If you visit ICC's Washington, D.C., office, odds are at some point during the day you will hear a woman's voice call out, "Sean?" That would be the voice of Government Relations Senior Vice President Sara Yerkes, and the man she's calling for is two offices down, hard at work keeping the whole department running smoothly. She more than likely needs some important information right away, and if you ever need to know something about the Government Relations department, your best bet is to call Sean Wallace.
When Wallace was hired, one of his primary job responsibilities was to be the manager for the D.C. office, but his role has morphed into something far greater. On any given day, he could be meeting with external organizations, coordinating the field staff, representing ICC at trade expos, keeping Yerkes' schedule from imploding, or compiling any of the critical information the GR staff uses on a daily basis — all the while still managing the needs of the office to ensure everything is running smoothly and on time. He even took over as temporary field rep for the state of Virginia for a year after Roland Hall's retirement. To say he really does it all is scarcely an overstatement, but Wallace modestly demurs. "GR is a great department and the staff makes the work easy. The toughest part of the job is keeping up with a boss who seems to have an endless supply of energy."
But what drove him to work for ICC wasn't a compulsive desire to put an entire team of professionals on his shoulders and carry them, but rather his love of politics. After working for organizations with high-minded ideals of changing the world but lacked results, he found he wanted to work for a place that actually got things done and had measurable impact on the world — and so he joined ICC. And like many people who come to work for ICC from a non-building industry background, it transformed his outlook on the world: "Working for ICC has taught me how important building codes are to our everyday lives," Wallace says. "I can't walk into a building now without thinking 'Are we at capacity?' and 'Where are the sprinklers?'"
Recently, Wallace has been working on getting the Government Relations staff involved in social media, building the GR Twitter account and moving on to other forms such as Instagram. It's a tough job, getting an analog generation to embrace new digital tools, but in Wallace's own words, "One of the most important jobs that GR does is build relationships, and social media is a great platform for us to reach our Members and let them know that ICC supports every one of them." |
