New HACAP CEO has long history in social service work

Matt Majeski has been working with people his entire career, from when he started studying psychology in college to his job now as the chief executive officer of the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program — a role that he started on Jan. 1 of this year.

The positions he’s held over the years — including social work and administrative jobs with various nonprofits in Iowa and Minnesota, and with government organizations like the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services and Linn County Public Health — have differed in the level of direct impact he has on individuals and communities, but his goal through all of his roles has been the same: to have a positive impact on individuals, families and communities.

“I thought I wanted to be a therapist, and I learned that was not my calling. It was interesting, but it wasn't what I really wanted,” Majeski said. “I love having that one-on-one, seeing what that impact looks like, but I also recognize and fully believe that in these administrative roles, I can have a broader impact than on that individual level, because here I can work on systems. Here I can work on organizational interactions. Here I can work on, how are we approaching this within an entire community?”

Majeski, previously the chief operating officer for HACAP, took over the CEO role from Jane Drapeaux, who retired at the end of December after 26 years spent working for the community action program.

“Matt’s deep understanding of our mission, combined with his extensive leadership experience and strong community partnerships, make him the ideal choice to lead HACAP into its next chapter,” Drapeaux said in a press release about the change in leadership.

Majeski began working as the COO at HACAP about six months ago, but he said that during that time he has come to appreciate the organization and its mission.

“This is really getting me back to my original interests in my career. Throughout my entire 30-something years of doing this now, in different capacities, early intervention has always been one of those things for me,” Majeski said. “How do we move earlier into supporting and assisting a family and individuals, so they don't have to go in further? Where can we make those assists? So HACAP, for me, was a really good fit for what I want to try to do.”

Originally from northern Minnesota, Majeski first moved to Iowa to attend school at Cornell College in Mount Vernon. He got a bachelor’s degree in psychology and, in 1994, started working at Tanager Place in Cedar Rapids, where he met his now-wife, who also was a staff member.

Later, Majeski worked for the Cedar Rapids nonprofit YPN, called Young Parents Network at the time, helping run prevention programming and programming for new fathers. He earned a Master’s degree in psychology at the University of Northern Iowa, and then returned to Minnesota for a few years, where he worked as a community services supervisor for the county of Olmsted. He returned to Iowa, where he spent almost two decades working for the Iowa Department of Human Services — now called the Department of Health and Human Services — first as a social work administrator in northern Iowa, then as a service area manager in the Cedar Rapids area.

He then worked for about a year as an administrative division manager with Linn County Public Health, before taking the COO position with HACAP.

Majeski said his background in psychology has shaped his approach to social work because he believes that family and community systems are a big part of shaping individual lives, and supporting individuals can start with improving those systems.

“Working with the individual is extraordinarily valuable. Working with those broader systems to hopefully change it for many, many individuals is extraordinarily valuable, just in a very different way,” Majeski said. “If we don't create the climate and the scaffolding, or that infrastructure for it to occur, how do we expect it to occur?”

Majeski also is a veteran, having joined the military and completed training while in graduate school. He served in various roles in medical operations and planning for the National Guard in between his other job positions and was deployed twice to Iraq, once with the 34th Infantry Division in 2006 and once as an executive officer with a medical company in 2009.

“I oftentimes say that I wouldn’t be in the roles I am today if the army hadn’t done some of the training with me, in the leadership development that I’d gotten over those almost 19 years,” Majeski said. “I like, as weird as it sounds, some of that administrative piece, because I like being able to be a part of that structural build, a part of that design, a part of that analysis, those adjustments of, what are we doing and how are we going about it? That's something I enjoy. I think that's part of the army side of me, quite frankly.”

Majeski said he hopes to bring the best qualities he’s learned through his background in psychology, the army, and his long career in social service to supporting HACAP as its CEO. He said he’s been impressed with how the organization has responded during the last year to ongoing uncertainties related to changes at the federal and state-level, and he hopes to be able to support the organization as it continues to face those uncertainties.

“There are going to be a lot of challenges as well as, as I call them, growth opportunities here, over the future,” Majeski said. “I'm always looking to see, how do we build off of the work that we've been doing and the stuff that's been successful? It's the old psychology piece. If you've got a three legged stool, don't take out one of the legs unless you’ve got something to put back underneath it. I look at the same things here. How do we continue to build the work that we're doing? How do we continue to strengthen that?”

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