Three Minutes on a Park Bench With: Tom Younger

You may know that he's Swampscott's Town Administrator, but did you know Tom Younger once worked with Howard Stern? 

We caught up with Tom recently as part of our new virtual Patch Park Bench column. 

Patch: What's your morning routine? 

Tom: Generally, besides getting ready for work, putting a pod in the coffee maker and if I get a chance, look at the morning newspaper.  I'm a runner and would love to get into an early morning routine but I usually will do it after work or in the evening.

P: What do you do for a living? And what's the best thing about your job?

T: I'm the Town Administrator for Swampscott.  The best part is actually seeing the results of your work in the community and working with a fine team of department heads.  I like to solve problems for residents and finding ways to improve their community and enjoy the public interaction with them.

P: What's the hardest?

T: Obviously, you can't solve everyone's issues but you need to inform them of why and not just responding with "no."

P: How long have you lived in Salem? 

T: My wife and I do not live in Swampscott but are seriously considering moving here. We love the community.

P: What's your favorite thing about living here?

T: I enjoy working with the residents here and being a waterfront community. You cannot replicate that in other parts of the Commonwealth.

P: If you had to arrange a secret meeting here, where would you have it?

T: I work for the Town, I cannot have "secret meetings."

P: Tell us something about yourself that most of your neighbors don't know.

T: Whether you like him or not, I worked with Howard Stern at the Boston University radio station when we were both students there.  He was a disk jockey and I did sports broadcasting and news updates.

P: When you want a really indulgent snack here, where do you go and what do you get?

T: I don't always get the chance to leave Town Hall to get something so I will get a Milky Way bar from the snack machine.  Another indulgent snack is that I'm addicted to nachos.

P: What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

T: From a former boss-"Don't promise what you can't deliver but deliver more than you promised."

P: What are you doing after this interview?

T: Still working for the residents of Swampscott.

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Nominate someone from Swampscott for our next Patch Park Bench interview. Send suggestions to owen.boss@patch.com.