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How It Paid Off: From Administrative Assistant to Elected Official

Jennifer McBride

NAME: Jennifer McBride ’12

DEGREE: BS in Business Administration

TITLE BEFORE MY DEGREE: Administrative Assistant to the Zoning Administrator, LaGrange County (Indiana) Plan Commission

TITLE AFTER MY DEGREE: LaGrange County Recorder

THE WAKE-UP CALL: I’d heard about the possible elimination of our department. I didn’t want to be without a job, so I knew I needed to get my degree. While I worked on my degree, I was approached to join the Recorder’s Office to take the position of a retiring deputy recorder. As the register of deeds, we handle all land transactions such as mortgages, when people sell or split property, and more. Realtors, surveyors, mortgage and title companies can’t do their job without us. In 2012, I ran for county recorder and won. Coincidentally, that was also the year I graduated from Walden.

A FOUNDATION FOR SUCCESS: The human resource classes I took at Walden have helped me with payroll and privacy issues. I also took as many political science classes as I could because they interested me. They’ve become really useful because I have a much better understanding of how government works.

A MARRIAGE OF HISTORY AND BUSINESS: I’m very interested in history and genealogy. The Recorder’s Office is the oldest elected office in Indiana. We have handwritten records from when LaGrange County was founded in 1832, so a lot of people who do genealogy research come to us. On top of the land records, we also keep the county’s military records. We also offer alerts and programs for people to help them identify and prevent property fraud. We have a lot of history here. This is a field I love.

GIVING BACK TO THE VOTERS: When you’re an elected official, the community chooses you. Thanks to my Walden education, the community had confidence I could do my job well. Throughout my year of campaigning, I made sure to appeal to the groups within our community I knew would be voting and spent a lot of time working on my speeches to make sure I addressed their specific concerns. They put their faith in me, so if there’s any way I can use my knowledge or experience to help and protect the citizens of LaGrange, I will.
 

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