City of Minot graduates first leadership cohort; staff propose training, mentorship and monthly emergency drills

City of Minot employees presented capstone projects and implementation plans at the cityLeadership Development Cohortcapstone graduation, outlining practical changes designed to improve training, cross-training, emergency readiness and daily operations.

The graduation opened with a reminder of the programpurpose: "Our community. The most powerful and capable asset in our quiver is not our equipment ... It's our people," the meetingmoderator said, framing the cohort as a capacity-building effort for municipal services.

Participants described a range of near-term changes. Colin KDson of the water treatment department proposed a peer-mentor training model, a year-long operator competency workbook and scheduled quizzes at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months to ensure new hires attain the technical skills needed to treat potable water to regulatory standards. "Psychological safe environment in my words is having the ability to show your vulnerabilities," Colin said as part of explaining how leaders can model learning and reduce training strain on senior operators.

Transit foreman Joe Catera said inconsistent communication tied to rotating schedules prompted him to start monthly team meetings and to explore a "lead driver" position to support onboarding and daily supervision. "Every driver should clearly understand what is expected and how routes should be run," he said, describing the meetings as a way to eliminate guessing and strengthen accountability.

Maria Romanic, operations and maintenance manager for the Minot Airport, urged monthly tabletop emergency drills to supplement the FAA-required annual review. "Monthly tabletops will provide additional opportunities to get together as a team and talk through the various roles and responsibilities in the event of an emergency," she said, noting two of 13 planned scenarios have already been completed.

Several presenters described work to reduce single-person knowledge dependencies. Nicholas Reynolds (sanitation) and others said they are converting tacit knowledge into documentation and deliberately rotating routes so new hires become trainers and the system retains service continuity across roughly 13,000 daily service points. "Knowledge is power. It does not serve well when one person knows most of the routes," Reynolds said.

An unnamed speaker from the utility billing and treasury team reported measurable operational improvements tied to the cohort work: the speaker said the team maintained a 98% on-time completion rate for daily payment processing, attributed a 60% reduction in utility disconnections to proactive outreach instituted in 2024, and said manual processing time fell by 12% after system and process changes.

Other capstones focused on trust-building and coaching: Brook Hermanson (city shop) credited relationship-focused supervision with increased initiative and peer mentoring; Carrie Shriek (Fire Department) described shifting from task completion to coaching probationary and senior firefighters to create a leadership pipeline; and Dan Falconer (planning) described a process-improvement effort that moved code enforcement functions into closer coordination with the police department to reduce miscommunication.

City Attorneyoffice attorney Nick Schmidtz said improved self-management and clearer communication within his office helped reduce perceived bottlenecks in legal support for departments. Presenters across departments repeatedly said psychological safety, consistent one-on-ones, and deliberate cross-training were the practical levers they would use to sustain improvements.

Organizers and participants said the cohort will continue: a second cohort is planned, participants posed to train others, and the event closed with group photos and a reception. The city did not record any formal votes or policy adoptions during the event; most proposals described operational changes to be implemented by departments.

Next steps noted at the end of the session included department-level follow-ups, continued monthly meetings and the airportmonthly tabletops; several presenters said they would reassess outcomes after a trial period and bring substantive policy changes (for example, a proposed citywide cleanup recommendation) to the appropriate council or aldermanic hearing if required.