Catherine Tuck Parrish

Catherine leads our executive services practice area that addresses workforce issues through executive recruitment, coaching for local government leaders, and facilitating performance evaluations for council/board appointees. She has over 30 years of management experience working for local governments of all sizes and a nonprofit association. Catherine has conducted hundreds of searches for manager/administrator, general manager/executive director, deputy/assistant manager, police chief, fire chief, and directors of public works, planning, economic development, finance, human resources, information technology, human services, and other key positions in local governments across the country. In addition to executive recruitment, she has facilitated numerous governing body workshops, staff retreats, and strategic planning sessions. Her work as a consultant includes project management and contributions to several local government projects, such as process improvement studies, departmental assessments, planning and permitting process reviews, and policy development. Catherine’s most recent local government experience was as deputy city manager in Rockville, Maryland, where she oversaw parks and recreation, human resources, information technology, finance, neighborhood resources (citizen engagement), communications, customer service, and intergovernmental functions. She also served as acting city manager in Rockville for nearly a year. Before joining Rockville, Catherine served as assistant to the county executive in Fairfax County, Virginia, working on change management issues, including a new pay system, employee engagement, and internal communication improvements. Catherine has served as an ethics advisor at the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), counseling elected officials and citizen groups regarding employment agreements, forms of government issues, and recruitment. She also worked for the City of Denton, Texas. Catherine chaired the ICMA’s Acting Manager Task Force, which produced a handbook for interim managers. She also led the Maryland City/County Management Association (MCCMA) as president and vice president. She served as president, vice president, and secretary of the Metropolitan Association of Local Government Assistants in the Washington, D.C., metro area. Catherine has spoken at national and state conferences on a variety of topics, including workforce and recruitment trends, civility, effective councils, ethics, forms of government, human resources, strategic planning, budget strategies, developing high-performing organizations, and leadership. She has also spoken at the National League of Cities’ Leadership Training Institute on recruiting and evaluating the CEO. Catherine is a certified instructor of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator instrument.