Championing Community: A Conversation with New York State Assemblywoman, Jodi Giglio

In this episode, I sit down with New York State Assemblywoman Jodi Giglio, a dedicated advocate for eastern Long Island, NY, to explore her journey into politics and her relentless pursuit of positive change for her community. In this episode, we discuss:

• Jodi’s passion for public service and desire to influence policy led her into politics.
• The essential skills for leadership in public office.
• How building productive relationships with members of both major parties helps Jodi serve her constituents.
• Staying informed, building a solid network, and maintaining resilience are key to driving change.
• Jodi's advice for those considering a career in public service or politics.
  
  

Show Guest
New York State Assemblywoman Jodi  Giglio is a committed advocate for eastern Long Island, NY. Jodi leverages her business acumen to address community challenges, especially during the COVID era. She has promoted reopening schools and the economy and fought against wasteful spending, taxes, and mandates.

With a decade of experience as a town official, Jodi has saved taxpayers millions and implemented efficient government services. Jodi is known for working across the aisle and has developed productive relationships with both major parties to ensure she serves her constituents. 

She focuses on infrastructure, workforce training, and care funding for vulnerable residents in the NY State Assembly. Jodi champions environmental protection, senior support, and fair school funding. She lives on Long Island with her three children. Follow her on Facebook or Instagram. Listen to her live on WRIV AM 103.9 Fridays from 8:45 am to 9:30 am EST.

Information on the benefits and how to get certified by Women Own Business Enterprise (WBENC) and Women Owned Small Business Federal (WOSB) Contract Program 

Chapters

• 0:00 Jodi Giglio
• 16:49 Public Service and Political Advice
• 25:23 Local Political Service and Advice

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Career Refresh podcast and I am your host, jill Griffin. Today I'm introducing you to New York State Assemblywoman Jodi Giglio. I've had the honor of interviewing her and she is the assemblywoman for my district on Eastern Long Island in New York. Jodi has spent a decade as a town official in Riverhead, new York, and, before running for office and transitioning to New York State Assembly, she has been a committed advocate for Eastern Long Island for many years. Jodi leverages her business acumen to address community challenges. She champions environmental protection, senior support and fair school funding. She also focuses on infrastructure, workforce training and care funding for vulnerable residents.

Speaker 1: 0:48

In the New York State Assembly, known for working across the aisle, jodi has developed productive and lasting relationships with both major parties to ensure that she is serving her constituents. She lives on Long Island with her three children, and today we talk about her passion for public service and her desire to influence public policy and why she got into politics to begin with. We talk about the essential skills you need for leadership in public office and how building productive relationships with members of both party will always help you serve the greater good. Party will always help you serve the greater good, staying informed, building a solid network and maintaining resilience is the key to driving change. And lastly, we round out with Jodi's advice for those considering a career in public service or politics.

Speaker 1: 1:37

And friends, you know I love to hear from you, so send me those emails, keep them coming. We will get them to Jodi If you have questions for her directly about starting a career in politics or public office. If you have questions for me, send them to hello at jillgriffincoachingcom. We will get those answered and we will even bring Jodi back if you have questions for her. As always, friends, be curious, stay active in your local communities and be kind, dig in and I will see you next time. Yurdi, thank you so much for being here. It is an honor to have you this morning and to have this conversation with you.

Speaker 2: 2:12

Yeah, jill, I'm happy to be here with you. You know you're an inspiration yourself and it's always nice to see you, and you have a lot of energy and good energy, and that's so important in today's business world. Thank, you.

Speaker 1: 2:24

Thank you for that. So what I always like to start with is take us way back and tell us what did you?

Speaker 2: 2:33

think you wanted to be when you grew up. Well, I really didn't know what I wanted to be, but I know that. You know my father was in the air force so he got transferred to California when I was going into high school. So we moved to California and I used to come back and spend the summers here on Long Island with my aunt and uncle and my cousin who's the same age, and the minute I could move back, I moved back. So I was really looking forward to getting back to New York. You know that New York blood, so it's a and type a personality got to go, go, go, which is a lot different than what happens in California. Um, with my friends that are still there, my friends from high school. So it's uh, I. I moved back. Um, I worked for American express financial services in garden city. Then I went across country in 18 Willow for United Van Lines for two years with my boyfriend.

Speaker 1: 3:28

That must have been an amazing story.

Speaker 2: 3:31

Yeah, yeah. And then I came back and visited my girlfriend. She, uh, her husband now. We were young then, um, but she used to work at a. She was a bartender. So I went and visited her at Lily Flanagan's in Wantoa and the guy in the three-piece suit at the end of the bar said when are you going to give up that truck and come work for me? And I said what do you do? And he owned a sandpit down the road. So he said you know, I owned a sandpit and if you can operate heavy equipment, I need, you know, people to load the screen, load the trucks, dispatch. So I did that for a couple of years.

Speaker 2: 4:10

And then he bought a couple of projects and wanted me to be the on-site construction superintendent on those projects. So meeting with the trades, hiring and firing the trades, meeting with the inspectors, getting to know the construction industry. And this is in the early nineties where I finally he bought a piece of property. We subdivided it, we went to sell it and the purchaser said I'll buy the property but I want her to come work for me. So I left that and I went to work for this person who was then my husband for 25 years after that.

Speaker 2: 4:47

But it was interesting because the guy that owned the sandpit was partners with a construction guy and that was my first husband and he passed away from lung cancer in 1996. So at a very young age, yeah, so at a very young age, yeah. And then, uh, so I, I just started my own construction company after that and started doing a lot of land use and representing myself as not only a builder but a heavy equipment operator and then also, uh, land use consultant, wow and so. So that was in 97 and I've had my own business ever since, but five years after my husband, passed.

Speaker 1: 5:29

It's an incredible journey. What surprised you more than you thought about? Going from employee to then starting your own business.

Speaker 2: 5:39

It was not easy because, you know, being a woman in the industry, especially back in the nineties, was, uh, challenging and being taken seriously.

Speaker 2: 5:50

When you say, you know, I'm a builder, I can build this, or I know this, you know, I know this about the property, it was uh, it was difficult, which is why I decided that I was going to go to school, back to school, to become a lawyer. I had done a couple of years at Nassau Community College in accounting and decided I didn't like that. So then I switched over into business management and entrepreneur or business administration and entrepreneurship and took a few classes in that and then transferred over to Stony Brook, went to school at night while working full-time during the day and learned a lot. And I say anybody that goes to college, you may start out thinking that you want to do one thing and then you can always turn it into something else, which is what I did. And then it was those few classes, those business management, learning how to write a business plan, learning how to keep records when it came to billing and invoices and receipts, so that you could eventually move up, which I did in 2015.

Speaker 1: 6:59

I became an MWBE or WBE woman business enterprise, being a woman in the construction industry, I have so many questions but for our listeners I want to point out what Jodi is talking about and that's the transferable skills. So when she accumulated all of these skills working on the job and then she went back to school and started in accounting, then took law classes, the ability to effectively write clear communication, the ability to be organized, the ability to run operations, the ability to understand parts of negotiation right, all of those skills are skills that she learned in one area that she's transferring to another area. So I think it's really important that people know that if they do decide they want to change careers or are curious about it, it's really just about thinking about the skills that you've garnered and how are you transferring them into other areas. So that's really important. So thank you for talking about that and congratulations on the WMBE, because I'm a women certified owned business, small business by the government, and that took me like two years to obtain.

Speaker 1: 8:07

So I know how long it takes to get those certifications of the WBE career.

Speaker 2: 8:20

There are a lot of opportunities and I know because we budgeted for it to clean up the backlog and those applications are now taking 90 days. They're all caught up, no.

Speaker 1: 8:31

Yeah. I'm going to put the information for that everyone on the show notes, in case that's something you want to explore. That's really, really amazing information, and thank you for cleaning up the backlog for us. Yes, yes, so take us forward. So okay. So now you're running your own uh, construction and developing, and you then go from there to a journey into getting involved in your community from a political end. So take us into what happened next.

Speaker 2: 9:00

Yeah, a political end. So take us into what happened next. Yeah, so back in 2008, 2009, we had a bunch of property in Quagg and it was 146 acres and the applicant next door the guy that owned the 400 acres next door we all came in at the same time with our applications to create estate housing. At the same time with our applications to create estate housing, and the town of Southampton put us in a moratorium for two and a half years, raised our property taxes from $80,000 to $400,000 on vacant land and where we could have been built 49 houses on 146 acres, they cut us down to 29 houses on an eighth of an acre, right next to the railroad tracks. Wow. So we sued them and we won, and then the town and the county chipped in and bought the property from us and preserved it as open space.

Speaker 2: 9:52

Then my next project was in an apartment building in downtown Riverhead, where the town of Riverhead gave us such a hard time that I started the Riverhead Business Alliance, because I saw that our downtown had been struggling for many years, which is why I wanted to invest in our downtown and we started the Riverhead Business Alliance. I put together a board of directors. We got 50 companies to pay us $300 a year. And anytime the town board was proposing legislation that would hurt a local business owner, we would blast out emails and they would all show up, whether it was the farmers, or if it was the restaurant owners, or if it was just people that owned a property in downtown Riverhead that wanted to do things with their property. So that was the Riverhead Business Alliance and that was my beginning of my political career, in that after two years after that, they talked me into running for Riverhead Town Board. So they talked you into it.

Speaker 1: 10:53

They were like we need your voice in this situation. So tell us again, having never run for office, and I'm sure many of our listeners haven't either what, what did you like? How did you even prepare for that?

Speaker 2: 11:09

Well, with the business alliance, the Riverhead Business Alliance, there were a lot of business owners that were talking me into running for office because they knew that all of the small business advisory committees and the you know the business meetings that they used to have all the time that they really didn't feel that they had a voice on the town board.

Speaker 2: 11:28

So I ran for town board, I got elected and then I was there for 10 years and after I put up the legislation for term limits, so I would have had a couple more years. But then the opportunity came up for me to go for New York State Assembly, which I did and I love. It's just a completely different type of elected office, I should say. But I still see so many people in Riverhead from being on the town board. But I still see so many people in Riverhead from being on the town board. And the greatest part, the most satisfying part about being an elected official, is that you can make change and you can help people and when people tell you what their problems are or their issues are, you can effectuate that change to make it better, so the next person doesn't have to go down that same arduous road. So it's very rewarding very rewarding.

Speaker 1: 12:26

I can, I can imagine it would be. So I hear you also saying that you know, as you're meeting with your local constituents, representing now not just the town but representing the region into New York state, and for our listeners, assembly person, or the assembly in New York state is the effectiveness of the Congress in your state and just New York. We call it the assembly. Did I get that right?

Speaker 2: 12:47

Right, OK yes, there's, there's people. Yes, there's 213 people that run the state of New York, including the governor. So the state is broken up into assembly districts and Senate districts. So Senator Palumbo is the senator from my district, he's my senator, but he has three times the population that I have, because there are 62 senators and then there are 150 assembly members.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Okay, okay, so that transition. What I hear you saying is that you're still meeting with people, both locally but also in the greater region or within your assembly district, to hear what their needs are, what their wants are, so that you can represent them effectively at the state level. How do you go about that? That's an enormous job.

Speaker 2: 13:43

Yeah, so we start session in January, shortly after the first, and we go up and we start preparing for the budget, because the budget is supposed to be adopted by April 1st every year. So we right now, from session usually ends the first week in June, so we don't go back to Albany until January. So this is the opportunity that I get to meet with people like yourself, jill, and to meet with others that live in the community that have issues, whether it's with the Department of Labor or the Department of Motor Vehicles or unemployment, which we had a lot of calls during COVID for the unemployment, because the site kept crashing and a lot of people needed help with that. So it's we figure out what people need while we're home from June until January, and then we go back up in January and fight to make sure that those things are in the budget and they come back to our district.

Speaker 1: 14:32

So Jodi switching gears just a bit. I would love for you to talk a little bit about leadership, and what do you think are some of the most important qualities for leaders in public office.

Speaker 2: 14:44

I think the most important qualities are having the ability to listen without interjecting and although you've had many experiences with similar scenarios, being elected official, nothing is the same each and every time skills and assuring the person that is telling you what their problem may be and letting them know that you're going to look into it and you're going to get back to them and then actually doing it, actually calling the departments and following it through and making sure that that constituent or that person that needed help was satisfied and, if not, continuing that investigation or whatever it may be, to get to the root of the problem and better serve them. So that's what leadership is is really listening, taking your experiences, learning, knowing that you can learn something new every day, which I do, and it keeps me thriving and it keeps me interested in being an elected official, because no two people have the same exact problem.

Speaker 1: 15:54

So, again, for our listeners, I think we would transfer again when we're talking about transferable skills, listening obviously is important for everything that we're doing, but also providing strategic solutions, asking curious questions, as Jodi said, understanding that no two are alike, so understanding that someone's lived experience is different than the next person and they're going to have something different to add to the conversation. That follow through, which I'm hearing, then, is sort of that grit and that perseverance that it might take some time to make the change or, as you said, call the various departments that are involved with whatever the situation is and then seeing that through. So, some of the leadership skills. I think that people who are thinking about potentially running for office either locally, nationally, within their state these are some of the skills that are really coming from business leadership but are also extremely effective within the political realm.

Speaker 2: 16:49

Yes, and being respectful, I'm very well respected by the other side of the aisle who I'm in the minority, but a lot of the majority members when we're debating a bill on the floor that we think may be bad for our constituents. I have a lot of people from the other side that are some of my best friends. I saw one of them yesterday. They come out here and visit me to Riverhead. So they come and they ask from a different perspective because their district is different from my district, know what the issues are and see if we can somehow change the legislation.

Speaker 2: 17:29

Yeah, yeah, compromise and change the legislation, and my opinion is there's no pride in authorship. So if I come up with a good idea for a bill, I am happy to draft the bill, have my legislative bill drafting team write the bill and then present the bill to somebody from the majority so that it gets passed, because it's very difficult in the minority to get bills passed. But as long as you have a good, respectful working relationship with anybody in business, whether it be an elected official or even a competitor, that you can come together and find common ground and move things forward for the better.

Speaker 1: 18:10

What has been harder than you thought it would be in this career, in making the transition.

Speaker 2: 18:17

A lot. It's going up to Albany on Sunday nights and I have a 21-year-old and I have twins that are 20. So they're old enough to be able to they. They have their own cars. They drive to and from work, the to and from school. So they I guess the hardest part is leaving them on Sunday nights and making sure that I do all my cooking on Saturday and Sunday so that there's enough food in the fridge for them for the entire week, so that when they get home from school or they get home from work that there's enough food in the fridge for them for the entire week, so that when they get home from school or they get home from work that there's something home cooked in the refrigerator for them to eat. So that's been the hardest part is just leaving on Sunday nights and coming home on Thursday nights or Friday nights or Saturdays. So you know, being away for a long time from my children, that's definitely the most challenging thing I can see that?

Speaker 1: 19:10

How do you manage? Like that level of travel and being on the road has got to have an impact on your overall wellbeing. How do you manage that Cause, even if you're not traveling to your state for a political reason, you might be on the road traveling for business?

Speaker 2: 19:26

I have cut back a lot on my private business because obviously getting up at four o'clock in the morning to go into the city for a seven o'clock construction site meeting is not something that I can do in bidding projects, construction projects anymore in New York City. But locally I still do a lot of business but it's mostly consulting and most of that is done by the computer now that we have switched over from COVID to in-person application filing and meetings. So a lot of it is done by Zoom now, so that's helpful.

Speaker 1: 19:59

Yeah, yeah would agree. One of the one of the good things that came out of that is we all had to learn how to run business and school electronically, which of course, affords more opportunity to many people and more families to stay together and not have to necessarily travel as much. So what advice would you give to someone who's considering a career in either public service or in politics?

Speaker 2: 20:29

Well, I say that you must get involved. You must read about candidates. If there's a particular candidate that you like, that you want to help, you can get involved in the campaign. I know Yvette Aguiar, who is the former supervisor of the town of Riverhead. She was a retired New York NYPD officer and she lived in Hampton Bays and she was reading about me and she found out about me and she reached out to me in 2015 and wanted to help me on my campaign. So she and her husband came they were retired came and they made phone calls or they helped, they drove me around, they walked me around and they got to know the process and then she became the supervisor from the town.

Speaker 1: 21:14

Oh, okay, okay. So helping you and then also learning the process along the way, yeah, yeah, and it's.

Speaker 2: 21:22

it's great for anybody to get involved, and I don't care what party affiliation you have, but you should go online and look up whatever party that may be, whether it be the local Republican committee or the local Democratic committee, and get involved. Reach that, reach out to them, ask them how you can help and they will certainly tell you, because they're always looking for a helping hand you, because they're always looking for a helping hand.

Speaker 2: 21:51

Yes, yeah, so that's a good way to get started is to just either pay attention or reach out to a local candidate and say you know, I'm interested in helping. We are not allowed to discuss those types of things in our office because it is a state-run political office, but you could always leave your number and somebody would get back to you, and that's with any party.

Speaker 1: 22:10

Like I said, if you want to get involved and you want to help, so what do you look forward to as an assembly person for yourself in the coming years?

Speaker 2: 22:22

Well, this morning I look forward to having this conversation with you. Jill, and you know we I have a weekly radio show every Thursday afternoon from one to two, and then I have a weekly Friday show, which I've had for 14 years since I've been elected official on a local radio station here. That's from 845 to 930 every day. So I really look forward to reaching out through venues such as yours and touching the people and communicating directly with them as to what's happening, especially on local issues and other issues that are happening that are current. So my future what do I see?

Speaker 2: 23:04

I see a great life here in New York.

Speaker 2: 23:08

I see my kids, you know, growing up, getting married, having children, being a grandmother and really setting the stage for a great, prosperous future for all of our younger generation who are finding it so difficult to live here in New York.

Speaker 2: 23:25

But that's the most important thing is getting the jobs, and not necessarily government jobs in healthcare. That was the biggest growth that we've had is with government jobs and healthcare, and I think that more entrepreneurial spirit and starting your own business, coming up with an idea, seeing something that you like and being the best at it, more entrepreneurial spirit and starting your own business, coming up with an idea, seeing something that you like and being the best at it, which is what I always strive to do. So I see, just being here for maybe another six years, eight years, 10 years, and then handing it off to somebody else to take over the reins and I look forward to that, really I do and helping that person transition into what I've really focused on what you've created, what you've created yeah, and being an elected official and what's important to my constituents.

Speaker 2: 24:20

You know, another thing that's very important to me that we need to really get a handle on is the rancor on people with disabilities, and I see that a lot of the funding in the state of New York has been cut for people with disabilities, for our veterans. Law enforcement is struggling as far as the bail reform with people that maybe should not be out on the streets, some people can be rehabilitated and I would support that 100%, but some people just need to need a little more attention, and the fact that we have closed all of our psychiatric facilities for the most part, we have a lot of people that are out on the streets that probably could use that With mental health, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 25:06

Yeah, that could use that care. And also, you know, with our school districts and making sure that the children in the school districts have the mental stability that they need so that they can go and be productive and and not have so many struggles. But just to be a kid.

Speaker 1: 25:23

Well, I think that is a perfect place to leave it, Jodi. Thank you so much for your service, for your work, for being here today For our listeners. If you have any questions, you can email me at hello at jillgriffincoachingcom. I will put all of Jodi's information in the show notes. You can follow her work and the work that she's doing, both locally. No-transcript.