Connecticut’s government must do more with less.
Gov. Dannel Malloy wants his state agencies to provide higher quality services to businesses and citizens in an era of diminishing resources.
Over at Department of Energy & Environmental Protection, this initiative leaves Macky McCleary filling two roles.
McCleary’s title role as DEEP deputy commissioner of environmental quality charges him with regulation and compliance for air, waste and water.
“Macky is an amazing individual. He is very bright and articulate,” said Tom DeVivo, president of Willimantic Waste, who works with McCleary on improving the state’s recycling rate. “Hopefully, he stays in a leadership role at the state.”
In his other role, McCleary leads the DEEP transformation team, figuring out how to fulfill Malloy’s mandate at an agency that one year ago expanded into energy policy on top of its long-time duty of environmental protection.
“I hit the ground and mostly listened for the first month,” McCleary said.
McCleary’s office on Elm Street in Hartford is strewn with piles of paper, evidence of a mind attacking problems ranging from recycling to underground gasoline tanks. A large whiteboard looms over the room where McCleary throws ideas and action items on transforming DEEP.
“You’ll discover I’m very big on whiteboards,” McCleary said.
In achieving transformation, McCleary and the team needs DEEP to be faster, more responsive, more effective, more efficient, more predictable, and more transparent.
The first step in the process identified different issues and prioritized the pain points for problem solving. Because of this work, DEEP in the fall will roll out guidance to improve its permitting programs, increasing speed and predictability.
The overhaul included putting the permitting programs through the lean business philosophy, a process started before McCleary. The program seeks to maximize efficiencies while leaving the basic structure of the process.
“You never start from zero,” McCleary said. “You want to start with what has already been built.”
This year, the transformation team will identify metrics to tell if DEEP is meeting Malloy’s goals. This helps in celebrating accomplishments and convincing outside agencies the department is headed in the right direction.
DEEP is convincing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of the importance to provide compliance assistance to businesses in meeting regulations. As DEEP proves compliance assistance success with its newly installed metrics, EPA is considering rolling out the program on a national level.
“There is a great impact for small business,” McCleary said. “It turns into better compliance rates and environmental outcome.”
McCleary, 34, started at DEEP in September, out of the Boston office of management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. as a project manager. Prior to that, he co-founded a Long Island, N.Y. energy strategy company called EmPower CES.
Like DEEP Commissioner Dan Esty, McCleary graduated from Yale University in New Haven, earning his bachelor’s degree in 2000 and his master’s degree in architecture in 2003.
McCleary and his wife Kate McCleary have a 20-month-old daughter, Camilla. During their off time, the family likes to cook and host guests at their home with specialty-made dinners.
“That is a great thing for us because we are all very social people, including my daughter,” Macky McCleary said.
McCleary jokes his life is surrounded in duality between his two DEEP roles, his Nissan Altima hybrid, and his dog Ozzie, a labradoodle.
Now in the public sector, McCleary said he was shocked at how the entire staff embraced Malloy’s mandate.
“The quality and commitment and passion of the employees here have blown me away,” McCleary said.
The eagerness for change makes DEEP’s transformation all that much easier and better for business in the long run.
“We have to change the way we do business to match with the times,” McCleary said.
