Leading Gardner: The Journey and Vision of Mayor Michael Nicholson `17
By Mahidhar Sai Lakkavaram
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Michael Nicholson is the mayor of the City of Gardner. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts in 2017 with a dual degree in political science and history, Nicholson continued at UMass with an accelerated master's in public policy and then attended law school at Suffolk University in Boston.
Mayor Nicholson was recently named among the 100 exceptional Latino leaders in Massachusetts honored by Amplify Latinx and The Boston Globe for 2024. The listing highlights “the impact by people of Hispanic and Latin American heritage across the Commonwealth”. The UMass Alumni Association also named Mayor Nicholson this year's Outstanding Young Alumni. Read on to learn more about his journey!
Straight off the bat, what was your journey like after UMass, and how did you become the mayor of Gardner?
When I graduated from UMass, I enrolled in the accelerated master's program in public policy. From there, I was hired as the executive aide to my predecessor in Gardner and worked in that role for two years.
During that time, there was tension between the mayor and the city council. As a result of the contention, there was discussion about whether my position would be cut from the budget. This led me to start looking elsewhere, and I was eventually hired as the town administrator for Rutland, Massachusetts. As town administrator, I managed the town’s day-to-day operations and reported to the town's board of selectmen.
After two years of gaining experience in Rutland, I received a call in November 2019. My former boss informed me that he had accepted a new position as the town administrator for Westminster and would be stepping down as mayor in early January; leaving the seat open.
He suggested that I consider running for mayor. A few days later, I announced my candidacy.
Even with the thrill of running my own campaign, I still felt that I was taking a gamble with my professional career. To add to the circumstances , I had officially launched my campaign on February 3, 2020, and then the COVID pandemic hit in March 2020. Which as we know, affected everything, including elections.
My election was postponed by the state six different times as we worked to figure out how to safely conduct voting during the pandemic. Eventually, the preliminary election took place on June 1, with the final election held on June 30. It was announced that I had won, and was sworn in as the mayor of Gardner in July 2020.
As excited as I was to begin my new role as mayor, I was still managing Rutland's operations in the evenings, and attending law school at Suffolk at night. I was able to leave Rutland in September 2020, graduated from law school in May 2021, and then got reelected as mayor in November 2021.
After another campaign cycle, I was reelected again in November 2023, which is how I ended up where I am today.
Do you have any advice for current UMass students?
My biggest piece of advice would be to explore different career options through internships. As previously mentioned, my first internship is what got my foot in the door. This made my post-grad job search much smoother, as I not only had a better idea of what path I wanted to take but it made the application process less intimidating as I was able to apply to the places I interned. Internships give you real-world experience and help bridge the gap between what you learn in class and how it applies in practice. I highly recommend it and in return, I am always looking for interns in my office today.
Additionally, don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. College is the ideal environment to try new things, explore your interests, and maybe even develop a new passion. Lastly, you don’t need a political science degree to work in government, especially at the local level. In my office, we have people from various majors, including chemists, engineers, and mental health counselors. There may be a role for you in your local government, even if you did not receive a degree in political science.
Do you have any hobbies?
I enjoy skiing—it is one of my favorite winter activities. I played the trumpet in the UMass Marching Band, and I still love music.
Between the community events and late nights, I still try to spend as much time with my friends and family as possible. I make it a point to find that work–life balance, or else it’s easy to lose focus and deliver subpar results.
What do you see yourself doing next?
I'll be here for a while, I didn't expect to be Rutland town administrator at 23 years old, nor did I expect to be elected mayor at 25.
I am proud of the work that my team is doing here in Gardner, and there's a lot of work that we still have left to do, so I'll be here for a while. I’ll continue as long as the voters will have me, I truly love my role.
What does your day-to-day life look like?
Honestly, I can start my day with a to-do list of “ABC,” and then one of my chiefs or department heads calls and my entire day shifts.
The majority of my day is project management and project oversight. The City is essentially a mini company, and I'm the CEO of a $78 million company (that's the city's budget annually).
My job involves working closely with department heads to make sure that their projects are moving along and that they have the means to operate accordingly. I also focus on staying within the budget and maintaining our connection with the community, as we're responsible for the taxpayer dollars.
I also spend a significant amount of time meeting with various people, whether that be in my office, on-site, or over the phone. I talk to businesses that aren't in Gardner and go out now and then to see who we can bring into the city. That's how we got Jersey Mike's and Chipotle to open up this year. I try to connect frequently with our partners at the state, local, and federal levels. Occasionally I will meet with our congressional delegation, officials in Boston, and even policymakers and officials at the White House. I’ve learned that you need to be your community’s biggest cheerleader and storyteller.
How has your experience at UMass and CHC shaped your career?
UMass and the Honors College helped me believe in myself. I was very quiet and shy when I started, but the support system there was amazing. When I was at UMass Professor Alex Deschamps was my advisor in the Emerging Scholars program when I was there. And I’d do anything for her. She was the one who pushed me to realize what I was able to do and opened so many doors for me — just even teaching me how to network.
I still remember my first day as a freshman and was living in Melville, where the Emerging Scholars RAP was. She comes in and goes, “I am your new academic mom and you are my academic babies.” I didn't realize until after I graduated how true that was. She grabbed us by the hand and opened every door she could.
It wasn't just her, it was Sid Ferreira from housing and Delsey Thomas in the advising center. It was Kathleen Brown-Pérez from my Ideas that Change the World class, and Dan Gordon, the interim dean at the time and a history professor.
He taught me golf, and was like: "If you want to go into this field, you're going to need to learn how to golf because you'd be surprised how many conversations you have on the golf course with a business or something like that." And he was right.
The support I received didn’t end after I graduated. It’s still there, which is one of the most valuable things I took away from my undergraduate experience.
What motivates you to do what you do?
If I'm driving to work one day, and I see a broken swing set, I call the DPW workers and ask, “Hey, can you fix a swing set?” And then when I'm driving home, and there's a kid on that swing set, that’s the coolest feeling ever.
On a more personal note, my mom immigrated from Nicaragua in 1987 due to the two civil wars that happened there. She was starting college to be an engineer — but then moved here in the process of it. She didn't speak English, and therefore couldn't pursue engineering, because she didn't understand enough of the language. That didn’t stop her from going back to school here. What's the one thing that's the same between Spanish and English? Math. So, my mom is now an accountant.
She worked her way up and is now the chief accountant for Arbitron Hardware. I'm proud of her, but it's not lost on me that she didn't get a chance to do what she said she wanted to do. She didn't get a chance to make that difference in her community, because someone took that from her. How could I ever throw away the opportunity to make a difference in my community? I also wanted to make sure that the community that I'm working to make better never has a situation where someone in a political position takes that opportunity away from someone else like that.
Every year, the mayor gives the graduation address for Gardner High School, and I always try to do a portion of it in Spanish. I don’t do it for myself, I do it for the other people in the community who are feeling like the minority. I just want them to know that if you're new in a city and you don't speak the language, you don't know what's going on, and you're trying to figure out what's going on, or you just left a terrible situation, and you came here to try to better your life — you should at least know that someone in your government understands you.
We may not have the same background story, but at least we speak the same language. And that's enough to at least start a conversation.