Staff Profile

Sara Gunter, Administrative Aide, has spent 20 of her 22 years with the City working for JPL-- about 11 years in Administration and prior to that in Customer Relations where she worked with her supervisor and the Director to build JPL Foundation’s Night of Literary Feasts (now Much Ado About Books), and later to get support for a new Main Library, six new libraries, and existing libraries renovated under the Better Jacksonville Plan, etc. In her first two years with the City, she worked in Public Utilities, then was Executive Secretary to the City’s Finance Director. Very early in her career, she worked for a former first lady of Florida, Alma Warren.

1. Congratulations for winning a City of Jacksonville Rewards & Recognitions Goal Star award! Your Destination Leadership goals for FY10 included “enabling others to act” by developing a series of JPL Staff News that highlighted best practices throughout the system. What has Destination Leadership meant to you and how has it shaped your work?
A: Destination Leadership (DL) is JPL administration’s success guide for its library system. One of DL’s tools in FY2010 was a report called Service Measures that monitored—monthly and quarterly—JPL’s progress towards identified goals in customer service, resource management, and economic development. Melonee Slocum, Manager for Strategic Initiatives, assigned me the task of providing statistics for this report and several other monthly statistical reports drawn from Counting Opinions that show JPL’s progress towards DL’s FY goals. By keeping a regular pulse on JPL’s progress throughout the year, I am ever aware of where we are and where improvement is needed. I am continually amazed at the level of customer service provided by JPL staff to so many.

2. In addition to managing the JPL Staff News blog, what are your major responsibilities?
A: Customer service; any assignment Andi Hammond, my immediate supervisor, gives me, or any task designated by the Director or Deputy Director; taking minutes for Capacity Plan and Library Leadership meetings; keeping abreast of JPL’s service plans, goals, activities, etc.; and United Way campaign.

3. What is your approach to managing both internal and external customers?
A: A-1 on my priority list is customer service—internal and external—and everyone is my customer. Customers need to know you care and how you listen tells them whether you do or not. It’s my job to listen intently, to ask questions when needed, research when necessary, and to provide input within my purview that helps resolve problems in a courteous, expedient, succinct, accurate way. Sometimes that can be done in a phone call or visit from a customer, then, if needed, referral to the respective branch manager or administrative supervisor, a draft letter for the Director, a report for Ms. Hammond or Mrs. Slocum, or a question from JPL, Foundation, or Friends staff.

4. What kind of books do you enjoy reading and why?
A: I have 66 nonfiction books that are my favorites; they’re full of history, wisdom, moral guidance, mankind’s successes, failures, passions, wars, discipline and the lack thereof, love, hate, and hope.

5. What is something that most people would be surprised to know about you?
A: I am a native Floridian, born on an island where on a still, starlit night you could not tell where the sky ended and the reflection of the stars began in the water. I enjoyed green turtle (while it was still legal to catch them), redfish, mullet, palmetto salad, roasted oysters on the beach, pulled peaches and plums from my grandparents’ trees in the summer, swam, picked blueberries, and enjoyed the world’s most glorious sunsets. (Sunrises were splendid, too, but I didn’t often get up that early.) Once I tried to walk across the chicken yard w/o stepping in it. What did I learn from that? Effective strategy is vital to avoid unnecessary messes.