When Pamela D. Marshall sat down for lunch last month, she skipped solid food, opting instead for a packet of strawberry-banana flavored protein gel and sips of a yellow liquid consisting of water, lemons, pepper and maple syrup.

She explained that she was doing a cleanse, or short-term liquid diet, and mentioned one of her hobbies: strenuous yoga workouts in a room heated to more than 100 degrees.

Pamela Marshall is the new chief of staff to interim Shelby County Mayor Joe Ford.

The food and exercise regimens reflect the kind of intensity Marshall brings to her role as chief of staff for interim Shelby County Mayor Joe Ford, who took office in December.

"There are people who live and work in this community, but for whatever reason, the passion is gone ... I want to be -- we want to be -- part of reigniting that passion," she said.

Her job involves supervising other staffers, and drawing on her background as a broadcast journalist to help Ford get his message to the media.

But she also has a background in public policy-making. Her past jobs include roles as public policy director at hospital group Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare and community relations officer at the Tennessee Department of Transportation.

In July 2008, she became vice president of public policy and community affairs for the Greater Memphis Chamber. Her former boss, Dexter Muller, said she accomplished a lot during her 18 months on that job.

When Valero Energy Corp. complained that a bill pending in the Tennessee legislature could force the company to shut down its Memphis refinery, Marshall called on her legislative contacts to help block it, Muller said.

Marshall also helped bring former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Memphis for a speech. "I thought, 'That is such a big challenge. She'll never be able to pull it off,'" he said. "But she thinks big."

Muller says half-jokingly that Ford "stole" her from him.

Marshall said Ford initially wanted her to serve on his task force for funding the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, and that further conversations led her to take the chief of staff job with the interim mayor.

She said the job fits her background, and recalls a conversation she had years ago with Gene Cashman, head of the Urban Child Institute.

"He said at one point in your life all the pieces of the puzzle, all the things you've done, will come together for what you will become."

Marshall, 48, is also raising a 13-year-old adopted son, Brennan, by herself. She is in the process of getting a divorce.

She grew up on a farm near Jackson, Tenn., one of 13 children. Her father, a farmer and preacher who also did other jobs, didn't make it past the third grade. Her mother, who also worked on the farm, went to the eighth grade.

An older brother, 61-year-old James Marshall, recalls his sister as an outgoing child who impressed churchgoers by singing a song on her own at age 3. Later she competed in beauty pageants. "She's just always been a go-getter, you know," he said.

Marshall gravitated toward broadcasting, and in 1988 earned a bachelor's degree from Columbia College in Chicago. She had jobs in places ranging from Davenport, Iowa, to Champaign, Ill., as a news anchor and reporter.

One colleague, Tom Britt with television station WBBJ in Jackson, said Marshall had the ability to talk to people at crime scenes and in other sensitive situations.

"Pamela always had the knack for making people comfortable, and they would share with her," he said. "And wouldn't give the time of day to anyone else."

Marshall said the new task forces that Ford has set up to examine issues from roads to the county pension fund will generate some fresh ideas. And she says she dreams that Memphis will play a bigger role in the world.

Staff salaries

Here are the annual salaries of some key aides Interim Shelby County Mayor Joe Ford has hired:

--Pamela D. Marshall, chief of staff, $118,000.

--Former county commissioner Matt Kuhn, senior policy adviser, $110,000.

--Leon Gray Jr., special projects coordinator, $58,000.

--Diane Brown, executive assistant, $59,000.

--Delia McPherson, administrative assistant, $52,000.

Here are county salaries of some key aides who left when former Mayor A C Wharton became mayor of Memphis:

--Kelly Rayne, executive assistant/public policy, $110,000.

--Robert White, mayor's executive assistant, $95,000.

--James E. Nelson, administrator, Title Six coordinator, $85,000.

--Lois Riseling, aide, $47,133.60.

--Mina Becton, aide, $47,133.60.