Wes Smith reflects on Albany government career, new road ahead

ALBANY — When Wes Smith walks out the door of the downtown Government Center in two weeks, his last day as a city employee, he’ll take 31 years worth of memories with him.

A lot of the good memories are preserved in a folder that contains what may be the only surviving copies of a market study, market analysis, master plan guidelines, riverfront development study and downtown resource team report for downtown Albany, circa 1985-88.

Smith was a redevelopment specialist at that time for the Albany-Dougherty Inner City Authority, a quasi-governmental agency created to help with the proposed development of Albany’s flagging Central Business District. A recent graduate of Georgia College and State University’s masters of public administration program working at his first real job — minus a few months as an assistant manager at a Honey Baked Ham restaurant when no job opened up immediately post-graduation — Smith found himself in what turned into an ideal situation.

“I came here expecting to stay a couple of years and then move on,” Smith, whose near-decade tenure as an assistant Albany city manager will end July 1, said. “But when Mayor (James) Gray died, I found myself with ADICA at a time when it was in the middle of trying to fix a mess.

“The work was so satisfying, it just made sense to stay a while.”

That “while” surpassed 30 years last September and included a nine-year stint as ADICA’s director, a position that ended badly when the newly formed public-private organization Albany Tomorrow Inc. took over ADICA and decided Smith’s years of service were not significant enough to keep him around. It included another nine years as the city of Albany’s capital development superintendent and the past nine-plus as assistant city manager for government services.

Smith’s only 56, too young to be put out to pasture, but he’s been-there, done-that enough to recognize it when the writing’s on the wall.

“I took a look at the future of the city’s organization (under current City Manager Sharon Subadan), and it was difficult to figure where I fit in,” Smith said. “So, I had a talk with Sharon, and we agreed on an early retirement settlement. In all honesty, I didn’t particularly want to leave right now. But I did want to have a say in how I would leave.”

So Smith’s packing up his office, getting ready for the next phase of his life. His wife, Eileen, has health issues, and he has two school-aged sons — Bennett, who’s a junior in high school, and Graham, who’s a seventh-grader — who he’s taken a greater role in raising. Older offspring Jordan, 28, who lives in the nation’s capital, and Michael, who recently graduated Georgia Tech with a degree in chemical engineering, are in the picture as well.

“Hey, I’m not tired; I think I still have the capacity to contribute to the city’s government,” Smith said. “But the organization here has evolved; it has a lot more moving parts. Maybe I didn’t really fit well and it was time for me to go.

“When I do leave, though, I’ll leave with no regrets. I think I’ve had a good career, one I can be proud of. Who knows? I don’t have the energy I had when I came here 31 years ago, but I have more drive and an experience level that’s exceptional. Maybe I’ll go somewhere else and do it all again.”

Completing development of the Central Square government complex in the wake of Gray’s death was perhaps what kept Smith in Albany, and the role he played in that complex development certainly propelled him to a career in government management. But it was a high school teacher, Central of Macon political science instructor Betty Phillips, who turned him on to the workings of government.

As he moved steadily up the ladder in Albany, Smith played significant parts in completing such projects as construction of the city/county Government Center, rehabilitation of the historic Albany Municipal Auditorium, construction of Veterans Park, major utility relocation, and street resurfacing projects.

But it’s the part he played in the development of the 10-year, $175 million Downtown Riverfront Master Plan — the details of which are in his time-worn folder — that is perhaps Smith’s finest hour.

“I think as I look back on my career, I’m proudest of the work I did on the development of the downtown Law Enforcement Center, development of the Municipal Golf Course after the Flood of ‘94, Veterans Park and the Municipal Auditorium, which have stood the tests of time,” Smith said. “I’m proud to have been elected president of the state Downtown Development Association for the past two years.”

Smith’s career hasn’t been lived with one high simply surpassing another, though.

“I guess one of my biggest disappointments for this community is how ADICA’s lost its focus on business over the last 10 years and the community’s still paying the price,” he said. “The focus of that group changed when ATI took it over. Thankfully, (current downtown manager and ADICA president) Latoya Cutts is leading ADICA back in the right direction.”

Smith credits Dr. Carl Gordon, the first black U.S. Army officer to lead a MASH unit, and former mayor and long-time Albany attorney James Davis as the men who had the most impact on his life. And he says he’s learned a little more from each successive city manager he’s served under: Nick Meizer, Roy Lane, Janice Allen Jackson (who hired him as capital development superintendent and put Smith in charge of the city’s inaugural, $90 million SPLOST budget), Lemuel Edwards, Al Lott, James Taylor, Tom Berry and now Subadan.

“I hate to go, but I’ll be OK,” Smith said. “Hey, God does things for a reason. This door is closing, but another one will open.”