Mayor Ruthanne Fuller joined Needham Town Manager Kate Fitzpatrick at the Charles River Country Club on Friday morning for a Fireside Chat, organized by the Charles River Regional Chamber, to celebrate Women’s History Month with their own stories of leadership and success.

Priscilla Casper of NBC10 moderated the event.

And here are a few things we learned about Newton’s first woman mayor.

1. She decided to run for mayor at a Chamber breakfast.

Asked what her “Aha!” moment was, the spark that got her to go for the city’s corner office, Fuller harkened back to another Chamber breakfast event.

A member of the Newton Board of Aldermen (which became the City Council), Fuller was minding her own business at a Charles River Chamber breakfast in 2016 when then-Mayor Setti Warren announced he wasn’t running for reelection. He was going to run for governor.

“And I said, ‘Huh. Let me go talk to Joe, my husband,’” Fuller recalled. “There was so much to be done, and I had learned enough about the city that I thought I could try to make a difference.”

Her family got behind her, and the rest is history—literally. She made history when, in 2017, she was elected to be Newton’s first female mayor.

2. She gets by with a little help from her friends.

Running a city of nearly 90,000 residents takes teamwork.

Fuller proudly pointed out the people in the audience—mostly women, and Planning Director Barney Heath—who help her run her administration.

“Lara Kritzer—if I need to know anything about CDBG [community development block grants], I can go right there. Michelle Pizzi-O’Brien—anything H.R.,” she said. “And yep, we also depend on our male allies—there’s Barney Heath—anything Planning. And Hattie Kerwin-Derrick right there—you ask me about anything going on in the community, and she’ll be right there.

“So you depend on people,” Fuller emphasized. “Hire good people, nurture good people, support good people.”

Charles River Regional Chamber President Greg Reibman speaks at a Fireside Chat moderated by NBC10’s Priscilla Casper. Photo by Bryan McGonigle

3. She’s big on math.

Fuller gave some advice to women looking to get into government: Brush up on math.

“Just keep sharpening your numerical skills. You do have to be able to run the numbers,” she said. “You’ll have a CFO if you’re lucky enough to be mayor, but you’ve got to be able to understand the basics. So just keep sharpening them. It matters.”

It matters a lot in Newton, where the mayor has to produce a balanced budget of more than half a billion dollars each year.

4. She’s big on loyalty.

“I’m not sure I understood the word ‘loyalty’ before I was mayor,” Fuller said when asked a question related to staff and management.

“It’s not what I thought it meant prior to eight years ago. What it means is we’re all going to mess up sometimes,” she said, adding that she messes up too. “When a team member messes up, that’s the time to bring them in. Let’s talk it through. What happened? What did we learn? And I got your back on this one.”

Loyalty, she noted, goes both ways.

“Work with people, train them, mentor them, have their back, stand up for them and grow them,” she said. “And that gentleness and kindness and loyalty helps them develop and have the courage, I think, to go to that next level.”

Fuller pointed out that the city just got its first Division of Public Works commissioner, Shawna Sullivan, after Jim McGonagle left a few weeks ago.

“She’s spectacular, and that’s a man’s world,” Fuller said. “Fire, DPW and police, those are still men’s professions. And she’s rocking it.”

5. She’s big on Kim Driscoll.

Who has helped guide Fuller these past several years? Kim Driscoll, current lieutenant governor and former mayor of Salem for 16 years.

“She was the best mayor in Massachusetts, and she was and is my role model on how to think clearly, speak clearly, know where true north is, and be in communication with all kinds of people,” Fuller said. “She’s so darn accessible. During the strike a year ago, I talked to her once or twice a day.”

Fuller suggested the women in the room “check in on each other” that way.

“It is still harder, I think, in many instances, to be a female in this world,” Fuller said, fondly sharing an anecdote of a woman who had emailed her earlier just to check on how she was doing.

Mayor Ruthanne Fuller speaks at a Fireside Chat event with Needham Town Manager Kate Fitzpatrick, moderated by NBC10’s Priscilla Casper. Photo by Bryan McGonigle

6. She lacks a work/life balance.

Someone in the audience asked how Fuller and Fitzpatrick manage a work/life balance, and Fuller simply said she doesn’t.

“I have no work/life balance, literally,” she admitted. “And some of it’s the nature of the job, and I think a lot of it is the nature of our times. I couldn’t have done this job when my kids were little. It wouldn’t have been possible.”

Fuller beamed with joy talking about how proud her three adult sons are of her.

“It’s lovely!” she exclaimed with a smile.

7. She met her husband at 13.

Another piece of advice Fuller offered was to lean on family when possible.

“I’d say all of us should keep nurturing our family lives, because it’s stressful,” she said. “Have a good team around you at work, but don’t ignore your family, because you need them. They’re really my mental health resources—particularly Joe and my kids and grandkids.”

And it turns out Fuller and her husband have had more time than most couples to get it right. They met when they were 13 years old.