After 32 years of government work, former Howard County Department of Citizen Services Director Susan Rosenbaum has packed up her perfectly purple office on Columbia Gateway Drive for life as a snowbird.

Rosenbaum, who retired from county service last week, plans to spend the foreseeable future commuting between her Highland home and a new house in Venice, Fla., with her husband, Gary.

“It’s a very special place and that’s something I’ll miss, that connection,” she said of her time in Howard County. “My husband and I plan on staying connected here.”

At 58, Rosenbaum has spent the majority of her career with the county, starting in the Office on Aging in 1977.

“I never expected that I would stay here,” she said. “And I found that I loved it here.”

Her work with the office included some of the first efforts to bring senior services to the Howard, including the opening of the Bain Center — the county’s first senior center.
“We didn’t have a lot of the programs that we have (now),” she said. “We had a few staff, but we had people who still needed services.”

The county now has eight senior center locations.

County Executive Kenneth Ulman called Rosenbaum an institution in Howard County.

“She really has a tremendous amount of compassion and empathy for everyone in Howard County,” he said. “(She) has really developed incredible relationships with our nonprofit partners.”

Ulman said one of Rosenbaum’s greatest achievements since being appointed citizen services director in 2004 is facilitating the opening of the county’s homeless shelter: the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center.

“She was really a huge proponent of that and she is one of the reasons why Howard has such a tight-knit, collegial human services community,” he said.

Richard Krieg, president of the Horizon Foundation, a nonprofit that supports health and wellness in Howard County, credited Rosenbaum with expanding services to the North Laurel and Savage areas.

“She took the Department of Citizen Services to a whole new level,” Krieg said. “She was the architect of (studies and programs) that really modernized the department.”

She also improved the communication between residents, other branches of government and her department, he said.

“I think she moved the department from being a slow, provincial organization. To me that was really proactive,” Krieg said.
 
Former deputy director Lois Mikkila took over for Rosenbaum Feb. 1.

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user comments (1)

user trentkittleman says...

Susan -- What a WONDERFUL photo -- it really captures your warmth and beauty. From one of your Leadership '94 classmates, you will be missed! (Enjoy Florida!!)

Posted 2:29 PM, 02.03.10 | Permalink