23 minute read
Chapter 4
from Real and Right
State Capitol, Room 200
Walking into the Utah Governor’s Office the day after the inauguration was among the most exhilarating moments of my life. Equal parts excitement, gratitude, satisfaction, responsibility, resolve, and confidence—tempered by a dash of fear. Everything was new and interesting, and it felt as important as it was. The weight settled quickly on our new team’s shoulders, but we loved the way that felt.
In 1993, the Governor’s Office was tucked in the southwest corner of the main floor of the Capitol, just off the rotunda. The entrance consisted of two side-by-side doors, a nondescript adjoining door, and a bronze plaque. Inside, a visitor would be greeted in a small, poorly lit, windowless waiting area. If there was a chief executive steering the great ship of the state within, it was hard to ascertain by the exterior. We later improved the arrival experience by opening it up; a new glass wall
partitioned off the entire west end of the floor into an open foyer, making a more expansive, welcoming entryway. It has since reverted back to the earlier look, with the glass removed and the layout contained again behind the doors. As with governors themselves, things change.
Inside the Governor’s Suite, a hallway ran east to west, linking five separate offices with windows that faced south, overlooking downtown Salt Lake. Down the hall in the other direction was the actual Governor’s Office—two offices to be exact: a big, handsomely-appointed ceremonial office and a smaller, cozier working office behind it. A door from the private office led to the Governor’s Board Room, which served additional roles as a public meeting space and a cabinet meeting room. The next door over from the board room was a similar suite of offices for the lieutenant governor. One floor down, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget occupied a larger footprint below us.
The Capitol was a wonderful place to work, but there was one change I resolved early on to make. As a twelve-year-old boy I started spending time at the legislative session with my father, who represented southern Utah first in the House of Representatives and then in the State Senate. I tired quickly of listening to legislative debate, so I would explore the building—floor after intriguing floor of chambers, galleries, lounges, offices, hallways, and exhibits. Inexplicable to me was the shuttering and non-use of the Gold Room on the main floor. It was the most beautiful of rooms, undoubtedly a labor of love and sacrifice for people eking out a living during the Capitol’s construction. The Gold Room had fallen under the control of historians and preservationists whose idea of reverence was to hide it under drapes and dust. The placed smelled bad and looked lifeless. Gold stanchions and ropes limited Capitol visitors to a peek through the door, and the ladies who gave tours scolded anyone who leaned too far over the top of the ropes to get a full view of the room’s previous grandeur.
During my first week in office, I asked Neal Stowe, head of the Division of Facilities, Construction, and Management, to meet me in my office, and we took a little stroll to the Gold Room. Once there, I moved the rope aside—no tour guides in sight— and said, “I want to liberate the Gold Room. I want to clean it up, renovate it, and then use it, a lot.” He got the picture and, gratefully, so did the historical preservation people. Operation Reclamation commenced.
Within a few months the job of cleaning and rejuvenating the room was done. A door between the governor’s staff office area and the Gold Room was reactivated after decades of no use. Light and sound poured in, and the place sprang to life. From that point forward, we proudly used this spacious and enduring place to greet important visitors of the state, and to hold meetings, news conferences and ceremonies.
There were many pictures taken in the Gold Room, but the place where I probably had the most pictures taken was in the Governor’s Office. I loved working there. I used the ceremonial office for meetings, and the big desk there only for formal signings. I would sit at the desk, with interested parties surrounding me. Such gatherings almost always included pictures to commemorate the event. I’m confident more than ten thousand pictures were taken with me sitting in that chair. And we regularly strove to send a personalized print of the occasion to the people involved.
With so much picture taking, I quickly discovered that the camera flashes were a problem. They left lingering spots and occasionally gave me headaches. A solution, however, was right in front of me.
I want to liberate the Gold Room. I want to clean it up, renovate it, and then use it, a lot.
There was a large painting on the opposite wall of what looked like Monument Valley. Nobody knew of a place exactly like the one depicted, so we concluded that, while artfully done, it was not an actual place. But there was a sun in the picture, and I found that if I simply stared at that sun, the flashes didn’t bother me. It formed a metaphor in my mind about staying focused on a priority rather than allowing routine interruptions to become blinding disruptions. I think of the painting often when I’m having pictures taken, even to this day.
I didn’t alter the ceremonial office at all, aside from placing pictures of Jackie and my family on the shelves, along with my personal scriptures and a green toy tractor that had a tiny plaque bearing the words “Real and Right.” The tractor was a gift given to me by the Utah Farm Bureau as a reminder of the television commercial I used to introduce myself to the people in the campaign. In the thirty-second spot I recounted a story of my youth when my grandfather taught me the importance of doing what was real and right.
What will I do to justify the molecules of paint my shoes will rub off today?
My favorite place in the Governor’s Office was the small, private office. That little office contained two chairs and a wonderful yellow sofa with light blue piping. The room was always warm and secluded, so whenever I worked alone or needed to think, I did it there.
The Governor’s Office has a very small restroom and shower (though my predecessors apparently didn’t use the shower). I used it often after midday exercise. I also kept extra clothes in the closet in case I needed to freshen a suit or change into casual attire.
Each day when I arrived at the Capitol, I would enter at the west doors and gain access to my office through a private stairway just inside the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget (GOPB). I would climb the stairs to the second floor, entering the small hallway next to the ceremonial office.
The climb up the stairs became a symbol for me. The stairway hadn’t been painted for a long time, and over the years, the paint had slowly thinned after so many climbs up and down. For the most part, only governors and their security details ever walked those steps. I wondered how many particles of paint were worn off the stairs every time a governor went to work. Hitting the bottom step each morning, I’d privately contemplate a little motivating mantra: “What will I do to justify the molecules of paint my shoes will rub off today?” It was a constant reminder that I occupied a position of power, a public trust both singular and temporary.
A Division of Labor with the Lieutenant Governor
Every governor has to establish the contours of their relationship with the lieutenant governor, who has, by definition, a difficult job. Typically, the lieutenant governor has few statutory duties, and there are often tensions between the staff of the two leaders. Even in situations where the lieutenant governor and governor run in tandem and have close personal relationships, discomfort can develop between the chief of staff and the lieutenant governor. I was resolved to avoid that if possible, and we did. Our success can be attributed to two things: First, we talked about it openly. But second, and most importantly, Lieutenant Governor Olene S. Walker was a remarkable woman, truly one of the great women in the history of Utah. I could not have had a better partner in service.
In the transition period after the election, Olene’s experience as a legislator, educator, and government executive immediately paid dividends. While the lieutenant governor’s office is constitutionally separate from the governor, we decided they would function as one. We agreed that the offices would share every resource. So when the phone rang it was answered as the Governor’s Office. We planned together and functioned as one. Olene had her specific statutory duties to perform, but she was welcome in all meetings, whether statutorily relevant or not. Our schedules were transparent internally. Olene chose her own personal staff, but they were integrated as part of the Governor’s Office team.
She agreed to accept additional duties beyond her statutory responsibilities, and it cannot be overstated how deeply I trusted Olene and how much I depended on her. She represented the state of Utah and the governor thousands of times over the decade we served together; I came to value her opinion enormously. One helpful skill of hers was she could read the legislature like a watch. When there was a problem with legislative leadership, I’d overstated how deeply I trusted Olene and how much I depended on her. She represented the state of Utah and the governor thousands of times over the decade we served together; I came to value her opinion enormously. One helpful skill of hers was she could read the legislature like a watch. When there was a problem with legislative leadership, I’d just send Olene upstairs and she would come back with the problem solved. She spoke common sense and would give it to me unvarnished. She managed complicated task forces, created new departments, and sorted out knotty relationship issues.
Olene was a triple-tasking night owl, a working mother of seven who earned a PhD on the side and helped run a family business.
A perfect example of Olene’s incredible work is the Utah Department of Workforce Services (DWS). When Olene and I took office, there were twenty-nine different programs, agencies, and divisions tasked with the state functions of job training, welfare, unemployment, and labor. We moved to consolidate all of those, streamlining services and accessibility under a single department. Olene chaired the committee heading the undertaking. After several months of research, discussion, arguing, turf wrangling, placating, and persuading, she came back with the framework of the new DWS. The new department opened for business in 1997. Two decades later, in June 2017, the twentieth anniversary of the department’s creation, the agency’s downtown administration building was given Olene’s name. Truly fitting.
In American politics, tension between a president and vice president or governor and lieutenant governor is considered part of the basic narrative. It just didn’t happen here. I’m not aware of a single moment when I felt tension between us.
Olene Walker was one of the most original characters I’ve ever known. She was a triple-tasking night owl, a working mother of seven who earned a PhD on the side and helped run a family business. A glass-ceiling breaker and pioneer at every turn in her career, Olene was admired widely for her intellect. At the same time, she would put us in stitches poking fun at herself. One morning she came to a meeting late and explained how she had set a new record getting ready and driving from her house by putting on her pantyhose on the way and sticking her head out the car window to dry her hair as she drove. The best part is that nobody laughed harder about it than Olene.
When I left to join President George W. Bush’s Cabinet midway through my third term, the reins of state government were turned over to Olene Walker as the fifteenth governor of Utah. That handoff was one of the great privileges of my life. There is a portrait of Olene in the State Capitol that captures her image but can’t convey the life force—the intellect plus the warmth and sense of fun about her; the trailblazing stateswoman-grand-mother who drove around in a red Miata. She was a historical marker as Utah’s first woman governor, and to those who worked and interacted with her, so much more.
Our Staffing Model
Early in the transition period between the election and inauguration, I sought the counsel of Olene Walker, Nolan Karras, and Charlie Johnson on the staffing model we should employ, and we discussed this topic at a three-day seminar in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for new governors. Ultimately, I provided the team with the following guidance. I wanted the Governor’s Office to focus on strategy, policy, statewide budget matters, the legislature, and communication. I did not want state agencies run out of the Governor’s Office implicitly or explicitly.
The next important step was setting up the cabinet members as the leaders of their departments and setting up the support staff at their own departments. Some governors assign senior staff members to oversee cabinet members, even though the overseer is often far less experienced than the cabinet member. It is my observation that when that occurs, staff people often begin to micromanage the cabinet. Sometimes it is out of an abundance of caution; other times it is an overabundance of ego. I wanted our cabinet members to lead their departments. I wanted them to be subject-matter experts and to assemble the needed support staff. I believed the support staff should be located at the departments with the department head, not at the Capitol in the Governor’s Office.
When problems arose, I liked to keep most of the problems at the departments. We would use the governor’s staff to make certain the solution was headed in the right direction.
I envisioned the Governor’s Office having several direct working relationships within each department. The chief of staff would work with the cabinet members directly. While the cabinet reported directly to the governor, I made clear to them that the chief of staff spoke for me. By design, this gave the chief of staff a very strong hand.
The primary touch points between the Governor’s Office and each department would be budget, legislative matters, legal issues, key policy decisions, and communications.
Lynne Ward was the director of the GOPB. She maintained similar relationships with each department’s budget staff as my chief of staff Charlie Johnson did with the cabinet member head of the department. Vicki Varela, my communications deputy, was responsible to monitor and maintain relationships with each department’s communication people so that we were maintaining message discipline and not surprising each other. My general counsel, Robin Riggs, managed the legislative activities and legal activities in similar fashion. I also recruited Bob Linnell, the well-liked mayor of Bountiful, to oversee my relationships with local government.
I knew that to make it work, it was critical that I have a strong, seasoned, and credible chief of staff, hence the decision to choose Charlie Johnson. Charlie had recently retired from the national accounting firm of KPMG and had served Norm Bangerter for a short time as budget director. As you read the balance of this history, it will be evident what a remarkable job he did, serving for nearly five years. Charlie brought a wealth of business and management experience to the administration. He was brilliant with the budget. His relative maturity and credibility gave him an unassailable capacity to speak for the governor. I had actually considered Charlie as a potential lieutenant governor candidate during the election.
After the first reelection and fifth legislative session, Charlie exercised a personal rule of his— never stay in the same job longer than five years. However, I learned to play that game two ways. When I decided to serve in Washington, D.C., in 2003, Charlie was among the first I asked to go with me. We served another five years. And we continue to work together in our post-government lives, this time in business.
Ted Stewart replaced Charlie Johnson, with a brief interlude between them by the state’s first Workforce Services director and cabinet member Bob Gross. Ted had worked as the chief of staff to Congressman Jim Hansen in Washington, D.C., and had run for the U.S. Senate in 1992. He was not successful in his Senate race, but he certainly impressed me as we campaigned together. When the campaign ended, I asked Ted to become executive director of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). He had been at DNR for nearly five years when I asked him to replace Charlie as chief of staff. Ted has an exceptional policy mind, is a highly disciplined person, and had great relationships with conservative rural legislators. He was chief of staff during the nearly two years when I was dealing extensively with land and resource issues—a special area of expertise for him. Then, in 1999, he was nominated by President Clinton to become a federal judge. I believe he was the only Republican in eight years to be nominated to the federal bench by President Clinton.
After Ted’s departure for the judiciary, I asked Rich McKeown to become my next chief of staff. Rich was a Salt Lake City lawyer as well as a former neighbor of mine, and we also had children around the same age. I became more acquainted with Rich when I was looking for someone—a Democrat—to appoint to the Utah State Tax Commission. He had just narrowly lost a race for mayor of Salt Lake City, and since Rich was registered as a Democrat, I inquired as to his interest. Given his run for mayor I thought there was a chance he might be open to leaving the practice of law and joining state government. Indeed, he was willing and I appointed him to the Utah State Tax Commission. Subsequently, I appointed him chair of the tax commission, which unsettled Republican legislators. The more I watched Rich in this role and saw his thoughtful even-tempered manner, the more I admired him. After Ted left and I needed a new chief of staff, Rich was on my list.
Appointing a Democrat as chair of the tax commission was one thing. When I appointed a Democrat as my chief of staff, it really caused tongues to waggle. However, Rich distinguished himself quickly and won the confidence of skeptical legislators. He captained the ship during my last reelection, on through the Olympics, and then went with me to Washington, D.C., where he was chief of staff at both the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Health and Human Services. Rich was also my co-founder at Leavitt Partners in our post-service life. We worked together for twentytwo years.
Rich is a gifted leader with abundant intellectual ability. But the bulk of his success, in my opinion, is a genius-level emotional and collaborative IQ. Rich is simply unflappable. He often speaks of, and constantly practices, the doctrine of being continuously productive, no matter how provocative others become.
Moving In
As we prepared to move into the Governor’s office, Charlie had the hard job of figuring out where everyone’s office would be. In every organization, but especially government, proximity to the leader is important. I was interested to see how this would be resolved and thought it would be a good test of the chemistry we were building. It was, as the saying goes, nothin’ but net.
The team decided that those on the senior staff who carried general support missions would be on the governor’s side of the Capitol Building. Those senior staff members who had area-specific duties would occupy similar space on the lieutenant governor’s side of the Capitol.
Just outside my office door was Alayne Peterson, who became my trusted personal assistant, scheduler, and colleague for more than a dozen years. I had already known Alayne for years; she had worked with my father. Several years before I was elected, she had moved to Texas. I knew I needed a seasoned person whom I could trust to be my assistant, so on a hunch I called Alayne. As it turns out, she had made a personal decision to return to Utah. In a move both of us have continually laughed about, I asked her to take the job over the phone and she accepted. Alayne stayed with me through all three terms and then in my federal service.
Sitting behind Alayne, and in the same small room outside the governor’s office, was Linda Kendra, Charlie Johnson’s administrative assistant.
Moving down the hall was the Chief of Staff’s Office with Charlie Johnson; General Counsel’s Office with Robin Riggs; and Deputy for Communications Office with spokesperson Vicki Varela.
Lynne Ward was located on the first floor, managing the entire budget and policy staff at GOPB. Similarly located was Camille Anthony, another senior staffer managing the Governor’s Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice.
LaVarr Webb occupied a role we called the Policy Deputy. LaVarr was simply part of my brain. He had run the campaign, but more than that, he had captured in words many of the ideas we had spent hours discussing. He also oversaw all our political relationships. He was in a position to take special projects and drive them.
We made a firm decision to be Utah’s First Family in our own unique way, never compromising the wellbeing of our children.
LaVarr and I were personal friends before the campaign started. He was the political editor of the Deseret News and had covered campaigns I managed, and we were in a study group together with our wives. We are also the same age and both came from southern Utah. While I had been previously acquainted with others who comprised the senior staff on opening day, LaVarr is the only one I had a close friendship with. The truth is, he was more responsible for me actually getting elected than any other person. He continued to play a similar role in the Governor’s Office.
Vicki Varela and I had worked together at the Board of Regents. She handled communications there, and I was a member of the board. As part of that, I helped her organize a few referendum campaigns that higher education had interest in.
The experience gave me perfect clarity about who I wanted managing communications if I became governor. Vicki had all the attributes the job required: she understood the media and had long-standing relationships in that community. She had also already made the jump from media to communications at the Board of Regents. Plus, we had worked together enough that I felt like I knew what I was getting.
Robin Riggs had been the senior lawyer in the Office of Legislative Counsel. Prior to 1993, the governor depended completely on the attorney general for legal representation. Through a constitutional amendment in 1992, that relationship was changed. As a result, I would be the first governor in Utah history to have my own counsel. I depended heavily on my friend Jon Memmott, who knew that world well. He had been legislative general counsel himself and was also Norm Bangerter’s chief of staff. While we discussed other people, Robin seemed like the perfect choice. In this position you need a legislative, constitutionalist lawyer, not a litigator, prosecutor, or corporate counsel; someone who fully understands how legislation is crafted and adjudicated; has relationships with lawmakers; and knows all the nuts-and-bolts work from executive orders to vetoes. Robin was indeed the right choice.
Two thousand miles away, the state had maintained a Washington, D.C., office ever since the administration of Scott Matheson. It was situated in a building known as The Hall of States, which also houses the National Governors Association. I asked Joanne Neumann, a longtime friend of mine from her time as Senator Jake Garn’s legislative director, to become our state’s director in the Washington, D.C., office. At the time, I assumed this role would be important but had little forewarning of the critical role it would play, given future events.
My last spot to fill was a deputy for education. Once again, I knew who I wanted—Jay Taggart, who had retired as State Superintendent of Schools. The problem: I had to talk Jay out of retirement. We had worked together in a strategic planning process for public education. It was, to a large degree, what had persuaded me I should run for governor. I had concluded to go after the best people and Jay was it. Jay responded to my appeal and took the job.
The First Lady and Her Team
Down the hill and a few blocks east of the Capitol building at 603 East South Temple, The Governor’s Mansion, another part of our team was being assembled, the Office of the First Lady. In addition to organizing our family to make the transition to a new place of living and a new environment for living, Jackie began preparing to carry out new responsibilities.
First up were meetings to plan adaptations to the second-floor living quarters at the Governor’s Residence to meet our young family’s size. We were aware of our new responsibilities as state hosts and, to some extent, role models. The task of being a role model was not a task Jackie aspired to, and in many ways naturally would have avoided. We made a firm decision to be Utah’s First Family in our own unique way, never compromising the well-being of our children.
Carrying out these duties—hosting, the Governor’s Residence, the First Lady’s schedule, and the initiatives she selected to support and promote— required a team to help manage. The initial team was a dynamic duo— Carol Bench, the first lady’s assistant, and Judith George, residence manager, soon to be joined by several talented individuals who managed or spearheaded Jackie’s chosen initiatives, focusing on strong families, education, child immunization, and internet safety.
Through nearly eleven years, others joined and were merged into our team. I formed lasting friendships with them too, and their enormous contributions were considerable. There is just something very special about being part of the day-one group, those who stepped up from the earliest days to set our standards, execute the vision, and work diligently over the years to achieve our goals.
