Date: Fri 19-Jul-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Markey-personnel-labor

Full Text:

w/photo: Newtown Hires A Personnel Director

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

Nancy M. Markey, an attorney who works for the state's Office of Labor

Relations in Hartford, has been hired to fill the newly created position of

personnel director for the town of Newtown.

"Her background is exactly what we need for this position," said First

Selectman Bob Cascella. "I'm thrilled to have someone of her caliber working

for the town of Newtown."

Mrs Markey, 36, will start the $40,000-a-year position on August 5. She will

join the staff in the first selectman's office in Edmond Town Hall.

Mr Cascella said that in addition to taking over the town's regular personnel

operations, Mrs Markey's "labor negotiating skills and legal skills will be

invaluable." One of her first tasks will be to review all of the labor

contracts that the town has with its 135 employees, he said.

"She will lend professionalism that is really needed and the continuity in

policies and procedures between one administration and the next," Mr Cascella

said.

Mrs Markey lives on Founders Lane in Sandy Hook with her husband, Joseph, who

is a vice president of the Bank of New York in Stamford, and their sons,

Jackson, 4, and Jonathan, almost 2.

When Mrs Markey earned her law degree from Western New England College's

School of Law in 1993, she was hired by the state of Connecticut as a labor

relations associate, one of 10 professionals responsible for negotiating and

administering 12 executive branch collective bargaining agreements covering

30,000 state employees.

She serves as a hearing officer for grievance hearings and represents the

state in grievance arbitration, is a member of a team which negotiates labor

contracts and prepares for binding interest arbitration, advises state

agencies on developing and administering personnel policies, provides agencies

with training in such personnel areas as progressive discipline and responds

to inquiries about contract interpretation.

"We handle about 2,500 grievances a year," Mrs Markey said in an interview on

Tuesday. "Our office is very busy, particularly with issues over job

security."

She referred to the closing of Fairfield Hills Hospital by the State

Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, explaining that if, for

example, the state workers who have not yet left their residences at the

hospital complex are fired, they would file grievances with her office in

Hartford.

"My office is under the Department of Administrative Services - not the Labor

Department - and we are, in effect, the governor's negotiators," she

explained.

In addition to contracts involving health care employees, her office handles

contracts with such state employees as the state police, correctional

officers, public works, and teachers and administrators at state colleges and

universities.

"We negotiate pensions and health care - just about everything," she said.

Mrs Markey said she made a "quality of life decision" when she applied for the

position in Newtown.

"This isn't about money, it's about doing what you want to do," she said. "I

took a pay cut to come here, but I wanted to work locally. I know this is the

best for my family."

Mrs Markey said she brings her two young sons with her each day to Hartford to

use a daycare facility close to her office. But that means coping with two

pre-school children as she battles rush-hour traffic in a 40-mile commute

twice a day, she said.

Originally from Arkansas, Nancy Markey earned her undergraduate degree in

history at the University of Mississippi. She spent 10 years as a flight

attendant for Northwest Airlines, based in Minneapolis, Seattle, Detroit and

Boston, and flying to Europe and Asia. She met Joseph Markey on a stopover in

Hartford and married him six years later.

"Northwest (Airlines) bought a smaller airline while I was a flight attendant

and there were some labor problems," Mrs Markey said. "I really became

interested in labor law at that time."

She worked during the summer of 1990 as a legal intern at Northwest's world

headquarters in St Paul, Minn., and was well prepared to follow in the

footsteps of her two older brothers, also attorneys, when she entered law

school in August of that year. Throughout her three years in law school in

Springfield, Mass, she continued to fly each weekend on Northwest's routes to

Europe. That is, until she was eight months' pregnant.

"Jackson was born during my last year in law school," she said. "It was an

incredible year, going to school during the week and flying on weekends. When

I graduated, only one-third of my class had job offers. I was fortunate to get

exactly the job I wanted."

The Markeys moved to Newtown three years ago, after living in Easton.

"The first time I saw Newtown, I knew I wanted to live here," she said. "I

loved Main Street and especially the house that was the old library. But my

husband was working in Manhattan, and we thought it was too far to commmute.

Once he got his job in Stamford, and I started working in Hartford, we didn't

look anywhere else."