The most significant achievements are often gained by seeking out multiple perspectives and being willing to listen. Few understand this better than Susan Alanis, who has dedicated her career to building bridges between government, education, and community needs. Currently serving as the Deputy Chancellor of Finance and Operations for the University of North Texas System (UNT), she brings a wealth of experience in public administration to higher education, where she oversees operations.
Her career trajectory is a masterclass in strategic growth and adaptability in public service. Starting her twenty-three year career with the City of Fort Worth as a budget analyst, she quickly navigated through roles in police administration and development services before advancing to Assistant City Manager, where she spearheaded transformative building projects including the 14,0000-seat Dickies Arena. Her willingness to venture beyond her comfort zone, despite colleagues' skepticism, and her ability to master new challenges through careful questioning and quick learning became hallmarks of her leadership style and career progression.
In 2019, she made the transition to higher education, taking on the role of Chief Operating Officer at Tarrant County College. After four years of successful leadership in this position, she advanced to her current role as Deputy Chancellor at the UNT System, where she continues to apply her extensive experience in public administration to the challenges of managing large educational institutions.
Along the way, she has maintained a consistent philosophy about public service: it's not just about administrative efficiency but understanding and serving community needs. Her career highlights the value of building broad experience across different public service sectors while maintaining a deep commitment to community engagement and thoughtful leadership.
Finding Her Path in Public Service
Her journey began with an undergraduate degree in political science and initial aspirations to attend law school. However, her path took an unexpected turn when she started a master's program in social work and began working as a caseworker. During this season, she became interested in the broader policy implications of public service rather than frontline work. This realization led her to discover the University of Texas at Arlington's public administration master's program.
"It was the perfect convergence of government, law, and social work."
This unique combination of disciplines would prove invaluable throughout her career, allowing her to approach complex problems from multiple angles while understanding the human impact and policy implications of administrative decisions.
Unlike many of her peers who had completed internships, she balanced her education with work and family responsibilities. This early experience of juggling multiple responsibilities would prepare her for the complex balancing acts required throughout her career in public service. The foundation laid during her education would prove crucial as she moved forward, though she notes that academic preparation only tells part of the story.
Rising Through the Ranks
Susan began her career at the City of Fort Worth as a Budget Analyst during her final semester of graduate school. After two and a half years in this role, she made a decision that would shape the trajectory of her career: taking a position as administrative services manager in the police department.
"Everybody told me, 'Don't do that, you'll never get back to the City Manager’s Office, but I hadn't managed people and knew I needed that operational experience."
The career move paid off, as she eventually rose to Assistant Director over civilian operations in the Police Department. Her next career transition took her to development services as Deputy Director of Development, where she faced an entirely new challenge: streamlining the permitting process.
"I didn't know anything when I went over there. I didn't even know what a plat was but had been hired to challenge the operational status quo. I remember being afraid to answer my phone for a while because it could have been a frustrated developer trying to get their project through the queue and I had so much to learn"
Her willingness to take on unfamiliar challenges and learn new skills would become a hallmark of her career. She soon worked her way to Assistant City Manager, gaining broad experience across multiple departments and disciplines along the way.
A Transformative Learning Experience
During her time in the City Manager's office, she recalls attending a transformative three-week learning program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government that shaped her approach to public service leadership. The program brought together a carefully selected group of about 50 people, including union leaders, elected officials, and administrators – all in one room.
"To hear and understand the different perspectives from all of those various groups as we worked through many different topics on leadership and what they were facing was an 'aha' moment for me in a lot of ways."
The experience proved particularly valuable when she returned to Fort Worth and began handling labor negotiations for the police and fire departments.
“To have listened to those union leaders and learned more about what their legal responsibilities were in representing their members gave me an entirely different perspective on not viewing us as adversaries, but on seeing each of us as having roles to play."
The program also offered a rare opportunity to step back from day-to-day operations and think deeply about public service leadership and the importance of understanding multiple perspectives – principles that would guide her approach to major projects and initiatives throughout her career.
Major Projects and Lasting Impact
She is proud to have been involved in several transformative projects that have helped shape Fort Worth's landscape. Four major initiatives stand out to her as examples of the complex, long-term nature of the public service work she was tasked to lead:
The Dickies Arena
"That was 20 years in the making," she explains. The project's scope was immense, requiring coordination between private sector partners, managing legislative requirements, and addressing community concerns about everything from traffic flow to facility design.
"When I first got involved with it, I made this long list of issues, and remember feeling overwhelmed about where to start," she recalls. The project involved multiple stakeholders, including private donors, community groups, and various government entities. "I played a part in linking that back to how to navigate through the city and get it done."
The Botanic Garden
This legacy project required both public infrastructure funding and private philanthropic support to succeed. "It was a very real problem and a legacy for this community that needed to be addressed thoughtfully," she notes. The project involved extensive community engagement and careful balancing of various interests.
"We pushed hard to have bond program funding to do our part on the infrastructure, while at the same time figuring out what the private philanthropic structure needed to be to advance it into what it could be," she explains. The success of this project demonstrated the importance of public-private partnerships in creating lasting community assets.
City Pension Reform
While perhaps less visible to the public, this complex project required balancing the city's financial stability with employee needs. "It affected real people, all of us. But it also could have been financially catastrophic for the city if we didn't figure out what the long-term solution was going to be," she states.
She emphasizes the importance of understanding different perspectives during this process: "When the general employees got frustrated with police and fire, I had to explain that a lot of the things that they were benefitting from today are because those organizations were arguing on behalf of all employees."
Como Community Center
This project required a deep understanding of community history and careful attention to neighborhood concerns. She shares a pivotal moment from the project: "We were in the process of buying up a couple of lots adjacent to where we were going to build the center. This senior man came down to the city council meeting and was upset about us condemning property."
Through careful listening and research, she discovered that decades ago, an entire block of black businesses had been condemned to build a school. This historical context informed their approach to the project and highlighted the importance of understanding community history before implementing new initiatives.
The Art of Community Engagement
One of Susan’s greatest strengths has been her approach to community engagement. She emphasizes the importance of bringing diverse perspectives together when tackling complex issues. When dealing with controversial topics like gas drilling regulations, she insisted on including all stakeholders in the discussion.
“You need to be open to the idea that you may not have the right answer. You need to assemble people with different perspectives together, listen, and get feedback."
Her approach to community engagement often involved what she calls ‘curating’ groups of people with different viewpoints. For example, during the gas drilling ordinance update, she brought together representatives from the gas industry, neighborhood leaders, and environmental experts.
"People were surprised we included the gas drilling industry in writing this ordinance, but I was certain that there were things I didn't understand about their industry, and we need to hear their argument.'"
Her Transition to Serving in Higher Education
After years in city government, she made the transition to higher education, first serving as Chief Operating Officer at Tarrant County College before moving to her current role as Deputy Chancellor of Finance and Operations for the UNT system.
"Universities are a lot like small cities," she observes, particularly when considering residential campuses like UNT Denton with their complex infrastructure and service needs. This similarity has allowed her to apply her municipal government experience to the challenges of managing large educational institutions.
In her current role, she maintains her office at the UNT Health Science Center in Fort Worth while supporting operations across all three UNT system campuses. This arrangement allows her to stay connected to the Fort Worth community while serving the broader North Texas region.
Advice for Future Public Servants
For those considering a career in public service, Susan emphasizes the importance of cultivating three critical skills:
Communication
"One of the most essential skills to hone is communication - how to talk to people and convey complex issues," she explains. "It matters to your credibility and is vital for bringing people along."
Critical Thinking
The ability to analyze problems from multiple perspectives and challenge your own assumptions is crucial. This skill involves understanding and considering different viewpoints, even when they conflict with your initial assessment.
Preparation
"Always strive to be the most prepared person in the room," she advises. "Don't attend a meeting without having read the statute you'll be discussing." This level of preparation has been a cornerstone of her successful career.
She also strongly advocates for gaining diverse experiences early on: "You must be deliberate and also fortunate to keep your career interesting by taking on new challenges. It doesn't always have to be a job; it can involve volunteering for a committee or project outside your regular responsibilities."
The Future of Public Service
Susan expresses some concern about current trends in public service hiring and development.
"The way that we often hire is to bring in experts in single disciplines from outside organizations rather than developing people internally to gain that breadth."
She advocates for allowing employees to move laterally within organizations, gaining broad experience across different departments and functions. This approach, she believes, creates more well-rounded public servants who can better understand and address community needs.
The importance of this broad experience becomes particularly evident when dealing with complex community issues. As she notes,
"These are things that I don't know that people coming out of graduate school understand - how long ago the seeds of some of these issues were planted and how long it takes to get them resolved."
Looking forward, she is honored to serve on the board of Visit Fort Worth, where she maintains strong connections to the community where she spent most of her career. Her journey from city budget analyst to university system deputy chancellor highlights the value of embracing new challenges and viewing unfamiliar territory as an opportunity for growth rather than a risk to be avoided.
Her emphasis on preparation, strong communication, and critical thinking has proven successful across various sectors. Her career also highlights the importance of broad, cross-functional experience over a narrow specialty.
Susan’s story motivates us to embrace new challenges, commit to lifelong learning, and prioritize community needs. Her experiences show how public servants can achieve significant professional and personal growth while making a meaningful impact on the lives they influence.
Additional Resources
Here are some of the resources and organizations mentioned by Susan:
University of North Texas System is a public university system headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It oversees three autonomous institutions: the University of North Texas in Denton, the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, and the University of North Texas at Dallas
The City of Fort Worth is a major city in Texas, known for its rich cultural heritage and modern urban development.
Tarrant County College is a public community college system in Tarrant County, Texas. It offers five transferrable degrees, as well as degrees and certificates in occupational and technical programs, across five physical campuses, a virtual campus, and a centralized office.
Fort Worth Botanic Garden is the oldest major botanic garden in Texas, established in 1934. It spans 120 acres and features 23 specialty gardens, including a tropical conservatory, a Japanese garden, and over 2,500 species of plants.
The Dickies Arena is a multi-functional 14,000-seat arena located in Fort Worth, Texas. It hosts a variety of events including concerts, sporting events, and the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, while also offering flexible spaces for conventions and business meetings.
Visit Fort Worth is the city's official tourism organization, responsible for promoting Fort Worth, Texas as a destination for visitors.
Harvard Kennedy School State and Local Government Program is a three-week, on-campus executive education course designed for senior-level public sector leaders. This program aims to enhance leadership skills, challenge assumptions, and provide new frameworks for addressing policy issues in state and local government. Participants engage in case studies, interactive discussions, and networking opportunities with peers from diverse backgrounds
University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) Master of Public Administration Program is designed to prepare individuals for leadership roles in public service. The program is the largest enrolled accredited MPA program in Texas and ranked 15th in the U.S.