Small Town, Big Impact: Female Leadership in Travelers Rest

In a small town where Burger King's arrival was once celebrated as progress, Travelers Rest now stands as a remarkable anomaly in American governance - with women holding the positions of mayor, city administrator, and majority of the city council. How did this Greenville County community not only transform itself from a "pass-through town" to a coveted destination, but also defy national trends in which women hold just over 20% of chief local government positions? Mayor Brandy Amidon (who began her political journey at age 27) and City Administrator Shannon Herman reveal the surprising role older residents played in championing female leadership, the unexpected mentorship dynamics that shaped their careers, and the leadership principles that have created TR's unique "heartbeat" - a vibrant community where 85% of downtown businesses are now female-owned. Their insights challenge conventional wisdom about who builds thriving communities and how.

Links:

Brandy Amidon Bio

Shannon Herman Bio

International City-County Managers Association on Women in Leadership

Center for Women in Politics on Women in Leadership

Transcript

Katy Smith: [0:02] The United States population is about evenly split between men and women, as is our own state of South Carolina. But women are not well represented in either public office or top government administration. The International City-County Managers Association reports that women hold just 20% of chief local government positions. And the Center for Women in Politics reports that just under a third of municipal officeholders are women. The city of Travelers Rest, however, defies this trend, with Shannon Herman as its city administrator and more than half of the council as women, plus its mayor, Brandy Amidon. What makes TR unique, and what have they learned about leadership and council dynamics? I'm Katy Smith with Greater Good Greenville, and on this episode of Simple Civics: Greenville County, we'll talk about it. You'll hear from Mayor Brandy Amidon, who has served two terms as mayor of Travelers Rest, and Shannon Herman, who has served as city administrator for one year. Coming to the role from the County of Greenville, where she served as assistant administrator for 17 years. Their full bios are in the show notes, as are links to data on women in government leadership. I am so excited to be at Travelers Rest City Hall, recording this episode with Mayor Brandy Amidon of City of Travelers Rest, and with Shannon Herman, City Administrator for Travelers Rest. Thanks so much for joining me or letting me join you here.

Brandy Amidon: [1:25] This is so fun. We appreciate the invite.

Shannon Herman: [1:27] Thank you, Katy. It's exciting to have you here today.

Katy Smith: [1:29] Travelers Rest is a great city. I love coming here. I have seen it change so much. And I know you must feel very proud, but I'd love to hear you talk specifically about what makes you proud to lead the city.

Brandy Amidon: [1:39] So I grew up here. And so I have this very unique perspective of when I was younger and we were kind of this pass through town. And I remember when Burger King came, we were just so excited to have something other than Waffle House. And so it's really amazing to see this transformation for us to become this trendy, hip, cool spot where people are like, is there a house for sale? I'd really love to come into the city. And they just really want what we've always had in TR, which has been community. And so to see the community love and care piece now match the aesthetics of having this beautiful downtown. And now you have this farmer's market that you can go to. All that's kind of coming together in this really magical way. And so that makes me really proud that people who don't even know about Travelers Rest or have never heard of TR are like, oh, I got to move there now just by driving through and kind of having that small town community feel. So that makes me really proud. We've come a long way.

Katy Smith: [2:34] But it's so wonderful that the heart was always there.

Brandy Amidon: [2:37] Always there.

Katy Smith: [2:37] You just now have some fancy attire on top of it. That's great.

Brandy Amidon: [2:41] We got the dress to go with it.

Katy Smith: [2:42] Right. Exactly. Shannon, how about for you?

Shannon Herman: [2:44] Most cities have a clear identity of who they are, but Travelers Rest has a really unique identity in that it's so warm and welcoming while also being really vivacious. It has a true heartbeat. It has a lot of energy. It's known for the outdoor participation. The civic engagement here is just unparalleled. For the size to have the members of the community and the numbers of commerce businesses that are engaged in the activities that we have here and philanthropic efforts, it's pretty impressive. And I think it shows on the streets, but it also shows in the halls of City Hall.

Katy Smith: [3:15] So as great as TR is, it's a lot of work to serve as a mayor and a city administrator. So I'd love to hear you talk about what motivated you to serve in your role as staff and as elected. So maybe, Shannon, can you talk first about that?

Shannon Herman: [3:30] From an early age, I was really interested in government, civics, representative government, how our democracy here in America works. And so I went down the line of political science and history, but I landed in Greenville. I'm from Greenville and I landed back in Greenville after a short stint of teaching, which was fantastic. Found myself longing to become engaged in the process in some way. And I found a job at the County of Greenville and got to know in administration and got to know all the facets that we don't often realize touch our lives at the local level.

Katy Smith: [4:04] Yes.

Shannon Herman: [4:05] It's truly our day-to-day living and the services that keep us safe and then allow us to circulate with each other, either on the commerce side or fun things to do and to be able to do it in an orderly fashion. And the more I got involved in that, the more engaging it became. I got a couple of projects that just really opened my heart to public safety, working with EMS, working with the fire districts when I was at the county, and then kind of growing into some of the community development, economic development when we started the University Ridge Project, which started back in 2015. So I got almost 10 years into that and realized TR's got some really fun projects going on. And we could take these skill sets that I've been working on with other people and hopefully translate to some positive opportunities for the city and work with a great council that has a lot of energy and a lot of vision.

Katy Smith: [4:55] Wonderful. Brandy, how about for you?

Brandy Amidon: [4:57] I fell into this role where I never have been a super political person. Now, we are nonpartisan, but I was having a conversation with my husband and became very curious about local government. I did not know who the mayor was or what they did. I'm a CPA, so my day job. And so I started coming to meetings. I was like, you guys talk about money and taxes all the time. I know a little about money and taxes. And so that's really, it was the curiosity of what the city is doing. And then once I fell into it, it has a lot of parallels to my day job as a CFO, where you're building community, taking care of the people, and also making sure you're stably from a financial standpoint. And so all that to say, I just really love this hometown. And I was like, oh, this is where I can insert myself. And then we get to build a community and build the city together. And that's something that maybe I didn't know when I first stepped into it. But now when I look back like, you know, 15 years, like, oh, we've been doing this and building our city the whole time.

Katy Smith: [5:54] You know, one thing that it makes me realize, and we have said this lots of times on the podcast, that government is slow. So it's sort of intentionally slow, though, because you want to make sure all of the residents have time to weigh in and know what's going on and that these decisions that are using everybody's money are done really thoughtfully. So like you're talking about the University Ridge Project down at the county just begun even now, but it takes time. And I'm sure it's such a joy to see all of it come to fruition.

Brandy Amidon: [6:22] I'll hear new politicians when they first come into their seat and they're like, oh, I didn't know how much I did not know. And then they start joking, well, I used to believe in term limits, but it takes you like two to four years to even figure out what's going on. It's not like they give you a handbook. Here's how to be a mayor. Go do this job. You really have on-the-job training.

Katy Smith: [6:40] Well, you've done a great job.

Brandy Amidon: [6:41] Well, thank you.

Katy Smith: [6:42] So we're so glad. Okay. In the opening, we shared some data on women in municipal government nationwide. And here in Greenville County, your numbers on Travelers Rest City Council and you as mayor and staff are an anomaly. So I'm curious about what you see in a council with balanced gender representation. What are the dynamics like? How do you approach decision-making and conversations with each other?

Brandy Amidon: [7:04] When I first came onto council as a council member, there was one other female. And so I have seen that grow over the years. And I think having a mayor in the female role was also encouraging to other people that wanted to run. But I think just thinking through the dynamics of it's so much easier to serve at a local level, especially as a mom and a wife or a business owner. And so you can see if I step into this role, I'm going to make a contribution to the place where I live and where my kids live. And so I think we've been very clear to say, this is a small town, but if you show up and you want to be a decision maker, you get to have this huge impact. And so I think that's drawing other females into the role and kind of creates this dynamic where you have not only do we have female and male diversity, but race, age. And so you're getting a really nice collective mix of the people who actually live here. And that's when you're going to get the best results for what do we need or what are we missing or how do we grow this community? Because you've got great representation from council.

Katy Smith: [8:05] All right, Shannon, what about for you?

Shannon Herman: [8:06] It's a really nice dynamic upon the dais. And so whether it comes down to the feminine influence or not. This is one of the most pleasant councils to work with in terms of the expectation of respect, the tone and tenor that's taken, even in disagreements. That's been really very refreshing to watch. You know, well, I'm just going to have to disagree with you and for these reasons without sort of screaming matches or a pitch that doesn't maybe match the intensity of the discussion matter. But also I've seen some really cool injections into the community life. One of the first requests of council was, how do we get more flowers downtown? How do we get more color downtown? Can we get into the public arts? And all of those were initiatives from the ladies on the dais to say, these are things that we want to see and feel and touch. And that's been really fun. Those are details that I think are really critical to a city thriving and excelling that maybe are a little softer touches.

Katy Smith: [9:06] That's great. So what has encouraged you as a female leader along the way? And what's been challenging for you, if anything different, you think, than your male counterparts?

Brandy Amidon: [9:15] I think there's assumption that you need maybe a female mentor to be successful in this job. And in my political life have been males. And so the former mayor was very encouraging to me. He's like, all right, Brandy, you ready to become mayor? I'm going to retire. And I was like, no, I do not want that job. That sounds horrible. And he's like, no, no, you can do it. And so having that person that kind of held you through like, you're going to be great for this. And I can think back to when I was first on council, there was a council member that was very like, you're smart, Brandy, you're going to do great here. And so just having that, I do think the kind of balance to that. It's like mentoring my council members. So now that I'm the leader of council, I want to mentor them. Like Shannon mentioned, I want to, what are you guys passionate about? How can I make sure that you're included in that conversation to make sure that they feel purpose in everything they do? But yeah, I think the mentorship is a big part of that. And then also like someone caring what your thoughts are on council. We're not here just to do the yay and nay. It's like we're trying to build something special and everybody's so different on what they think is important.

Shannon Herman: [10:18] Okay, I promise we didn't compare notes ahead of this. But actually, my mentors were in the field, were mostly male as well. You know, Joe Cornell, I worked directly for Joe for 17 years at the county, and he gave me some amazing opportunities. And he gave me a lot of support and encouragement when I was young. I think that the greatest challenge to overcome in female leadership is your youth, because it is both youth and gender that you're working with. I think by the time you've started to put some resume successes on the paper, you kind of start to overcome that and have more substantive discussions when you go into the leadership model.

Shannon Herman: [10:56] I'll say John Castile at the City of Greenville became an unwitting mentor of mine just through just random conversations and projects that we were working on and really became a huge advocate of my putting my foot forward and continuing to grow my career and stepping through some of the more difficult challenges of being a female. It's a very nuanced balance to go between strength and femininity. And I think men get a different equation to work with. I don't know that it's an easier equation, but I think sometimes in the workplace, there's a different expectation of temperament and tone that is seen as strength on the male side of things than on the female side of things. And really, John Castile has been very encouraging to me as I balance that out throughout various steps in my career. I will also give a shout out to Nancy Whitworth, though, City of Greenville, and she stepped into a really difficult time as an interim administrator and was really open with me and spent a fair amount of time with me talking through the opportunities, the challenges and the are you ready for these?

Katy Smith: [12:00] Yes, we have had some great, great leaders in our past, and I love to hear that they poured into you as you were coming up in your leadership.

Shannon Herman: [12:08] Absolutely.

Brandy Amidon: [12:08] And to answer maybe the second part of your question on more of the challenging side, I think part of this role, whether you're a man or woman, is just on the job training. I heard a quote one time that said, when you sign up for a leadership role, you sign up to fail in front of everyone. And so everything that I do, whether good or bad, like you are doing it with an audience. And so I think that's different, even in your role, Shannon like everybody's watching to see what we're doing and whether we do something well or whether we make a mistake and so I think that's some of the maybe when you're in the middle management role you got somebody else at the top who's going to take the heat and you're it so like sometimes I have to say I'm the mayor and I'm going to take the heat for this decision or I'm going to take all the credit too when I go into a room they're like TR I'm like I did all of that but you are in that and people are looking to you for all the goods and the bads and just being able to balance that in a good way is important.

Shannon Herman: [13:04] Brandy never takes all the credit. I've been in many meetings with her. She's very generous with that.

Brandy Amidon: [13:09] That's because you're in the room. If she's not in the room, then I take the credit.

Katy Smith: [13:12] Oh my gosh. Well, I will say that I feel like having kind of a core value of authenticity, and I don't know if that is your core value, but it seems that both of you bring authenticity. Your whole council, I think, brings that to the table. And that way, when you fail, people know that you are doing it. You're doing your very best. You're doing it with the city's best interests.

Brandy Amidon: [13:31] They know you care.

Katy Smith: [13:32] Yes.

Brandy Amidon: [13:32] Even if you mess up.

Katy Smith: [13:33] Yeah. As you've been through your leadership journey, what has encouraged you as a female leader, but just as a leader?

Shannon Herman: [13:38] I think it comes back to, I got to give a lot of credit to my parents. And I'm really grateful for the time period that I grew up. You know, the 1980s, early 80s was definitely a, anything you can do, I can do better. And my parents were constantly, they instilled in us this value for the pursuit of excellence. They said, the pursuit of excellence is noble, Shannon. The pursuit of excellence is noble. When it's hard, you work harder, but you can do it. You can do and be what you want to do and what you want to be. And I think I had a couple, I had two schools that I went to that had mottos. So I grew up here in Greenville. I went to Christchurch Episcopal School for my high school. And the motto there was the beautiful is difficult. And so the expectation was you're going to be against the grindstone all the time. Find a way to be joyful about it, and then you can pursue. And then my college, Presbyterian College, our motto was, while we live, we serve. And so I find those things constantly pushing me in my moral character. Who am I? What do I want to contribute to society? What are the expectations?

Shannon Herman: [14:38] And I think when you're pursuing excellence and you're really coming at it with a servant's heart and mentality, it lends itself to leadership because it doesn't lend itself to just doing what's asked of you or just doing what's barely needed, but to constantly be looking forward and to constantly be pushing forward. And so I think that's sort of how I've fallen into leadership roles, not usually intentionally, but then when they open up, they become really exciting and really entertaining. And I think through my career development, I've learned that I enjoy the coach's role, which is really kind of what I see the city administrator's position being as sort of the coach. You've got your team, owners and managers above you and you've got your players and how do we put them on the field and how do we direct the game for the pursuit of excellence?

Katy Smith: [15:29] That's outstanding. I love that.

Brandy Amidon: [15:31] I thought of two examples. First, I always think of politicians, they have an unsung hero, which is their spouse, because they hear everything that we complain about. They get all the gripes from the community. And so my husband has always been a very big encourager where I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore. This is too hard. He's like, no, you're going to do this. You signed up for this. And it's like someone kind of pushing you along the way. And so I think he always jokes that he's not going to vote for me as like just a funny, but he really is my number one fan. And so having someone kind of personally be able to kind of handle that. And so I always say, if you're going to run for office, it's got to be a joint venture with your spouse. And the second one, when I first ran for office, I was 27.

Brandy Amidon: [16:13] So just a baby and, you know, young, female. And our older population here in Travelers Rest was so encouraging. I mean, it's shifted a little bit, but they really were the ones who elected the city council mayor because they were the ones that showed up to vote. And they never once were like, oh, she's young, she's stupid, she doesn't know anything. They were like, yes, here's a young person that grew up here and is going to help lead us. And I just remember being so enamored that they were just so progressive in a way of like, oh, we're going to trust this kid that might know some things because we believe in her or think that she's going to have good values and do a good job. But they were really encouraging. I mean, I didn't come into office that first time without this older population that was very encouraging. And they always been that way. Martha Cox, who just passed away, she was the owner of Martha's hardware store in Travelers Rest. And I just went and bought a paintbrush one time and I had to like pitch myself to her. And everyone thought she was my grandmother because she pushed so hard for me to win a seat on city council. And that's a very TR example.

Katy Smith: [17:17] I love that. And it's unusual. I mean, when you look at Congress and their age, you know, we have folks that aren't ready to hand over the reins to a younger generation. And that's so neat that you had people behind you who made that happen. All right. Well, speaking of Martha as a business leader, you have a lot of strong women business leader in Travelers Rest. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about that.

Shannon Herman: [17:37] We sure do. I was super excited to learn this when I came here and began working with the merchants group, which is really the downtown merchants along Main Street for the most part, come to find out 85% of our downtown businesses are women-owned. And it's a really engaging group. And then kind of widening the circle outside of just the downtown linear street, the Chamber of Commerce has a very heavy female presence as well. Current president is a female, most of the executive board. And when you go to the meetings, it's just, it's a very engaging culture and dynamic and conversation. They challenge each other too. They don't just agree, although it's civil, it's a constant. But did you look at it this way? And I'm concerned about this. And has anyone tried this? I've been really excited and proud when they uphold some of our local business owners who have come up and said, this is how my social media has grown. And here's some examples to take from me. And then the questions that are back and forth are genuine for education's sake. But sometimes like, well, did you try this and fail because I failed? And that's a really honest conversation of supporting each other that you don't often see. The roots are very well entwined. It's much like, and we've seen the damage of it with the hurricane, but when you have large trees with roots that entwine, when one or two fails, you begin to see a domino effect. Much like when one or two hold strong, it provides a great base for others to grow against.

Katy Smith: [19:03] Oh, that's beautiful. Generally, cities do have better gender representation than states and the federal government. And actually, our state is worse than our federal representation. Right. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on how we can get more women to run and serve in government.

Brandy Amidon: [19:19] This is a sacrifice of family. Like Shannon mentioned, she's missing out on soccer game. I'm missing out on planning for vacation for this week. And so I think, one, in order for women to step into this role and sacrifice something, time, money, you know, this isn't something you're going to do and get rich either from a political standpoint. I think you need to know that you're purposeful. And I think sometimes at a state and a federal level, why? Like, why would I go and sacrifice family time? I get asked all the time, are you going to go to Columbia? I'm like, well, I have Annabelle and she's 10. Am I going to sacrifice this little bit of time with that, what I have with her, if I can be very purposeful in Columbia? And I have doubts about that. But then I'm at the same time, I'm like, well, if the three of us went together, heck yeah, I would go down there and we would do something purposeful together. So I think that's why you see more representation at a city level. I know that I am making an impact. The women on council and the males, they see the impact of their job. And so I think when it gets to a larger scale, you're like, am I going to do it now? If Annabelle was in college and I had free time and maybe it would be a different conversation, you could take the risk of that. But I think as women, we just aren't willing to risk that very precious time that we have. But I think if we get better at showing the purpose and the value at some of those larger and positions that represent more people, I think we would start. But I also don't want to go by myself.

Brandy Amidon: [20:42] You know, I don't want to be down there. I have a, we have a group of mayors and one of the females. And so I'm like, well, if we all go, let's go together. And even if I just had those other male counterparts to be with, but I think we'll get there one day. But it's a hard self. Us because we just have our family as probably the top priority.

Katy Smith: [21:01] Well, 2034, right? Annabelle will be in college then.

Brandy Amidon: [21:06] She'll be out.

Katy Smith: [21:06] Yes, exactly.

Shannon Herman: [21:07] That's something hopeful to look forward to one day. You know, I think that's probably a big challenge of it. You know, if a woman who has children at home is not interested in during those specific years of the travel that it takes, the time away from home that it takes, I think, too, the local base gets to know your candidates, and so maybe there's a success rate that's tied there. And this is just a gut feel that when people know you, they say, oh, yeah, that's someone I trust. That's someone who I know will do a good job. And so you're not just a face on a billboard or a name with a red or a blue sticker behind you, but you become a person who jumps off the page. I really hope we continue to see that in our voter turnout is that I know the candidates and therefore I'm willing to show up for them. But also, I think it's a tough world. And sometimes really smart women go, why am I, why would I do that to myself? I heard a speech by Nikki Haley when she was governor that really hit me pretty strongly when she said when she first got to Columbia, she wasn't, and it was not as governor, it was as a representative. And she said, I wasn't expecting it to be quite as dug in of the boys club. And I thought I could just break in by my talent and I couldn't. And that made her mad and that made her want to run to be governor. She said, forget that. If you're not going to work with me, I'll take over and become the administrator here.

Katy Smith: [22:26] Oh, my goodness.

Shannon Herman: [22:27] And I think about that. And I've seen other excellent leaders in government, male and female, particularly on my side. As an administrator, you come through and you see all the process. You're very much a part of the process of it, but you're not elected. But it's hard on the elected officials. Even when just an idea is coming to the forefront, there's insinuations and expectations on both sides of the coin, or they're just going to mess it up, or they're just like everybody else, you know? And so it takes a lot of gumption. And sometimes when you get to a point in your career when you do have the time and money to step up into those bigger arenas, you're like, why? And so I think that's what we need to overcome. I work with a professor in business management at Clemson who allows me to speak to her class once a semester. And we talk a lot about the important, politics is not a dirty word. In fact, politics is interrelational development for the advancement of a special interest. And that special interest could be anything. It could be taxpayer savings. It could be environment. It could be public safety, welfare. It could be a large group dynamic, or it could be an individual concern. And so when people step into the political arena, it's usually to advance an agenda that's important to them. But if the risks outweigh the rewards as often as they do, and if the conversation stays as tough and as mean-spirited as we sometimes see it be, really qualified individuals are turned off to that process.

Katy Smith: [23:54] Well, we are just so lucky to have this gem of a city up here in the northern part of our county and to have you and all of your colleagues, male and female, leading it. We just thank you so much for your service as an elected official, Brandy, and as a staff member, Shannon, for keeping the city the great place that it is.

Brandy Amidon: [24:12] Thank you, Katy.

Shannon Herman: [24:13] Thank you, Katy.

Catherine Puckett: Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville. Greater Good Greenville was catalyzed by the merger of the Nonprofit Alliance and the Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy. You can learn more on our website at greatergoodgreenville.org.