Tina Fisk had dreams of becoming a lawyer but a student work study assignment while at the University of North Dakota changed that.
"By the time I graduated from college I wanted to be an auditor," Fisk said. "Audit and government finance has always been in my head. This is what I love."
Fisk was recently named West Fargo city administrator, replacing Jim Brownlee who is retiring. She had been the city's finance director since 2012.
"I see it as a challenge. I see it as a major opportunity for growth, just a huge learning opportunity" Fisk said, of her new position.
"I love what I do as finance director. I'm really excited to take that next step," she said. "It's a huge challenge and it's an honor to do."
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Fisk, who was selected from a field of 24 candidates, sees her role as city administrator having two components: leadership and management.
She will oversee a $56 million city budget, a staff of 168 full- and part-time city employees, and 12 city departments.
The position requires maintaining communication between city commissioners and all department heads and making sure that the city commission is aware that things going on are what it has directed the city to complete, Fisk said.
"West Fargo is going to continue to grow. Eventually we're going to get built out," Fisk said. "We have to have a plan to take care of everything that we already have."
That includes caring for all West Fargo residents and continuing to help and improve every neighborhood, she said.
Fisk was hired three years ago to replace finance director Sharon Schacher who retired.
A Langdon, N.D. native, Fisk graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1988 with a degree in business majoring in accounting.
After college, she worked as a restaurant accountant before moving back to Langdon to become a bookkeeper for Cargill elevator. She later started her own business doing financial statements and other business-related tasks for business clients.
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Fisk then spent 16 years as auditor/assessor for the city of Landgon. "That's where my love of working for cities started," she said.
She later joined the municipal finance division for Advanced Engineering and Environmental Services Inc. of Fargo doing work for communities in Minnesota and North Dakota.
"It was a fun place to work. I got to stay on working for cities," she said. That included doing auditing work for cities like Fargo, Eden Prairie, Minn., Sioux Falls, S.D. and western North Dakota communities of New Town and Parshall, affected by the impact of the recent oil boom.
She helped the city of Parshall with cash flow, financing projects and "bettering the community in the shortest time possible with all the oil money coming in," Fisk said.
She helped New Town recreate and amortise previously lost special assessments.
Fisk developed cost studies for water and sewer rates and did long-range cost planning for cities. She helped the city of Fargo work with FEMA in flood insurance mitigation issues.
West Fargo has felt like coming home, she said.
"It's got such a nice, friendly, hometown feel to it even though it's a bigger community," Fisk said. "I'm really, really excited."
