Helping students is in Cardoza’s bones. She calls her philosophy “Students first,” and this informs everything she does at ARC, which serves over 30,000 students, making it the sixth largest public two-year college in the nation.

Pawlek keeps that positive outlook through all aspects of managing the 800-employee operation. One secret to keeping a positive morale: lots of dad jokes.

He’s sometimes crunching numbers in Excel, sometimes lugging sacks of potatoes and sometimes feeding hay to his cows. These are all wildly different tasks, but they’re all united by the same principle — giving.

His trick for handling this responsibility? It starts with a coop full of chickens.

Despite turning 78 this year, Pleau still heads to the office every day to rally the troops, monitor customer satisfaction, and follow his North Star: “My real focus is on expansion,” says Pleau. “I’m not done.”

Under Director Harjinder K. Shergill-Chima’s watch, the lottery (which is self-funded) has an “unheard of” administrative budget that’s just 4 percent of revenue.

Michael J. Facenda oversees 1,600 employees, 14 food outlets, 82 table games and 2,100 slot machines — and don’t forget the pastry shop. 

Winnie Comstock-Carlson describes an average weekday as this magazine’s founder, president and publisher (for 35 years).  

On paper it’s a dream job of nonstop travel, but the reality is that most days she’s stuck in her office until 7 p.m. Thankfully she has a secret weapon: white space.

Thien Ho oversees 180 attorneys and a budget of $129 million with a purview of prosecuting all misdemeanors and felonies in the county. He starts his day with lots of water.