After earning her master's degree in public policy from Brown University's Watson Institute in 2012, Pennsylvania native Kelly Rogers elected to stay in Rhode Island and ended up making a big impact on the nation's smallest state. An Ocean State resident for 14 years, Rogers currently works as an associate director at Accenture, a global professional services company, and serves as an adjunct lecturer in the Master of Public Affairs (MPA) program at Watson.
Rogers arrived at Watson in 2010, shortly after earning a bachelor's degree in policy management at Dickinson College. At the time, she already had significant public policy experience, having completed several internships at the statehouse in Harrisburg, PA, while an undergraduate.
As graduation from Dickinson approached, Rogers was weighing her options and trying to decide between law school and a public policy degree. A trusted adviser told her that Brown was her best option. "I told him what my options were, and he knew my interests," said Rogers, “he told me that Brown's interdisciplinary approach made it the best place for me.”
Several things stand out in Rogers' mind about her time at Brown. The first is the exceptional academic training she received. She particularly praised Professor Susan Moffitt. "Her classes helped take my writing and issue synthesis to the next level," said Rogers. “I already had some experience writing policy communications, but her style of grading and coaching impacts my skillset to this day.”
The second was the program's emphasis on applied learning. Rogers said she found a fellowship she completed with Peter Marino — who at the time was the fiscal advisor to the Rhode Island Senate and an adjunct professor at Brown — transformative. "I learned so much by applying what I had studied in Marino's Public Budgeting and Management class through the fellowship," she said. The research and writing Rogers did for the fellowship were incorporated into the Rhode Island Senate Transportation Funding Commission's report for 2011.
Rogers said she also appreciated the ability to get involved with clubs and organizations at Brown. "I got very involved with the Center for Environmental Studies Global Climate Lab and took a couple of global trips with them to U.N. conferences where I focused on U.S. policy," she said. “I appreciated the ease with which I was able to experience the rest of Brown outside of Watson, both locally in Providence and globally as well.”
Rogers didn't initially intend to stay in Rhode Island after graduating from Brown and was planning to relocate to Washington, D.C. However, her roommate suggested that she meet with John Simmons, then president and C.E.O. of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC), where she was interning. Rogers hoped to do some consulting work for RIPEC until she relocated to D.C., but Simmons offered her a full-time position as a policy analyst on the spot.
"I thought I would do the job for a year before relocating," said Rogers. But she soon found herself deeply engrossed in her work. Her time at RIPEC coincided with the 38 Studios debacle. The company, founded by former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, secured a $75 million loan from the state to move its operations to Rhode Island in 2010 but went bankrupt in 2012. The bankruptcy and resulting fallout became a major political scandal in the state.
"Governor Chaffee asked RIPEC to analyze the conditions of state government that allowed this to happen," said Rogers. She found the work exhilarating. "My first year out of graduate school, I was working on a major project and briefing the governor on it directly," she said. The Rhode Island House and Senate adopted the recommendations Rogers helped write through enacted legislation.
What Rogers had initially envisioned as a temporary arrangement lasted nearly three years. "It felt like the work at RIPEC kept getting more interesting," she said, "and I felt like I was having an impact."
Rogers left RIPEC in 2015 after accepting a job as Rhode Island's deputy treasurer for policy and public finance, working for then-Treasurer Seth Magaziner. She stayed at that job for five years and put down roots in Rhode Island, buying a home and starting a family with her husband, a lawyer, former congressional staffer and Rhode Island native.
She also continued to make a significant impact on her adopted home state. During her time at the Treasury, Rogers worked on creating the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank, a quasi-public agency that provides over $80 million in below-market annual loans to borrowers. "We worked with Governor Raimondo's team and got major pieces of legislation passed each year," said Rogers. These included passing a bill that strengthened the state's ability to manage its debt in 2106 and a major school construction reform bond in 2018. Rogers also managed the Treasury's inaugural Office of Debt Management, among other accomplishments.
