RJ Susko

I’ve had many mentors that have helped shape who I am. The first two were my mother, a public school teacher who cared about the kids everyone else wrote off, and my father, an honest car salesman who taught me the value of a fair deal and a handshake. From my earliest years I’ve been driven to find out how things work and why they are the way they are. My next question is usually, “how can we make it even better?”

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Currently I serve as the Planning Director for the Town of McCandless, a suburb of Pittsburgh. The human element of every interaction is the foundation of my work. I believe we can accomplish so much by just meeting people where they are. I try to imagine what it’s like for a citizen who needs to approach me to ask a question or request a service. Then I think about how to make that feel more like they are talking to another person and not to the capital-G “Government.” Improving and innovating in the region that raised me is a privilege and a joy.

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Working in smaller municipal governments, the highlights of my work are composed of lots of little moments: getting a grant to renovate a small community’s main park, throwing an inaugural Main Street block party, or launching a new public engagement website. My greatest rewards come from the times a resident tells me, “I was so nervous, but you made this process easy,” or “this was really complicated, but you explained it in a way I could understand.” That’s what we deserve as citizens. I hope with each experience like that, we take steps as a society to foster public trust and work to build something exciting together.

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