March 19, 2024

Meet Matt Muckler

Newton City Administrator shares history, vision for Newton

Missouri, Germany, Washington, Arizona and Indiana — those are a few of the places Matt Muckler has lived and worked before becoming Newton City Administrator.

Muckler was hired after a thorough search process following the retirement of former city administrator Bob Knabel. He’s been on a job for a few weeks, attended a couple of city council meetings and is starting to feel at home in his newest position.

Originally from the St. Louis area, Muckler took a colorful path to city administration. He entered the United States Army following his high school graduation and celebrated his 18th birthday at Ft. Leonardwood in Missouri. While serving, he did an intense year of Russian before being stationed in Germany for three years.

“It was interesting because when I was studying Russian, it was before the Cold War had ended and as soon as I got out of language school, and I was still in training, the wall comes down,” Muckler said. “It was really an interesting place to g,o and I was stationed right next to the east, west border so it was kind of a brave new world situation.”

After returning to the United States, Muckler said he had a lot of culture shock and decided to return to Germany as a civilian. While there he took classes at a University of Maryland extension campus and worked in a hotel.

In an interesting twist, Muckler’s son recently applied for a scholarship through the Department of State for his senior year of high school and was accepted to go to Moldova to do an intensive study in Russian. He said he was interested in several languages but was selected for Russian.

After returning back to the U.S., Muckler started work in his family’s business, River City Nutrition in the St. Louis area. A five store operation, River City Nutrition was at the forefront of the health foods movement.

“It was an interesting time for that industry as well,” Muckler said. “It was before some of the well known stores, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods were so prevalent, and so they did a little bit more health foods in addition to the supplements that you typically get in a health foods store.”

While working in St. Louis, Muckler decided to run for state office as a representative. He was successful in his bid and served in the legislature for one term.

“Term limits went into effect in the state of Missouri at about that time,” Muckler said. “My freshman class going into the statehouse was one of the largest because there was a lot of turnover. It wasn’t just because people termed out, sometimes you would have a senate seat that went out and a rep went up to fill it. It opened up some interesting possibilities for running for office.”

After an unsuccessful re-election campaign, Muckler decided he really loved working in the public sector and began searching for where he fit. He landed in Seattle as a nonprofit lobbyist, spending two legislative sessions working for the organization.

While he learned a lot in the position, Muckler decided he really wanted to get back to local government. He received his master’s in public administration from Indiana State University while working with a county council in a position that turned into his first council administrator experience.

“That was maybe my first experience of reporting to a council and I really enjoyed that,” Muckler said. “I learned that county government wasn’t necessarily where I wanted to be, I wanted to focus on cities.”

Muckler’s next position moved him and his family to Buckeye, Ariz. where he served as the assistant to the town manager. At the time, Buckeye was the second fastest growing city in the country Muckler said and gave him the opportunity to work with multiple developers and large construction project.

“In Buckeye, you would be working with developers and they weren’t building 20 lots, they were building small cities within the city. 6,000 to 8,000 people in one master-planned community,” Muckler said. “I really loved that position, I had a chance to do a lot of special projects and reported right to the town manager. I learned a lot about how people run cities and a lot on the development side.”

The position drastically changed following a turn in the economy, leaving Muckler in the new position of senior utility analyst in the water department.

“I was retained in the water department but it really wasn’t career wise where I want to be, I wanted to be in a city manager position,” Muckler said. “I was the assistant to the town manager and then I found myself as a senior utility analyst in the water department and I was thankful for that but that was kind of my launching for West Branch.”

While in West Branch, Muckler said he was at the start of things including developing a comprehensive plan, infrastructure projects and over growth and development.

“Things were kind of at a standstill when I got there. There wasn’t a whole lot moving in terms of projects,” Muckler said. “We did a lot of road work, sidewalks, sewer while I was there. A lot of water upgrades.”

After about six years in West Branch, Muckler said he was looking for a new challenge and became interested in the Newton position. Newton was attractive to Muckler as it was a city that was already building momentum and moving in a positive direction.

“I wasn’t really looking for a total rebuild, that is kind of where I landed in West Branch. When I looked at Newton and what had happened, a lot the same things were happening like a new comprehensive plan after not having an update for 15 years,” Muckler said. “It appealed to me from the fact that you had a group of people who had a shared vision that were working to try to achieve some good things in their community. That attracted me to the job. When I was talking to people I got a really good feel for the direction Newton was heading, the size was just about right for us. We liked the small town feel that we had in West Branch and we saw that in Newton.”

Muckler said his family also played a big part in the decision. His wife and family of five children will be moving here following the end of the school year.

“The school appealed to us from just the size of the school, 4A, might have a little more offerings than where the kids were at in a 1A school,” Muckler said. “All of the nice parks that are here, location was big for us because it gave my wife some options on where to work.”

In his first few weeks on the job, Muckler said working with the department directors and city staff has been a really positive part of coming into the organization. He is also excited about several projects in the community including Cardinal Ridge, Hardee’s, the former Maytag Hotel and work at the DMACC Maytag Campus.

“I had a chance to sit down with representatives from DMACC and I was really excited about the direction they are going with the campus there,” Muckler said. “I think we are going to see some retail popping up, that is exciting and I think they have a lot of great ideas on how to use the space and I feel pretty confident that we are going to see some good things happening there over the next couple years.”

He is also looking forward to working with the city council to continue they city’s goals that have been established since completing the comprehensive plan.

“Every council meeting really making progress toward our goals and looking ahead on wrapping up some projects that have been in the works for quite some time,” Muckler said. “I think what am I most excited for is building back up that momentum. I think there is a natural slow down when you have a change of administration. I think they did a great job in the interim with Jarrod Wellik but now it is really picking up the pace with things, moving them along, getting projects down, moving forward.”

With his tenure just beginning in Newton, Muckler is ready to lead the city in a positive direction and build on progress already started.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com