The city of Issaquah’s new Human Resources director, Lori Brown, brings a wealth of experience to her new position.

The new face in town has spent the past 16-and-a-half years as the Human Resources manager for the city of Redmond, and worked as the Human Resources analyst for the city of Bellevue for 10 years before that.

“I’m very happy to be here … This is a really exciting work environment,” Brown said. “There are a lot of [human resources] opportunities here, working with the city, collaborating on goals.”

Brown studied political science at Whitworth University, planning to become an attorney. However, after receiving her B.A., she ended up in the Human Resources Department of the Seattle Police Department, and realized she had a calling for this line of work.

“I thought, ‘I think I can do more good assisting with public personnel and solving interpersonal conflict,'” Brown said. She laughed that becoming a lawyer might have meant “encouraging conflict rather than solving it.”

As a result, Brown went back to school and received a master’s in administration from Seattle University so that she could pursue a human resources career, and hasn’t looked back since. She has got plenty of ideas for her job in Issaquah’s city government.

“I want to make sure HR assists in pursuing organizational goals,” she said. She plans to “look at continuous improvement, develop efficiencies and ensure programs are efficient and meet the needs of the community.”

Brown believes her extensive experience will help her to “make sure we’re competitive with the market so that we can attract and retain qualified applicants,” while still ensuring that the local government is a “good steward of public funds.”

That’s not to say that Brown thought Issaquah wasn’t doing a good job of this already; in fact, it was Issaquah’s governmental leadership that drew Brown to the position in the first place.

“We have an outstanding team at the administrative level,” she said. “Everyone is coming together at the right place. It’s an amazing leadership team — I’m sure they’re going to do wonderful things.”

The scenery of the Issaquah area also attracted Brown, an avid hiker and runner, to the job. Born and raised right next door in Bellevue, Brown loves the natural splendor of Washington and could not imagine living outside of the Pacific Northwest.

“This is the most beautiful area of the world — especially Issaquah, with the…mountains, valleys and [location] right on the water,” she said. “I don’t think we can find any place more beautiful than where we are.”