Governor's Fellowship alumni share lessons for sustained impact in Connecticut government
As part of this year’s Governor’s Fellows Day, former fellows reflected on the projects they took on, how they navigated state agencies, and why they stayed in public service
On May 8, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont joined Yale President Maurie McInnis, state leaders, Yale faculty, and current and past participants in the Connecticut Governor’s Fellowship Program on campus for a gathering focused on the role that talented public servants can play in strengthening government and improving outcomes for Connecticut residents.
That theme carried into the day’s alumni panel, which focused on what happens after the fellowship year ends. Many Governor’s Fellowship alumni have continued into longer-term state service in Connecticut, and three of them returned to this year’s Governor’s Fellows Day to tell the current cohort how they got there, what they learned, and why they chose to stay.
The panel, "Lessons for Sustained Impact in Connecticut Government," featured L Britton of the Connecticut Department of Aging and Disability Services, Kevin Fitzgerald of the Connecticut Department of Economic & Community Development, and Carrie Titolo of the Connecticut Department of Transportation. It was moderated by Melissa Conway of the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services, who managed the fellowship program for three years before becoming DAS’s Chief Administrative Officer last year.
Kevin Fitzgerald, Carrie Titolo, L Britton, and Melissa Conway (from left to right)
Each of the alums has turned a one-year fellowship placement into a full time position. Britton, a 2023–24 fellow, had a background in community and labor organizing and came to the program after graduate study in public health policy at Yale. During the fellowship, Britton worked with the Department of Aging and Disability Services on moving federal ARPA dollars into communities, often through senior centers. This experience provided a firsthand view, Britton said, of how state programs and community organizations can work in tandem. Britton has remained with the agency in the roughly two years since and now serves as Strategic Planning and Policy Advisor, continuing work on policy and planning efforts that support aging adults and people with disabilities across Connecticut.
Titolo, a 2024–25 fellow, joined the Department of Transportation after nearly 15 years in the nonprofit sector. Her fellowship focused on workforce development, including recruiting civil engineers and building long-term talent pipelines, work that now carries into her role as Special Advisor to the Commissioner at DOT.
Fitzgerald, who also stayed with the agency where he served, is now State Program Manager in the Department of Economic & Community Development's Institute for Data & Economic Analysis, the department's policy research team. Each spring, he helps develop policy ideas across housing, energy, workforce, and affordability, researching them in depth and packaging them for the legislative team and the governor's office. The group also builds and cleans the large datasets that this work relies on, often checking their accuracy with towns. "There's a wide array of initiatives, and every day is a little different," he said.
Working across agency lines
Much of the alumni's work cuts across traditional agency boundaries. Titolo said being based in the commissioner’s office gave her visibility across the department’s five bureaus, allowing her to understand how different teams’ work connected and to help strengthen relationships across projects. The key, she said, was trust: listening carefully and following through. "It really just takes one person to be that bridge," she said. "Before you know it, you've got four people talking to four other people that six months ago never worked together." Britton, too, found that coming in new was an asset. It provided a natural reason to ask questions, learn how different offices worked, and pull people together around shared problems.
Learning the scale of the work
Working in government also reshaped how the alumni understood scale and resources. Fitzgerald recalled realizing that a grant which sounded substantial on paper might cover only a single community development project once real budgets and public needs came into view—a lesson, he said, in the responsibility that comes with shepherding public dollars towards their greatest long-term impact. Britton made a related point about timelines: a one-year fellowship often intersects with work that runs on much longer horizons, including multi-year contracts and shifting federal or state priorities, and learning to adapt as those parameters change is part of how the work gets done.
To the panelists, that longer view and the chance to do meaningful public work with stability was part of what made staying appealing. "To get paid decently to do something good for people – you don't find that often," Britton said. Titolo, who had hesitated to take a fellows role in transportation where she hadn’t worked before, found the leap worthwhile regardless of how any single project turned out. "Even if it doesn't pan out exactly as you hoped, there's a win in there," she said. After years as a nonprofit "team of one," she added, she had wanted to be part of a larger organization working at a greater scale, and the fellowship's access to senior leadership made that possible.
Making the case to stay
The panel was candid about the importance of planning for what comes after the fellowship. Alumni encouraged current fellows who are interested in longer-term state service to start conversations early, learn where agencies have emerging needs, and think carefully about how their skills can continue to support public priorities. Conway emphasized the value of self-advocacy and relationship-building throughout that process. Britton offered a parting note in the same spirit: Connecticut government can feel large from the outside but is small once you are inside it, which makes relationships, and a good reputation among your colleagues, matter all the more.
As the fellowship continues to grow, the panel underscored how it can serve not only as a one-year placement, but as a pathway into sustained public service in Connecticut.