Not too long ago, I started hearing rumors that Bob Lee, our previous Gulfport city manager, was no longer city manager in Naples, Florida, the job he left Gulfport to take on. That was the extent of the information: he was gone - nobody seemed to know where or why.
I checked the Naples website and, sure enough, he was no longer listed as city manager; someone else was “interim” city manager. Hm-m-m, wonder who might know more?
Maybe Tom Brobeil, our own city manager, has heard something through the Florida city manager network, if there is such a thing. I called his office. He was out, but his assistant, Lori Roach, told me she had heard that Bob Lee left Naples to accept a position at, I thought she said, the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
At least that’s what I heard. It made sense to me; he had always been interested in education. While he was city manager here, he taught public administration courses at the University of South Florida in the evening. He had also obtained a doctor’s degree from Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale while he was here, receiving it not long before he left.
So the next step would be to contact him to confirm the information and get some more details. I thought that, if I was interested, some of you might be as well. But how to contact him?
While I was thinking about it, I went to the dedication of Wood Ibis Park to Ted Phillips. And who should show up but Bob Lee, there to pay tribute to the retiring council member. It was a busy morning, with a lot of people to talk to, but I was able to learn that he was in Tallahassee, not Orlando, and to get his business card. I called him later. Here’s the scoop.
Officially, Robert E. Lee is a Professor of Practice and the Senior Executive in Residence in the Reuben Askew School of Public Administration & Policy within the College of Social Sciences at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Whew! They could hardly get it all on his business card.
And he has another job, too: associate director of the Center for Florida Local Government Excellence (CFLGE), also located at FSU within the Reuben Askew School. Leave it to Bob Lee to be involved up to his ears.
He left Naples, he tells me, and took on this new challenge on November 1 of last year. And he wasn’t out looking for another job. They came to him. Obviously, he said yes.
I’m not sure if I can explain it all because it’s difficult to keep it all straight, but as a professor of practice at the school, he teaches public administration courses on municipal government. And as associate director of CFLGE, which was established just last year, he is responsible for getting the program up and running.
His real value to the project, he says, is his experience as an administrator, because they’re trying to bridge the gap between theory, which is so much a part of normal college-level work, and practice. The Center is trying to address the real, day-to-day work of Florida local governments. And it will be offering a certificate in Florida city and county management.
That’s about all I know, except that CFLGE has been established by a partnership of the Florida City and County Management Association, the John Scott Dailey Florida Institute of Government, and FSU. If you want to know more than that, you can go to their new website, up and running as of last week: cflge.org
As for personal data, Bob says that he only has to spend five to 10 days a month in Tallahassee. The rest of the time, he travels around the state attending conferences, making speeches, doing PR work, and so forth.
He’s also still teaching at USF in Tampa and also teaching courses occasionally at other locations around the state. So he’s a busy man.
He and his wife, Cyndi, are still living in Naples. She has established her own health care-related business in Naples and in nearby Fort Myers, so is not anxious to leave.
And they own two houses in Naples, one of which is on the market (yes, in this current market). He gave me the impression that, if and when it sells, they’ll be buying something in Tallahassee.
All in all, life seems to be going very well for the two of them, and Bob is doing something that he very much enjoys and, I’m sure, is very good at. He’s an amazing man, actually, with some amazing capabilities and a lot of drive.
I also got the distinct impression that life is much less stressful in the world of academia. I talked to him on a Saturday afternoon, and he said that he and Cyndi had been out fishing all morning.
Bob was working in Naples when Hurricane Wilma struck that city. When I asked him about it, he said, true to form, that it was the most rewarding experience of his life. He says that, when he reached out for help, the people of Florida and the cities of Florida responded immediately and generously with help, with supplies, with equipment and with personnel. In fact, the City of Gulfport was the very first responder.
And he also mentioned, several times, how much he and Cyndi loved Gulfport and how difficult it was for them to leave it.
At the dedication ceremony for Wood Ibis Park, Ted Phillips mentioned that Bob Lee had left Gulfport “for bigger and better things.” Bob made a point of telling me that that wasn’t true. Naples may be a bigger city, but it is not “better.”
••
TurnerViewpoint@aol.com
•••
|
