Samantha Moullet is the neighborhood services manager with the City of Clearwater and a current member of Leadership Pinellas. Moullet is passionate about serving the Clearwater community and ensuring it continues to progress and shine. With the mindset of “blooming where planted,” Moullet continues to unite residents and create a beautiful hometown for all.
I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, but moved from Vancouver, Washington, two years ago to Greater Tampa Bay. My partner’s company opened an office in Tampa and asked for volunteers to move over to start up the new location. We had never talked about moving out of state, but out of curiosity, we looked up the Tampa Bay area online, saw the beautiful photos and were instantly sold. We packed our bags and drove across the country a couple of months later with our two pups.
We fell in love with the colorful photos of bright blue waters, white sand beaches and the deep green of the jungle-like forests. To this day, I still can’t wrap my mind around the plants with giant leaves that look like they have come from the prehistoric age, large historic oak trees and the lizards scampering everywhere I walk.
Ironically, we moved across the country for my partner’s career and, serendipitously, my career has also progressed in an amazing direction. In the first couple of months of working for the City of Clearwater, I instantly found myself surrounded by many amazing people both within the organization and throughout our partnerships. If there is one thing I have noticed about the GTB area, it is absolutely that.
In my first role with the City of Clearwater, I coordinated volunteers for Parks and Recreation. I was blown away by the number of people, businesses, organizations and neighborhoods willing to get involved and give back to the community. I was able to instantly connect with so many like-minded community members who shared my passion for the community and worked with them to enhance the place we call home.
It is compelling when residents team up with their local municipality, nonprofits and businesses to make a difference and give back. These connections and the hospitality of the people around me have proven invaluable over the last two years.
With these partnerships, we were able to organize the first citywide “Big Clean Up” last year, revamp our parks volunteer programs and rebuild relationships with our residents and businesse犀利士 s. Since then, I progressed into organizing special events and landed as a manager in our Neighborhoods Division, which I can say with high conviction, is my dream job.
Every day, I work with our residents and community partners to empower our community and staff to address challenges, solve problems, think critically, become part of the solution and better our community. Every day, I make new connections and meet new people from fascinating backgrounds with new information and experiences. I genuinely believe there will never be a day in this job where I don’t learn something new. I am so excited to see where this position will lead me and what we will be able to accomplish together.
People frequently ask me if we will ever move back to the West Coast. Although we love going back to visit friends and family, we know that we have found our long-term home here in Tampa Bay. Why would you ever leave when you combine the sunshine, water, outdoor activities and the warm and welcoming community? The community has won our hearts over, and we won’t be leaving anytime soon.
By Meredith Biesinger.
