It’s Administrative Professional’s Week this week. To recognize the many administrative professionals that work for the City of Eden Prairie, I thought that I would profile five of them this week. One each day. Today, Monday, April 24, we’ll start with Mary Zilka.
Mary Zilka is the Administrative Assistant in the Community Development Department. That's her working at her desk in the photo above getting ready for a busy Monday morning. She works with our planners, assessors, economic developers, housing people, and human services employees. Mary’s work station is right behind the Community Development service counter so she has lots of public contact.
Mary has worked for the City for 18 months. It’ll be two years in September. Before joining us, Mary worked for the Eden Prairie School District for eight years. We’ve hired a couple of administrative professionals from the School District. They’re pretty good employees.
Mary told me that the favorite part of her job is that she always learns something new every day. She admits that she did not know much about the workings of city government before working here, but finds the work interesting and enjoyable.
Her greatest challenges are working on projects at her desk while at the same time trying to provide good customer service to residents who come to the service counter with questions. She also said it’s challenging to set up the City’s “Meet & Greet” visits because she is often juggling the personal schedules of 4-5 people simultaneously trying to find a date and a time for the Mayor, our Economic Development Manager David Lindahl, and me to pay our visits to local businesses. It’s a tough duty, but she does a good job doing it.
Out side of work Mary likes to hang out with her dogs, and her friends. She likes to read and watch movies. She loves to cook.
We’re fortunate to have people like Mary Zilka as one of our administrative professionals here at the City of Eden Prairie. Check out more profiles of our administrative staff right here in this blog this week.
