THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 23, 1994 TAG: 9410210359
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 151 lines
LESS THAN 24 HOURS after being named the next city manager of Suffolk, Isle of Wight County Administrator Myles E. Standish walked into a Smithfield restaurant and was immediately yet cordially razzed.
One man teased him for leaving the county for the city. A waitress later hedged at getting Standish an ashtray. ``I don't know if I should,'' she teased, ``with you leaving and all.''
Standish politely smiled.
``I promise I'll give it back.''
He didn't introduce himself to anybody. He didn't have to. They knew him.
Standish is known and liked by a great many people in this sprawling county by the banks of the James River. That's not easy, especially for someone who has been the county's top administrator for seven years - a lifetime for local politicians.
But now, despite a largely successful career in Isle of Wight, Standish is going back to his roots.
IN 1975, A 25-YEAR-OLD Standish began his career as an administrative analyst in Suffolk while fresh out of Old Dominion University in Norfolk. On Dec. 1, the 44-year-old Standish will return as city manager.
Despite a strong passion for communities and local government, Standish has never claimed a hometown. He is a Navy brat, one of five children born to a retired naval officer from Tacoma, Wash., and a schoolteacher-turned-housewife from Philadelphia. As a child, he lived everywhere, from the Pacific Northwest and New England to Japan.
He felled, cut and sold timber in Missoula, Mont., as a young man, rising early and eating a huge meal before working outside all day in the Northern Rockies.
At Old Dominion, he majored in political science. And during the summer of his senior year, a professor steered him toward a job opening in Suffolk, which had merged with Nansemond County the year before.
``I jumped at the chance to come to Suffolk,'' Standish said in a 1987 interview. ``To be honest, I was interested in being gainfully employed after being a student. But it was the perfect way to get into public management, . .
It was Suffolk, and City Manager G. Robert House, that taught Standish the ropes. House and the city helped shape his philosophy about the role of local government and its importance, he said. Standish still calls the late House ``one of the greatest city managers that ever lived.''
``Local government is - to belabor a phrase - where the action is,'' Standish said Thursday, the day after he was officially hired by Suffolk. ``It's immediate. The desires and the needs of the community are right there. They're not coming from Washington or Richmond. The issues come from right down the road.''
In Suffolk, ``I very quickly learned to enjoy local government. It's a very rewarding career.''
He quickly worked his way up the ladder. Four years after being hired in Suffolk, he was made a senior analyst, a high-profile research job that deals with a broad range of city issues.
Two years later, Standish was promoted to City Manager John L. Rowe's assistant. And within several months, he was named assistant city manager of management services.
He held that job until 1987, when he beat out 70 applicants for the county administrator's job in Isle of Wight County, replacing W.B. ``Sonny'' Owen.
STANDISH'S EFFECT WAS immediate. He became the first county administrator in Isle of Wight to have an economic development department. To this day, the Board of Supervisors credits him with helping the county compete for development and thus enhance the tax base.
He also streamlined government, combining the zoning, planning and inspections offices and hiring a budget and finance director to tighten financial oversight.
He helped build a jail, a county library and a Fire Department headquarters. He began door-to-door trash collection. And after a year, he got a 5.26 percent pay raise, an indication that the county was pleased with his perfor-mance.
He took Isle of Wight through a $20 million school building program that created three new schools. He helped the Hampton Roads Sanitation District bring sewer service to the north and middle of the county. And Standish supported Norfolk Southern Corp.'s $100 million coal storage facility near Windsor.
Standish also raided Suffolk, hiring several of his former colleagues. One of them was David Murphy, now Isle of Wight public utilities director.
``I know it sounds sort of maudlin,'' Murphy said, ``but his No. 1 priority is for the county. And I can't remember any specific thing that the supervisors wanted that didn't end up becoming fact. He's fairly relaxed, but he expects what he wants when he wants it.
``Life will go on, but I'm sure there'll be a gap of some magnitude by his leaving.''
STANDISH COMES TO SUFFOLK with a very blank slate. And asked if he has any priorities for the city, he does not get specific.
``I'm really focused on my job here,'' in Isle of Wight. ``I haven't paid attention to a lot of issues except my job over the past seven years. I would really not presuppose anything about Suffolk until I get there.''
He does, of course, have some ideas - he just isn't ready to talk about them.
``It's certainly going to be one of my goals that there be progress,'' he said, adding that the City Council intensely questioned him about the city's future and Standish's vision for it. Without offering details, Standish said he was given some direction.
He returns to Suffolk after a tumultuous year during which three of the seven council seats changed hands and after the quick departure of former City Manager Richard L. Hedrick.
Hedrick, 46, resigned July 20 after serving three years. He said he left to pursue work elsewhere, but some City Council members said Hedrick quit after learning the new council wanted to hold a vote of confidence.
After handing in his resignation, Hedrick was to stay with the city until Nov. 30. But he permanently left the city in September with the council's blessing and was named county administrator in Polk County, Fla., earlier this month.
HEDRICK LEFT BEHIND a city on the brink of a wave of development. The issuance of building permits broke all records last year, and the city is predicting 20,000 new homeowners in the next 20 years.
With this in mind, Suffolk is also trying to expand its tax base by encouraging industrial and commercial development as well as extend water and sewer service to all areas of the city's 430 square miles. The City Council is also considering ways to increase its bond rating to fund badly needed capital projects.
With all this in mind, Standish remains unfazed.
``I don't believe there's going to be a problem at all because I believe .
``Simply put - if I as the manager can't communicate good ideas and a cohesive mission, then I'm not doing my job correctly. And I take my job rather seriously.''
WHEN HE'S NOT HEMMING over tax rates or analyzing the budget, Standish sails. It is one of his three passions, he said - sailing, sailing and sailing. He circumnavigates the Chesapeake Bay on a 32-foot cutter, along with his wife, Donna, and a golden retriever named Penney with a passion for Frisbees.
Asked if he has always wanted to become a city manager, Standish quickly responded:
``A city manager of a dynamic city? Yes!
``It's just extremely nice that it's the city of Suffolk.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos and cover photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
``It's certainly going to be one of my goals that there be
progress,'' Standish said. He returns to Suffolk after a tumultuous
year during which three of the seven council seats changed hands and
after the quick departure of former City Manager Richard L.
Hedrick.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE
by CNB