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The Money Trail: AG Candidates Firm Up Law Support In the Chair: Peter Vallone, Jr. In the Trenches: Josh Bocian Review: Ripe for an Analysis Brooke Masters sketches out the likely Democratic nominee French Fare with Carolyn Maloney Photo Page Defining the Line Between Staffers and Campaign Workers Letters to the Editor The View from Albany: The Winds of Change in Spitzer’s and Silver’s Sails by Alan Chartock Government Must Take a Role in Community Planning by City Council Member Dan Garodnick
In The Trenches
Joshua Bocian’s grandparents think it “cool” that their grandson is a senior staff member for Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. Holocaust survivors, they fled Berlin for America, the only country that would open its doors. They raised—as described by their grandson—a “fiercely patriotic family.”
And so it seemed logical to Bocian that a lifetime of heated dinnertime debates steered him to the public sector.
He left Great Neck, Long Island to attend SUNY Albany and then Columbia University, where he earned a master’s in organizational behavior, a branch of psychology that applies theories of personality to business management.
Setting aside a life-long interest in politics after graduating from Columbia, Bocian started in finance, shifting from investment bank to dot com to consulting firm, the last of which was located in the World Financial Center.
Days before September 11, 2001, Bocian was laid off from his job. He spent four months doing a little “chilling” and a lot of “soul searching,” asking himself exactly where he was going to take his career, after realizing he was unhappy with where it had taken him to that point.
He consulted his family, friends, and even a career counselor at Columbia University, and they all agreed. Bocian aimed for the public sector, and in only a few weeks, Council Member Gale Brewer’s then-chief of staff, Brian Kavanagh, called him in for an interview.
That Friday, he was hired as the director of constituent affairs.
“It’s about meeting people’s needs and taking care of things that they shouldn’t have to worry about,” he said, describing the position as one similar to human resources.
He was, however, surprised to hear complaints which included “My bird flew out of the window” and “You didn’t respond to my anonymous letter.”
In addition to the district’s 150,000 constituents, Bocian also worked closely with the other “staffers” on the West Side, including the staff of then-Assembly Member Stringer, whose district overlapped with Brewer’s.
After he won, Stringer offered Bocian his current position at the helm of the office’s most cherished campaign: community board reform.
Since January, Bocian has had to take on a constituency ten times the size of Brewer’s, juggling the diverse and often divergent needs of the entire borough, all the while finishing the New York Times before starting to swim laps at 6:30 a.m. sharp.
Still, he says, the basics of the job remain refreshingly simple.
“You listen,” he explained. “It’s that simple. People will tell you what their needs are. Our job is to address those needs.”