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After 18 years working with the Institute for Public Administration's Conflict Resolution Program, our colleague Frances "Fran" Fletcher is retiring. We sat down with Fran just before she retired to ask her about her public service work, her passion for working with students, and plans for the future.Q: How did you join the IPA family?A: "I have to give Kathy Murphy, director of the Conflict Resolution Program, credit for bringing me here. I had left full-time employment in the HR field in favor of trying to create my own business around mediation because I was so fascinated A) by the process and B) by people being empowered to solve issues that I wanted to spend my full time doing that. The local newspaper did a write-up on my work resolving conflict in neighborhoods because the town considered it to be successful. It was from that article that Kathy contacted me and said, "This is what we do. Would you be interested in coming in and talking about it?" We did, and I started out as kind of a limited-term researcher position, and then six months later they made me an offer that I couldn't refuse."Q: How has your role evolved and changed throughout the years?A: "One of the great things about being involved in IPA is that you have lots of opportunities to use your skills to support towns, agencies, governments, and school boards. My role always had a finger in lots of areas. A lot of it has been special-education driven as those projects have continued to grow over time, but it was just mediation initially, then it got into IEP facilitation, then it went on to conducting trainings."