Eye in the Sky

By August of 2001, construction was moving from exterior to the beginning of interior build-out. I wanted to see a different perspective, and to record it for the project album I had been assembling.

Enter a check ride in the County Police helicopter, which was conveniently based at the Chesterfield Airport about half a mile from our construction site. The St. Louis County Police did contract policing of our City of Wildwood, and were very savvy about marketing their services to local Mayors. I had been in office about 18 months at that point, and our precinct Captain suggested I might want to show our latest City Administrator the width and breadth of our 67 square mile city. He was just coming on (our fifth administrator since 1995)at that time. The flight operations facility was in Chesterfield, the city next door - so we drove there and took off. I had the foresight to take my camera along, and our pilot was accommodating. The shot of the building was taken on the return approach into the pattern.

While you can't see them from this perspective, the building had a wedding cake top floor, with two large patios. One patio was off the employee cafe, the other off my offices and the Board room. Both were great vantage points to watch air shows every year. Those rectangular shapes on the roof are air conditioning units - we built everything over-sized, to allow for growth. The building cost $12 million, and the payback has already been reached, as cost against the rent we had paid at the prior leased locations. Today, the building remains a legacy I am very proud to have left to the citizens of the State of Missouri.

P.S. - That City Administrator is still there today, so some decisions made under my term as Mayor indeed had "legs" - but I gave Dan good advice "to keep your head down, and let Joe run the place". Joe has been there since 1995 - he's the true Survivor.

The Dirty Secret

For several years, I found myself enjoying moving dirt. I was simultaneously trying to run a 3.8 Billion dollar agency, whilst being Mayor of a 32,884 citizen town. In the year 2000, I became a Mayor and in 2001, a General Contractor. I still have my hardhat and safety vest, found today in the garage as I pack for yet another significant move.

The picture showing the ceremonial shovels was breaking ground for Westridge Centre, on October 3, 2002. That's me in the shirt and tie - taking time on my lunch hour to work in a groundbreaking for the City of Wildwood. The fellow in the orange shirt is Tom McLain, a developer whom I later appointed to the Planning & Zoning Board. I believed town boards needed to have representatives from all points of view, something the people I had defeated two years earlier found anathema. I knew I'd be a one-term Mayor, since I had won with only 36% of the vote against two "progressives" who were enamored with their limited vision. The tall fellow is Joe Vujnich - a very talented planner, albeit somewhat in love with New Urbanism, and allergic to drive through restaurants. The other guy is Tom's architect. Eight years later, this development is now built out, across the highway from a new Community College and the YMCA (which I wrote about earlier). I'm proud of my "responsible development" legacy in the City of Wildwood.........and no, they didn't name the town after me, only half of it.

The other picture, using the backhoe as a backdrop, is of our McCarthy Brothers project leaders, Dale Mueller and Vickie Ash. Both great people to work with; Dale is still with the company and Vicki retired last year. The lady who defines "pretty in pink" is Carla Land, of my senior staff. Carla was my number two person on this project, and she did a fantastic job on every item I tasked her with accomplishing.
I recall she had great taste in decor, and went to Chicago to the Merchandise Mart to pick out office furniture. She handled the move from the old offices to the new, and sat in on any meeting where I couldn't. A true lady, she wasn't afraid of climbing high steel in blue jeans one day, and reporting to the Board in heels the next. The building project started in February of 2001, when the ground was still frozen, and the 80,000 square foot building was completed in November of 2002. In the intervening 21 months, I probably had the most fun of my career - we had a great staff who could deal with student loans, but I was frankly tiring of the bureaucratic rat race, and this project was reinvigorating to say the least. Little did I realize that one year later, I'd find myself headed into retirement. But that's another story, featuring a contract, a great lawyer and a nice pension.

In looking back, I think the beginning of the 21st century was my best decade, and certainly broadened my horizons. I was a CEO with over 200 people, and a Mayor dealing with sixteen independent council persons. The ride was intense and exhilarating, and wisely I got off before my health and heart exploded. I now look back fondly at all the people with whom I was lucky enough to surround myself. They were all true professionals, all focused, and still all friends. LG - life's good.

Dinner with Lady Thatcher

Well, a picture is worth a thousand words, so you've got two thousand words there. The photo was taken by a Bank of America employee, at a private reception before a speaking tour in which former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was to appear. At the time, I was wearing several hats - one of a CEO of a tax exempt revenue bonding authority that was routinely depositing millions of dollars a year into and through accounts at Bank of America, and my other hat was Mayor of a St. Louis suburb.

My friends at the bank had offered me tickets to the actual speech, but more importantly the dinner at the adjacent dining club with the guest of honor. I was the closest to an "elected official" in the crowd, so I was asked to dine to the left of Lady Thatcher. Now, most of my friends find me to the right of almost all of them, but I do assure you I was in the company of a complete conservative. I added this fascinating individual to my bucket list, which also included three U.S. Presidents - Ford, Reagan and Bush (41). For a guy with a degree in Political Science, I could not have asked for more.

Oh, the bank was also gracious to provide two of the books of Margaret Thatcher, autographed of course. They sit in a bookcase next to my Ronald Reagan autobiography. This week, I'll be packing them in boxes to move them to my new library in Florida. What? You've never heard of a Residential Library?