Cloning in a Hiring Freeze: A Deeeeep State Confession

Cloning in a Hiring Freeze

Thirty years ago, one of the staffers I hired at Massachusetts DEP, John Crisley, left for another job. On his way out he told me, “You’ll always be Mr. Recycling to me.”

That wasn’t a brag. Anyone at DEP back then knows that nickname came with baggage.

John was a political hire. And here’s the question that became part of my so-called “legend”: how did I grow my program from six staff to eighteen during a statewide hiring freeze?

Here’s how.

When I first became Recycling Program Manager, my predecessors and supervisors gave me whispered advice:

• “Don’t interview a Vietnam veteran — if you do, you’re saying they’re qualified, and you might be forced to hire them.”

• “Don’t interview a legislator’s nominee.”

• “Don’t interview a minority candidate.”

This advice came from Democrats — good people, progressive people — who believed in creating on-ramps for disadvantaged categories. But they also understood the unintended consequences of the system they’d built. They were warning me about the traps.

Today it feels risky to admit “own goals” from your own team. The other team will weaponize it.

But dialectic, baby. We get stronger by acknowledging our weaknesses — and our wakenesses — instead of pretending we never had any.

The Dam in the River

The hiring freeze wasn’t airtight. The dam was in the job posting. The state limited how many positions you could advertise.

But once you had one approved posting? The onboarding machinery wasn’t locked down the same way.

If my program had funding — from RCRA bond funds or Clean Environment Fund bottle bill escheats — to support two salaries, I could hire one approved candidate… and effectively “clone” the position.

That meant I could bring in:

• A Vietnam vet like Joseph Lambert

• A legislator’s referral like John Crisley

• A DEI candidate like Deb Washington

Deb, by the way, didn’t need a clone. She was flat-out better than most applicants and went on to major promotions. But the system allowed flexibility — and sometimes that flexibility let me take a chance on someone else too.

Governor William Weld’s hiring freeze limited what I could post. It didn’t limit what I could fund.

That’s how six became eighteen.

Walking Into the Job

I got the Recycling Program Manager job after Corey Degeus died. I saw the obituary in the Boston Globe and felt strange even applying. I went to Acting Manager Jeff Lissack and told him I wouldn’t apply if he was the front-runner.

But I was desperate. Earthworm Recycling — the NGO I’d started — was rationing paychecks. I had just married Armelle and wanted to buy a house. Idealism meets mortgage.

When I got the job, I inherited six staff:

• Jeff (who’d been acting in the role — awkward)

• John Merritt (who had lobbied for it)

• Linda Domizio

• Two “political favor” Republicans — Bob Whitcher and Charlie Leto

• And Susan Cascino

Bob had run one of the first bottle bill redemption center companies — a natural speaker. I was lucky to find him. Charlie came from municipal solid waste and hated his assignment — until I handed him Springfield MRF spreadsheets (new PC stuff in 1992) and together we documented $1.8 million in savings.

Those “outcasts” became assets.

Susan Cascino

Susan was closest to my age — I was 29 — and she was the easiest to work with. Smart, steady, good instincts. We clicked.

Before DEP, I’d been hauling paper barrels from DEP offices via freight elevator for Earthworm Recycling. Jeff Coyne had hired me. Through a consulting contract under my predecessor John Schall, we worked with Boston recycling staff — Rick Innes, Rob Bauman, John McCarthy, Carmen D’Amico — under DPW Commissioner Joe Casazza.

So I knew Boston.

Then Rick Innes called me: he was quitting as Boston Recycling Director.

That was a crisis. Boston was the big leagues. If recycling failed there, it would stall statewide momentum.

I knew immediately Susan was the right fit. Her personality could survive Casazza’s old-school DPW culture. So I nudged.

I told her to hand-deliver the City’s DEP recycling equipment grant announcement. I asked Julie Bender — bottle bill administrator and neighbor of Mayor Tom Menino — to put in a word that Susan was applying.

Susan looked at me and made a pretend pout:  “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

I wasn’t. I was cutting off my right arm.

But I knew she’d get hired. And if she did, Massachusetts would have a recycling insider inside Boston City Hall.

The legend — which I believe — is that both the DPW Commissioner and Mayor Menino were each allowed to bring one favored name into the interview process.

They both brought the same name:

Susan Cascino.

She got the job.

Cloning Again

In the middle of a hiring freeze, I lost my strongest staffer.

So I cloned the vacancy.

Brooke Nash came in from California. Others followed. The team grew. The program grew.

Boston became one of the largest curbside recycling programs in the world.

And a piece of that started with a freight elevator, an NGO scraping by, a consulting subcontract under Jerry Powell, and a young staffer I pushed out the door because she was too good not to promote.

The Story I Never Told

At Susan’s retirement party from the City of Boston a few years ago, there was a speaker list.

I wasn’t on it.

I almost stood up anyway. I had rehearsed the story many times — starting with Jeff Coyne hiring me at Earthworm, the Boston consulting contract, and how that chain of events led to Susan walking into City Hall.

But Phil Goddard had something better to say, and I stayed seated.

That’s fine.

Legends aren’t always told from the podium.

Sometimes they’re told 30 years later, when you’re 64, looking back at how a hiring freeze turned into an expansion — and how letting go of your best person might be the smartest thing you ever did.