Sheffer Named Region's Public Administrator of The Year

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Niagara Frontier Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) has named John B. Sheffer, II, director of the University at Buffalo Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth, as its 1999 Public Administrator of the Year.

Sheffer, director of the institute since it was founded in Summer 1997, is a former state senator and assemblyman and former mayor of the Village of Williamsville. He is a faculty member in UB's Law School and School of Architecture and Planning, and previously was UB's interim vice president for public service and urban affairs.

ASPA is a national organization of over 13,000 members dedicated to the advancement of excellence in public administration. The ASPA Public Administrator of the Year award is presented to an outstanding public administrator whose career exhibits high standards of professional excellence, dedication, skill and accomplishment.

The ASPA award was conferred at a luncheon on Friday, May 7, in the Adam's Mark Hotel as part of the chapter's promotion of Public Service Recognition Week, which runs from May 2-8 and is sponsored by the Niagara Frontier Chapter, M&T Bank, and others.

Ronald W. Coan, director of the Erie County Industrial Development Agency, spoke at the luncheon.

Anthony R. Canna, president of the Niagara Frontier ASPA Chapter, noted, "In view of the widespread community concern with the economic development and future of the Niagara Frontier as a region, we are especially pleased to name John Sheffer this year's Public Administrator of the Year."

Sheffer, who joined the UB faculty in 1993 after five years in the New York State Senate and 10 in the Assembly, was a founding member of the UB Governance Project, a faculty team that studied the structure and function of governments and public service delivery in Erie County.

He subsequently became the university's interim vice president for public service and urban affairs, bringing to that office a region-wide perspective and an emphasis on extending the university's resources to local governments and public officials.

Regional collaboration has been Sheffer's guiding philosophy as founding director of the Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth, a unit of the UB Office of Public Service and Urban Affairs. The institute offers an interface between the university, the community, and the larger region, conducting a range of programs and projects that draw upon the university's policy expertise, research capability, technical resources, and community focus.

Institute efforts led by Sheffer include the ongoing State of the Region project, an effort designed to identify and monitor critical indicators and related goals and action steps for the region; the Western New York Regional Information Network (RIN), a major Web-based resource for the region's citizens and leaders, and the Statewide Shared Services Program (SSSP) for Municipalities and School Districts, a New York State Senate pilot program of seed grants for school-municipal administrative partnerships.

In addition, Sheffer has served as chair of the Erie County Legislature's County-Municipal Regionalism Committee, a group that defined and administered a program of county incentives for intermunicipal collaboration. He speaks widely to groups interested in regional collaboration and region-wide concerns. In November 1997, he served as a consultant on a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) effort to assess the status of local government in war-torn Lebanon.

Sheffer received his J.D. degree from the Syracuse University College of Law, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Syracuse Law Review. His undergraduate degree in history is from Wheaton College in Illinois, where he was president of the Student Government. He is a graduate of the Williamsville Central Schools, where he was a member of the National Honor Society.