Aretha Ferrell Bio

Aretha R. Ferrell most recently served as the Chief Operating Officer for the District of Columbia Department of Parks and Recreation, responsible for managing the day-to-day operation of the Department. Prior that appointment served under former Mayor Anthony Williams in the Executive Offices of the Mayor. Within this office she served as Chief of Staff for Office of the Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth, Families and Elders and was later promoted to the position of Director for the Office of Neighborhood Action & the Community Empowerment Cluster.

Aretha has 20 years of professional experience at all levels of government. Prior to joining the staff of the District of Columbia, Aretha was the Assistant County Administrator for Los Alamos County, New Mexico. In that role she managed the County’s Intergovernmental Program, which included coordinating the final negotiations for the San Ildefonso Pueblo Land Claim agreement which involved the County, the Pueblo, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. For the City of Sunnyvale, California, Aretha served as the Assistant to the City Manager, where she oversaw Sunnyvale’s Intergovernmental and Legislative programs.

From 1997 to 2002, Aretha worked for the City of Chicago, as the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Chicago Housing Authority and Assistant Chief Information Officer for the Department of Business and Information Services. From 1995 to 1997 she served as the Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Governor of Maryland. In this role, Aretha administered the Maryland Net Weekend, a $1.7 million initiative to connect Maryland public schools to the Internet and Logan Online, a $2.5 million project to place Internet-linked computers in the classrooms of all third-graders at a single elementary school.

From 1989 to 1995 Aretha worked with the Central Intelligence Agency as an undergraduate intern and later as Graduate Fellow focusing on Soviet Military Issues. Aretha’s held her first local government job with the City of Fort Worth in 1988 as a summer employee.

Aretha is committed to serving in the field of Public Administration. In 2002 Aretha was awarded the NFBPA Young Public Administrator of the Year Award, which is a nationally competitive award recognizing an administrator, under age 35, who has demonstrated an above-average commitment and success in both profession, and in the community. Aretha began her NFBPA membership as the student board member and has remained a faithful, supportive member, in line to become the national president, currently serving as the organization’s 1st Vice President. Aretha is a member of several organizations including the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), Southern University Alumni Association and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a Master of Arts in Public Administration from Howard University in Washington, D.C. She is a graduate of the NFBPA’s Executive Leadership Institute and Mentor Program as well as the City of Chicago’s Intergovernmental Executive Development Program conducted by Harold Washington College.

Aretha is a native of Fort Worth, Texas. She is married to Ted Benavides, who is a former City Manager and a current professor of Public Administration at the University of Texas at Dallas, and has one son Geoffry Alexander. Aretha currently resides in Richardson, Texas.