Kindness is Free: Shauna Shepherd's Approach to Impactful Public Service
- Catherine Huckaby
- Apr 1, 2024
- 8 min read
For Human Resources Director, Shauna Shepherd, public service was not just a career choice; it was embedded in her very DNA. When asked about the influential moments that guided her toward public service, she immediately credits her mother's example:
"When I was in elementary school, all the way to middle school, my mom took me to city council meetings, school board meetings, and neighborhood association meetings. She would take me to senior bingo at the retirement center where she served as a board member. At five or six years old, I was calling out B13."
These childhood moments planted the seeds of civic duty that eventually grew into her professional backbone. Her eyes crinkle with nostalgia when she mentions her mother making "homemade pies for fundraisers for our seniors" and spending weekends at Habitat for Humanity builds. Her mother broke ground as the first African American woman to lead a business professional women's organization in their community—setting an example of barrier-breaking leadership that clearly stuck with her daughter.
"When I was little, I never wanted to be a public speaker or be in front of people."
Yet decades later, she found herself following in her mother's footsteps as the North Texas Chapter President of the National Forum for Black Public Administrators (NFBPA), bringing a Women's Conference to the City of Fort Worth with over 350 attendees, and now often sought out to serve as a speaker at local and national conferences.
The influence extended throughout her family, creating a legacy of service in various forms: "Even with my siblings, we're all in public service in some way, from law enforcement to the military to civil engineering that impacts our infrastructure."
Her father's construction background offered another crucial perspective:
"My father taught me the importance of street lights, bridges, and how highways connect. Due to his construction efforts, economic development thrived, and neighborhoods remained safe.”
Looking at her career today, it is clear how those childhood lessons gave her a panoramic view of community needs—connecting roads and bridges to the people who use them. Her story hammers home the fact that the best public servants are often built around dinner tables where the values of giving back outweigh climbing ladders.
Beyond Meetings to Meaningful Relationships
When asked to define community engagement, Shauna shares how she sees it as relationship-building on steroids—connecting city staff with residents, businesses, faith leaders, and every advocacy group with a pulse in the community.
"When I automatically think of community engagement, I think of city personnel who have relationships with those in the community. It may look like HOA liaisons; it may look like your church and faith leaders. It could look like your community advocates representing a variety of different groups."
This relationship-based approach proved especially critical during the COVID-19 pandemic. She describes being pulled into the city’s emergency operations, assisting with rental assistance program, and distributing essential supplies to vulnerable populations: "I was helping distribute masks and hand sanitizer to the most vulnerable centers, such as senior centers and childcare facilities."
She is adamant about getting community input before launching new platforms:
"Before you start a project, BEFORE you start a project, I can't reiterate this enough. Before you start a project and implement your plan, ask the community ahead of time."
The repetition is not for dramatic effect; she has seen too many well-meaning initiatives crash and burn because nobody bothered to ask folks what they actually needed.
She looks for feedback on how projects affect the ways people "work, live, and play" in their neighborhoods. Will that fancy new development snarl traffic around the elementary school? Does putting in that retail space mean saying goodbye to the community garden where families have grown food for generations? She knows that people who have lived somewhere for decades understand their blocks better than any urban planner with a fresh degree.
She is also quick to point out that leaders must look beyond those who currently live there:
"Sometimes your current residents can't see it, but our visitors that impact our economic development may have a fresh perspective. There is no way we can thrive off just residents and businesses alone. We do rely on visitors."
This may be a tough pill for some neighborhood advocates to swallow, but her point hits home—cities need outside dollars flowing in. Most importantly, Shauna emphasizes partnerships and collaboration:
"Another integral piece is learning how to leverage private and public partnerships. As we're doing community engagement, think about your financial institutions, think about your non-profits, think about your respective cities around you."
This teamwork mindset stretches limited city budgets and brings in outside expertise that might otherwise cost a fortune. When COVID hit, her team called AARP and asked for help in warning seniors about pandemic scams: "All we had to do was give them the zip codes," she says with a snap of her fingers, and AARP jumped in with funding to mail out information. That is the magic that happens when you bring the right partners to the table.
Navigating Public Service During Crisis: Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic
When COVID hit, it ripped the mask off every weak spot in some cities’ systems. Listening to Shauna describe her time managing the City of Fort Worth's Emergency Rental Assistance program feels like hearing war stories. She sat at her desk day after day, picking up the phone to hear voices cracking with desperation—real people facing homelessness after decades of paying rent on time.
"When you're on the other line and you're talking to someone who was laid off four months ago, and now they're afraid they're going to be evicted, or they are telling you about a loved one that just passed."
You can read budget reports all day long, but nothing drives home policy impacts like hearing a mother choosing between medicine and rent. The pandemic was not an abstract emergency management exercise; it was about keeping real people housed and fed while systems crashed around them.
The ground never stopped moving during those months. Rules changed weekly, funding sources appeared and disappeared, all while terrified residents needed clear answers yesterday. How do you maintain public trust when you are rewriting the playbook every morning?
What saved neighborhoods during COVID was not emergency management plans collecting dust on shelves. It was city staff like Shauna and her peers pulling out their phones and calling nonprofit directors they had grabbed coffee with the previous month, bankers they had partnered with on financial literacy workshops, and pastors who trusted them enough to open church doors as distribution centers. It was during the pandemic when relationships moved resources faster than any official system ever could.
Beyond Titles: Building a Meaningful Career in Public Service
Public service is not about the business card in your wallet. This is not just talk—she has walked it, zigzagging from human resource back offices to the frontlines of neighborhood services and back to human resource leadership, collecting perspective at every turn.
Over the years, she has hunted each career move, seeing the blind spots in her professional development: "I had to learn about grants. Then I needed a better understanding of the council members and their districts when I was dealing with neighborhood services and social service programs," she explained.
"Now that I'm in the position that I'm in now, not only do I see the internal facing, because human resources support the needs of departments and employees, but I also lean on the experience of external facing/community perspective from before."
Now when council members walk into her office, they are not just talking to "HR Shauna," who knows policies and procedures; they are talking to someone who has sat across kitchen tables from their constituents in early roles. "It's a completely different perspective than what most people do whenever they're just in HR only," she notes.
Her advice for aspiring public servants, centers on purpose rather than position:
"Pursue your passion and impact. Don't just pursue a title... because that's still not going to provide fulfillment."
Anyone can hang framed certificates on a wall, but making neighborhoods safer, helping families build wealth, and creating spaces where kids thrive—that is the real scorecard in public service. She knows colleagues whose career paths are full of sideways movements and even steps backward that built the muscle and scar tissue needed for real leadership.
5 Tips for Breaking into Public Service
When asked what she would tell aspiring public servants, she shares this straight talk:
Check your ego at the door
"Be coachable. Be open to learning, watching and understanding the ‘why.’" She reminds others that they need to figure out why things work the way they do before trying to start "improving" systems.
Learn the skill of communicating effectively
"People seem to be relying a lot on AI right now, and while you should leverage those tools, there’s also beauty in the fundamentals of writing and being able to communicate well." Know when to pick up the phone instead of sending another email, and when an in-person meeting is worth the walk down the hall.
Know how to read the room
"Kindness is free. How you treat people matters." Public service is not just about policies and procedures. It is also about hearing what is not being said, and knowing when someone needs compassion more than they need regulations quoted at them.
Get your hands dirty
"If you see volunteer opportunities, volunteer." She suggests cold-calling department heads to shadow them for a day. Show up at community cleanup days or join a board or commission.
Beef up that skinny resume
"Don't underestimate your volunteer experience. You may think you do not have experience but if you volunteered for YMCA, a city, or you help with different programming, that's project management. Ran a fundraiser for your church? That is budget management. Coached Little League? Team leadership. Coordinated food drives? That is logistics planning. Do not sell yourself short!”
The Real Deal: Why Public Service Still Matters
Shauna’s version of public service is far from the stereotypes of government workers. No clock-watching bureaucrat here—just a woman who has weathered storms most cannot imagine and somehow kept her fire for making communities better.
Her path from HR cubicles to neighborhood front lines and forward into a director's chair shows exactly what cities need: leaders who have seen both the policy side and the human impact of those policies. It is a perspective only earned through years of showing up when things get messy.
The pandemic stripped away any pretense about what matters in local government. When she says, "You don't know what people are going through," it is not a throwaway line, it is truth from someone who has had to make impossible choices with limited resources while looking real people in the eye.
If Shauna's story tells us anything, it is that the path to meaningful impact rarely looks like a straight line on a career ladder. It is messy, challenging, and often thankless. But for those willing to prioritize community needs over personal advancement, the rewards go deeper than any promotion could offer.
Public service is not just another job, it is the backbone that keeps communities functioning when crises hit. We need more smart, compassionate people picking up that torch.
Resources and Organizations Mentioned
The National Forum for Black Public Administrators (NFBPA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing Black leadership in public administration through training, professional development, and networking opportunities. It supports over 2,500 members across forty chapters in the United States.
AARP (formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons) is a nonprofit advocating for Americans aged fifty and older. It provides resources on healthcare, financial security, and consumer protection while offering member benefits like discounts and publications.
The Emergency Rental Assistance Program provided financial aid to low-income renters to prevent evictions and ensure stable housing. Established with $46.55 billion dollars in federal funding during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Habitat for Humanity is a global nonprofit that builds affordable housing in partnership with families in need, Habitat for Humanity empowers communities by fostering homeownership and stability.
The City of Missouri City, Texas is located near Houston and recognized for its diverse population, family-friendly atmosphere, and focus on sustainable growth and quality of life.
