July 28, 2025 By Carol Britton Meyer
After serving the Town of Hingham as Assistant Town Administrator for the past seven years, Michelle Monsegur is ready to move on to her next adventure. Her last day is Aug. 7.
“I will be taking a year off as a mid-career break — a time for rejuvenation,” she told the Hingham Anchor. “This is a bittersweet time, and I will miss the people I’ve worked with the most.”
The qualities she has found most helpful in this role are good organization, listening, and communication skills, “a sense of humor, resourcefulness, and creativity.”
When Art Robert was hired in 2021 as Assistant Town Administrator for Operations, Monsegur became the ATA for finance.
Monsegur especially enjoyed participating in the town budget process. “It’s like a puzzle (or Tetris), with different pots of resources that can each only be used in a certain way, and you have to figure out how to strategically fit them all together to be able to provide the desired level of services to the community.”
Praise for town volunteers
She has great respect for the town’s many volunteers serving on various boards and committees — which she said is what makes Hingham’s form of government work.
“This is an amazing group of people with expertise and talent who donate their time to the town, often participating in meetings that go as late or later than 10:30 p.m.,” she said, especially the Advisory Committee during budget season.
Among her own biggest accomplishments in her role as ATA was helping the town achieve Green Communities status in 2019.
This state program provides assistance and grant money to help make municipal and school facilities more energy-efficient.
She also enjoyed serving on the town’s Sustainable Budget Task Force, which was charged with beginning to develop a long-term financial management plan for the town — including identifying new sources of revenue, assessing service needs, and prioritizing capital infrastructure investment while being mindful of the cumulative impact on taxpayers.
“This set the stage for [the recent] operational override and the Financial Management Plan that accompanied it. We turned over every rock,” Monsegur said.
Monsegur enjoys working at the local level where she can see the tangible impact of her team’s work.
“No matter what is happening at the national level, the town has to provide necessary services such as emergency response, education, trash and recycling services, and snow removal, among others. The goal is to help people live a good life here.”
Monsegur feels a sense of satisfaction when she drives by the new public safety facility on Route 3A — a project she worked on for a number of years with other town officials, among many others.
Biggest challenge
The biggest challenge was helping to guide the town safely through the pandemic. “That was a dark, exhausting time, but I’m proud of how we [through a huge team effort involving all aspects of town government] managed our way through it,” she said.
During her time at Town Hall, Monsegur’s biggest mentors were “all of the Select Board members I’ve worked under over the years and of course [Town Administrator] Tom Mayo.”
Among her favorite places in Hingham are the town library, where she borrowed from their art collection to decorate her office, the Memorial Bell Tower (“I even rang the bells once!”), Nona’s Homemade ice cream (her favorite flavor is cookie dough), and walking in Bare Cove Park and at World’s End.
Among the activities Monsegur is most looking forward to during her time off is walking The Camino de Santiago — a 500-mile trek across Spain that takes about six weeks to finish, which she has been dreaming about for some time. “Now I’m finally going to do it!” she said. “I’m also hoping to fulfill my goal of visiting 50 countries before I turn 50. I’ve visited 34 so far, including Cuba, France, Italy, and the Republic of Georgia — one of my favorite places.”
On the homefront, Monsegur plans to spend more time with family, friends, and her cat, Maple Bacon.
During her last few weeks on the job, Monsegur has been helping new Assistant Town Administrator Brittany Iacaponi transition into the role.
‘It’s been a privilege to serve this community’
“I’d like to thank the people of Hingham for the many opportunities I’ve had to serve the town over the last seven years,” she said. “It’s been an absolute privilege and pleasure to serve this community.”
At the end of her time off, Monsegur anticipates that she will likely return to a position in local government.
Select Board members William Ramsey and Julie Strehle, among many other town officials and volunteers, had high praise for Monsegur.
“Michelle brought an energy, skill set, and kindness to her work that will leave a lasting impact on every area of town government,” Ramsey said. “She constantly went above and beyond to assist residents, the Select Board, and town volunteers. Our community is better because of her service and I will very much miss working with her.”
Strehle “had the pleasure of working closely with Michelle when I served as chair of the Advisory Committee. I was very grateful for her steady professionalism and willingness to help with information and advice at any time,” she said. “Michelle was always ready with a smile or a good joke. too, which put everyone around her at ease. I am sorry that now as a Select Board member I will not be able to continue to work with her, but I thank her for her years of dedicated service to the Town of Hingham. She will be missed!”