Meet Doug and Nicole, two long-time public sector professionals and the hosts of the new podcast, Public Voices, for leaders in government and public safety.
What if the challenges you’re facing in local and state government are the same ones everyone else is facing, too?
That’s the question at the heart of Public Voices by NEOGOV, a new weekly podcast hosted by retired Police Chief Doug Shoemaker and HR veteran Nicole Carlson. Built for government leaders, human resources professionals, and public safety professionals navigating the hardest parts of the job every day.
Meet the Hosts of Public Voices by NEOGOV
Nicole Carlson started her career as an emergency dispatcher two days after graduating high school. She loved the work but couldn’t go to school and balance the demands of dispatching at the same time, so she made a move.
She transferred to HR as an administrative assistant so she could keep a normal school schedule. What happened next was not part of a plan. Her director saw something in her and developed her from that admin assistant all the way into someone who could take her seat when she retired. Nicole left the organization as HR Director. Somewhere in the middle, she was appointed to run municipal court for about a year, which she jokes is a story for a different time.
She grew up in a public servant home. Her dad was in law enforcement, and that foundation shaped everything. After nearly 20 years in public sector, the question that drives her is one she heard from Seth Godin: Are you trying to prove a point or are you trying to make a difference?
Nicole spent years doing the former. The shift toward the latter changed everything about how she leads.
Doug Shoemaker spent a little over three decades in law enforcement, serving as a Field Training Officer, Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain, Chief in multiple cities. He will tell you he got into policing because of the TV show Cops, which he is the first to admit might not be the best origin story.
But underneath that was something real. He wanted to combine the work with the ability to help people. That combination drove everything.
Along the way, Doug spent over a decade managing public information and media relations, a role that was supposed to last two years and instead lasted thirteen. It gave him a front row seat to all the things public servants do every day that never make the news: The dispatcher who delivers a baby over 911. The parks employee making sure a community event goes safely. The officer who has a moment with someone that nobody will ever write a commendation for.
Those are the moments, Doug says, that explain why people choose this work. And when organizations get it right and people feel fulfilled enough to do their best work, they will do a better job out in the field.
Doug and Nicole come from two different departments and two different careers. But they have one shared reality about what it actually takes to serve communities.
What Does Public Voices by NEOGOV Cover?
City hall is not siloed by choice. HR sits across the hall from operations. Public safety shares a building with compliance. Every department faces similar constraints and serves the same community. But too often the conversations stop at the department door.
Public Voices is built on that reality. Each episode connects the dots between recruiting, workforce management, community trust, compliance, and operations. Each episode opens the door to the kind of conversation that usually only happens after the meeting ends.
Culture is a good example. It’s one of the most talked about and least understood topics in local and state government. Everyone agrees it matters, but fewer people agree on who owns it.
Nicole's answer is direct: Culture is everyone's responsibility. Frontline employees, frontline supervisors, all the way up to directors and chiefs. Not a program. Not an initiative. A daily choice.
Doug builds on it from the leadership side. You can’t always control what happens outside your organization, but you can control how you empower the people inside it.
What Government Workforce Challenges Will Public Voices Address?
Culture is just the beginning. Every week, Doug and Nicole will go deeper into the challenges agencies are actually dealing with: hiring, retention, leadership, wellness, technology, and what it means to lead through constant change. They’ll sit down with leaders from across the public sector to talk about their own experience and how their agencies overcame their greatest obstacles.
But the thread running through each conversation is the same one Doug shares in the first: You are not alone in this. Everyone in the public sector is wrestling with the same challenges.
Public Voices is here to make sure those conversations actually happen, real stories actually get told, and meaningful change is actually within reach.
New episodes drop every Tuesday on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Subscribe and tune in to join the conversation.
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