development Agency (MCDA) Director Doug Bushman said many colleagues in city government would openly suggest during his tenure that his was the easiest job in town. He agreed
“It was easy because of my staff,” he said. “It all comes down to the team that you build.”
Over seven years before he left for a new position in Fitchburg, Bushman hauled in an estimated $13 million in state and federal funding for an array of projects. His agency completed renovations on the Main Street and Bolton Street housing complexes it oversees and, before he left, had already secured $5.5 million to pay for work on the Eisenhower-era Pleasant Street complex.
Among other work, Bushman also recently helped score an $800,000 community development block grant, a first for the city since 2011.
As he was the entity on the phone with lawmakers to win funding like that, Bushmen defers at least some credit to the staff of which he speaks so highly.
“I gave them the tools to succeed,” he said. “[Then] I got out of their way. They were able to do their jobs and I was able to do mine which was grab as much resources and make sure that once the money came in, that the money was spent.”
Indeed, Bushman does pride himself in the hiring decisions he made and the “tens of thousands of dollars” he subsequently devoted to funding programs to educate his staff.
That type of leadership that values education is a style from which he personally benefited at the beginning of his own career working in public housing in 1997 in New Briton Conn.. There, he went to graduate school where his then current boss from the New Briton Housing Authority doubled as his professor.
That style of leadership is one Bushman could instill largely because he said he feels he was able to come in to Marlborough and put his personal stamp on the department rather quickly after taking control.
Some of those facts, however are also why he decided to leave the city late last year for his Fitchburg job.
There, Fitchburg, which is three times Marlborough’s size, had recently separated its housing authority from what was a joint authority with Leominster.
“It’s very rare for a public administrator to be given twin challenges: a much larger agency to run, and almost relatively a brand new agency [that you can make your mark on],” he said. “Those were two things that are very difficult to turn down.”
Still, though, leaving Marlborough, Bushman was quick to say, was an immensely challenging decision. As he does leave it behind, he continues to thank his former colleagues, and look forward to replicating what he had in Marlborough in future jobs.
“The seven year run was just phenomenal,” he said. “I look back and I hope it’s not the high point of my career, but it was a great run.”
