This week's announcement that long time St. Petersburg
City Administrator Rick Musset was retiring got me to thinking.
A large number of the St. Pete administrative
management team has 25 to 30 and more years of service. Many of them started
between 1980 and 1984 and have been with the City in senior management roles
for many of these years.
If you really step back and look, there have been dozens
of different City Council members, a number of weak mayors, numerous City Managers, and four strong
Mayors since the form of government changed in the early 1990's, but the staff
has stayed very consistent.
So who was the person that hired all of these people
who have endured for all of these years and been so instrumental in the
creation of St. Petersburg as we know it today?
Answer - City manager Alan Harvey.
If you would like to read the set up that lead to
Alan's arrival as City Manager check out this link: More
than Mayor or Manager: Campaigns to Change Form of Government in America's Large Cities.
Alan Harvey became City Manger following the 10 year
tenure of Ray Harbaugh. Harvey was young, charismatic and aggressive. He wanted
to replace the typical bureaucrat with people who wanted to get things done and
he set about building a staff that would endure for over 30 years.
Most of his hires did not come from government; they
came from the private sector.
My career at the City began in 1981, but my actual
recruitment began over a year earlier as a friend and former Honeywell engineer
who had gone to work for the City, kept chiding me about giving something back
to the community and coming to work for this really neat guy Alan Harvey.
I had to take a pay cut to make the move but the
stories he told were just to intriguing to pass up and so I remember saying
"ok I'll give you two years and then Ill 'have to go back the private
sector to make a living."
I retired from the City 28 years later. Some of my
colleagues could tell you similar stories.
Once on board it was a whirlwind of excitement with a
get it done form of leadership. Harvey instilled strong
