David Fleisch and His Team Transform Ventura County Public Works

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The Ventura County Public Works Agency provides transportation and roads, water and sanitation, watershed protection services, engineering, and more to over 800,000 residents in southern California. While the agency has successfully supported the county’s critical infrastructure needs since its founding in 1954, leaders have been working to bring the organization into the future as key members face retirement and welcome a new generation into the fold.

For David Fleisch (assistant director), Jeff Pratt (former director), and Chris Hooke (former deputy director of design and construction, roads and transportation), that has meant fine-tuning the agency’s culture and building bridges between departments.

“When I first got here 14 years ago, we were siloed,” says Fleisch, who manages the day-to-day oversight of around 80 percent of the agency’s workforce. He plans to retire in a year. “Departments didn’t talk or communicate with each other as much as they could. I used to joke with my wife that we needed to get everyone on the same playing field, but they weren’t even playing the same sport.”

Pratt and Hooke recognized that too. That’s why the leaders and their departments took several steps to break down those walls. It started with “telling the public works story to our staff,” Fleisch says. So began an internal newsletter for employees to better understand what their colleagues were doing across the organization.

That led to an annual “State of the Agency” event, which brings together all 400 employees for an opportunity to network, share their expertise through staff (not management) presentations, and learn about each department. Employee of the quarter and employee of the year recognitions offer similar advantages.

The impact of these simple steps has been instrumental.

“We’ve seen an increase in collaboration and a shift in our employees. Now, they think of the agency rather than their own department,” Fleisch says. “I’m grateful to have been able to watch the agency mature and see it shepherded in the right way so that it sticks. Our legacy won’t be that our names are remembered but that the transformation actually stays.”

In addition to telling the public works story to employees, the agency has also focused on telling it to the public through outreach events and social media posts, Fleisch says.

“The public generally doesn’t pay attention to what we do until something doesn’t work,” he explains. “We need to be deliberate about communicating who we are and what we do on an ongoing basis. And who we are, at our core, is a county-first response team that is committed to not only providing support in the aftermath of crisis but to completing prevention-based maintenance work. We’re really trying to get everyone engaged and get feedback on how we can be better.”

That engagement and collaboration with both the public and agency employees is more important than ever as the organization faces several changes and transitions. But so has embedding a culture of improvement, Fleisch says. Leaders have taken intentional steps to give employees a voice.

“People who know the work the best are people who do the work. Not the guy in the corner office,” Fleisch says. “We’re trying to make sure employees have a say in how job[s] can get done, and we’ve created a structured approach through training, employee empowerment, and huddle meetings. As a result of these efforts, we’ve documented a savings of $13 million through process improvement.”

Before coming to Ventura County Public Works Agency, Fleisch spent 28 years in the Navy, where he managed operations, engineering and public works teams, including at the naval base in Ventura County. When he retired, remaining in Ventura County was a natural fit for him.

“I really wanted to be in public service and to support the community,” he says.

After serving as director of roads and transportation for over a decade, he was promoted to his current role in 2021.   

As a leader, Fleisch learned early on that there’s two kinds of respect: the one you get because of your rank or title and the one you earn. He has spent his 42-year career focused on the latter, earning respect and trust, day in and day out.

“It’s not something you do once and then it’s good forever. You need to lead by example,” he shares. “I often equate leadership to parenting. You’re guiding, providing examples, nurturing, and disciplining when necessary. It’s the day-to-day interactions that matter: taking time to listen and pointing teams toward a true north.”

Looking toward the future, Fleisch and his colleagues are moving forward to ensure that the changes they’ve made will have a long-lasting impact.

“We have some new people coming in, and we want to make sure they’re connected to people in this organization that can help them succeed. This is where the transformation of the culture at our agency, more than 14 years in the making, will make the biggest impact,” he says.  

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