Michael McLaughlin is known to city residents and his colleagues as a good listener, a strong leader and a stabilizing force in Greenbelt. His retirement from the position of city manager, which he has held since July, 1996, marks a period of the city’s history during which there was expansion of city services, improvement to the workforce and upgrading of the facilities. As Mayor Emmett Jordan said, “The city is celebrating its 80th year and he has been here for 37. He literally worked his way through the ranks and served the city so well, for so long. It certainly is a bittersweet moment. He is an amazing man.”
Early Years
McLaughlin was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He credits those early years watching Congressman Bob Edgar with inspiring his passion for public administration. “That was when I first became aware of how government could make things better for people,” he said. He studied at Saint Joseph’s University, graduating in 1977. He completed his graduate degree in public administration at George Washington University in 1979 and had an internship in Rockville while in school. From there he earned his first position as an administrative assistant in 1979, an entry-level position in Greenbelt that McLaughlin referred to as being for “a city manager wannabe.”
When talking about why he moved to Greenbelt at that point, even though it was not a requirement of the job, McLaughlin said, “I always felt it was important to be a part of the community because you are going to learn stuff about the community that you wouldn’t learn in your day job.”
McLaughlin said he never left the city through those 37 years because opportunities presented themselves to me” from a career standpoint and “Greenbelt is just a wonderful place to live and in my case, raise a family. I never looked forward to moving from town to town. So my reality of moving up the career ladder by staying in the same community made me incredibly fortunate.” His wife Leslie said he also stayed because “He fell in love with the history and the people of the city.”