Perry J. Pockros AM 1986

Creative Solutions for Government Problems

“The public sector holds enormous challenges and excitement which requires creative problem solving,” said Perry J. Pockros, AM’86, and vice president for federal services at Hagerty Consulting, Inc. “It’s an opportunity to work in many different areas on a diversity of projects.”

Pockros’s career, in fact, highlights this diversity of work. His interest in government goes back to his college days and an internship in the Connecticut General Assembly. He also worked for the City of Chicago, the Illinois State government, and spent over a decade on Capitol Hill.

Now at Hagerty, a public sector management consulting firm, Pockros advises government agencies—like the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Defense Finance and Accounting Services—on ways to improve the efficiency of their programmatic, business, and strategic operations, which helps the agencies deliver their services more effectively.

For example, he is currently leading a project team in the state of Mississippi to identify permanent housing solutions for the thousands of residents still living in trailers more than two years after Hurricane Katrina. Said Pockros, “The most rewarding aspect of my work is when we can see making a meaningful difference in the delivery of a program, and when we’re able to [help the government] rethink an issue or solve a problem.”

To strengthen his quantitative and qualitative analytical skills, Pockros left his job as a staff member in the U.S. House of Representatives in the early 1980s and headed to the Harris School. While there, he took courses in departments and schools across campus and concentrated in science, technology, and natural resource policy. “I created by own concentration by connecting the dots,” he recalled. “It was a great thing to do.”

Prior to his current position, Pockros had spent more than ten years at public sector consulting firms, such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and IBM Global Business Services. A little more than a year ago, the founder and president of Hagerty Consulting—a colleague since the early 1990s—called Pockros to propose opening a Washington, DC, office for the rapidly growing Evanston-based firm. In 2007, they did just that, and in just over a year the Washington office now has recruited six full-time employees and plans to offer an internship this summer.

“Hagerty offered me an exciting opportunity to work with a highly respected team of professionals to broaden the firm’s federal sector presence, to grow a boutique consulting practice founded on the best qualities of a top-tier firm.” With such rapid growth, Hagerty and Pockros are sure to have many successful ventures in the future.