Randi Frank Consulting, LLC is celebrating its 20 th anniversary. On behalf of my associates, I thank all our clients for 20 successful years of providing Human Resource Consulting to municipalities and small businesses. People are often curious about the firm’s founding; as its Principal, I am sharing this recap.
Internship to Assistant Town Manager
As a college intern I had my first work experience for a municipality. I read 10 police contracts from surrounding towns and developed a comparison document of all the salaries and benefits provided in each Town. The Town Manager showed me how he would use the information during the union contract negotiations with the Police Union and said which items he would discuss first and last to accomplish a good and fair contract. I know this doesn’t sound exciting, but I started now even knowing how to read a police contract and ended with a product that was needed. This created a desire to learn more about the opportunities of public service. My career goal was starting to gel.
A Master’s in Public Administration from the University of Southern California enabled me to work for County Governments in Virginia and Towns in Connecticut. I served in many functions, including Human Resources, Budgeting, Management Analysis, Purchasing, Risk Management, Grants writing and administration, Project Management, and developing Recycling programs.
In 2000 an opportunity presented itself, disguised as a job loss. My position of Assistant Town Manager was eliminated by the Town Council when the Town Manager resigned. But as I was the only one in the Manager’s Office familiar with ongoing projects, I was asked to be a Consultant until a new Town Manager was hired. I agreed, with the stipulation that they purchase insurance to cover my risks as an independent contractor. The idea of building my own business was born.
The Path to Consulting
Making a monumental mid-career shift was not an easy decision, but I was confident in my skills and welcomed the challenge. The first step was notifying my colleagues that I was available for consulting work. My first two clients contracted with me to fill in for vacant positions while I assisted with the recruiting process. The next step involved developing a web site and marketing materials for networking. I formed partnerships over the years, including national executive searches with Bob Slavin of Slavin Management Consultants and classifications and compensation studies with Jared Clarke, formally of Government Consulting Group. As I gained clients, I added sub-consultants (mostly retired professionals) to assist me with projects. My typical assignments include acting as an interim Human Resources Director, conducting executive searches, developing job descriptions and employee handbooks, performing classification and compensation studies, and training on Human Resources topics.
In 2018, my partner Georgian Lussier of G. F. Lussier & Associates and I developed our own Classification and Compensation program, which we had copyrighted. The last 20 years have been filled with remarkably interesting projects and meeting great people. Thank you, and we look forward to many more opportunities to serve our clients.
