By Carole Reinert

Eric Hagarty (EMBA ‘25) walked into his first class expecting to find his classmates to be “profit-maximizing individuals who had a singular focus to make as much money as possible.”

He found the exact opposite to be true.

“The first day of the program, a professor said something that really stuck with me. She said they’re not teaching us how to maximize profit; they’re teaching us how to maximize the resources of whatever organization we’re working in,” says Hagarty. 

Maximizing resources is essential in Hagarty’s profession. He’s currently the Dauphin County chief clerk and chief of staff. A few of his previous roles included serving as the Pennsylvania secretary of education and as the deputy chief of staff for Governor Tom Wolf. He also serves on the board of directors for several non-profits, including the Broad Street Market Alliance. 

In all these roles, he’s responsible for large budgets—in the Pennsylvania Department of Education, he oversaw a $22 billion budget—and the goals are usually greater than the amount of funds or workforce needed for implementation. 

What’s his approach to maximizing resources? “I try to flip the organizational chart upside down and view my job to help make sure that everybody who works here has the resources they need to succeed,” says Hagarty. 

A Coalition Builder at Heart

Whether he’s working in government or on a board of directors, Hagarty has spent his career building bridges between people with different viewpoints and finding common ground. His highly developed consensus-building skills were further strengthened thanks to courses in organizational behavior, executive relationships, and organizational leadership. 

These skills proved instrumental when he was asked to chair the Broad Street Market Alliance Board of Directors, the non-profit responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations at the Broad Street Market, a historic community hub in Harrisburg.

He thought the biggest problem would be rebuilding the building after a devastating fire threatened to close the market, where dozens of vendors and small businesses provided food to those living in an area without a grocery store.

Instead, he discovered the organization was in the red.   

The Broad Street Market Alliance had tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills, an executive director who quit and was suspected of stealing money, and the challenge of financing and building a temporary structure for the food vendors while the original Market was repaired. 

Without funds to pay a new executive director, Hagarty and two other board members donated their time to run the market. Payment plans were developed with utility companies. Local plumbers and carpenters donated their skills to build the temporary structure, and the William Penn Social Association donated $30,000. The organization developed other fundraising initiatives and implemented cost-cutting measures.

Eleven months after the fire, several vendors were working in the temporary structure; the market was solvent, the former executive director pleaded guilty to two felonies, and the nonprofit instilled procedures to prevent future thefts. 

The Power of Teamwork

Hagarty believes the Broad Street Market’s ability to overcome this immense crisis can be attributed to the entire community.

“In many other towns, the devastating fire and all the terrible second-order effects it caused and the mismanagement it exposed would have been too much to overcome. The Broad Street Market would be gone forever,” he says. “But Harrisburg, it turns out, is not like many other towns. The people of Harrisburg simply refused to allow the Market to fail. Thanks to an extraordinary outpouring of support from members of the community, the Broad Street Market’s brightest days are still ahead.”

His decades of experience in government helped him bring together all the stakeholders.

“Coalition building is essential in government,” says Hagarty. “You need to have discussions and negotiations with hundreds of legislators, other department heads, and the governor’s office.”

Learning to Ask the Right Questions

He’s been in his role as the chief of staff for Dauphin County for less than a year, and he credits the Executive MBA program with helping him “be more prepared to navigate some of the difficult financial decisions that will have to be made over the next several years.” 

Last year, the Board of Commissioners had to adopt a 20 percent tax increase. Dauphin County, like many governments across the country, is facing some difficult economic decisions. “Now that I’ve taken the financial accounting course, when accountants put information in front of me, I have the baseline financial skills and understanding to ask the right questions,” he says.

Hagarty says he took the position because, “I thought it might be an opportunity to give back and help.”

A 163-Mile Commute to and From Class

It would have been easier for Hagarty to choose a program closer to his home in Harrisburg. He didn’t want something easy; he chose a program that’s a three-and-a-half-hour drive from his home for the quality of the faculty and the rigorof the program. From his research, he discovered this program delivered the maximum value.

The structure of the 19-month program is designed to fit into an executive’s busy life. Since classes take place on campus one weekend per month, Hagerty would drive to Pittsburgh on Thursday nights, stay at a hotel or with friends, and then drive home on Saturday evenings. 

He estimated the drive from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh for class added up to 200 hours over the duration of the program. “I’d put my car on cruise control and listened to a lot of podcasts,” Hagarty says with a smile. Students in the Executive MBA program have assignments to finish between the class weekends. His approach was to “spend lots of mornings and nights at coffee shops to stay on top of things.”

In the end, he feels it was worth the effort to come to Pittsburgh.

“I didn’t just want a piece of paper,” says Hagarty. “I wanted to learn as much as possible.”