City manager helps run town while stationed in Iraq

By Mark Davis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Oakwood -- His bosses had heard it before when Stan Brown brought them the news: He had to leave — again. For the third time, his country demanded Brown’s services.

That meant Brown, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, was going back to war, temporarily leaving his position as city manager of this Hall County town for a six-month tour in Iraq. But he went equipped with laptop and cellphone, building plans and bid proposals. In going to Iraq, Brown took a bit of Oakwood with him.

Talk about multi-tasking: In Iraq, Brown managed to helped smooth the transition of British troops heading home, replacing them with American soldiers. At the same time, he kept tabs on a sewer project, land acquisition and a highway job back home.

When he returned to his job June 29, city officials, friends and others in this town 40 miles north of Atlanta turned out for Stan Brown Day. To applause and clicking cameras, Brown sliced a yellow ribbon encircling an old pecan tree outside City Hall that had been placed there in his honor. Then he affixed a new one to commemorate those who still fight, eight time zones away, in a place far removed from the rolling terrain of North Georgia.

How many people can oversee soldiers and public servants simultaneously? City officials say Brown accomplished an impressive feat.

Brown gently dismissed the praise.

“There were times when I felt like I needed to be spending more time with Oakwood,” Brown, 49, said earlier this week. “But it really was a matter of time management.”

Mayor Lamar Scroggs isn’t so reserved. “Stan, he’s a good man,” said Scroggs, who’s held the town’s top elected job for 35 years. “He’s a multi-talented man. He can keep it all together.”

Projects, progress

Oakwood has a country feel, though I-985 is just a mile away. Aged barns sag in fields like old men in recliners. Outside City Hall, half-buried in a patch of pansies, is a stone grinding wheel — a relic from Mundy Mill, which once served area farmers.

The little town looked good to Brown, the father of two grown sons from a previous marriage, who took the city manager’s job in 2004.

He’d done some traveling. A Carrollton native, he was graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1982 with a civil engineering degree. After five years of active duty, municipal jobs took him to Athens, Colorado and Wyoming. Brown, who also has a master’s degree in public administration from the University of West Georgia, felt the pull of home. He returned to Georgia in 2002 as public works director of Jackson County. Two years later, he took the head job at Oakwood, population 4,500 or so.

An Air Force reservist since leaving active duty, he remembered cautioning the City Council during his job interview that he might be called to duty at any time.

That was OK with the council, which hired him to oversee a town with 26 employees, one swimming pool, a park and a future that promised growth.

Oakwood is growing. It has acquired about 35 acres for a new city center. The town has spent $5 million for rights-of-way for a 1.5-mile stretch of Thurman Tanner Parkway, which connects Mundy Mill Road to Spout Springs Road in Flowery Branch.

Oakwood has visions for the future, too. Long-term plans calls for establishing a thriving downtown, said Brown. If a commuter rail ever comes to Hall County, “we want to be on the radar.”

All these plans were moving smoothly when, late last year, Brown got his orders. In December, he departed for Iraq.

Feeling the distance

“We didn’t want him to leave,” recalled Patti Doss-Luna, Oakwood’s assistant city manager.

She and Brown had worked closely before during his two earlier deployments, when the military sent Brown on engineering assignments to Kuwait in 2005 and Kyrgyzstan in 2006. Each time, she said, they communicated easily via e-mail and telephone.

Communications weren’t as frequent in Iraq. A member of Dobbins’ 628th Civil Engineer Squadron, Brown headed about 1,500 troops who took over outposts in Basra formerly held by British soldiers.

The double duty wasn’t easy. Brown routinely worked until 10 p.m. in Iraq, then logged on to his computer to attend to city business. He reviewed consultants’ reports, bounced suggestions off Doss-Luna and kept an eye on the town’s projects. The land purchases, the rights of way, the sewer job all continued with few hitches.

‘Honored to serve’

Brown managed a fine juggling act, said Chamblee City Manager Jim Gleason, who resigned the manager’s job in Woodstock in 2007 to do a 10-month stint in Iraq.

“I applaud him in the sense that he accomplished that,” said Gleason, who worked overseas. “If you’re a good leader, you put a good team around you.”

Brown is unique, according to figures from the Georgia Municipal Association. There are more than 160 city managers in towns and cities across the state. None, says the nonprofit organization, has managed to do that job from Iraq.

Brown’s likely to retire before getting more deployment orders. “I’ve been honored to serve,” he said.

He also gives credit to the folks back home who kept Oakwood moving along in his absence.

“When you work for a mayor and council, it all comes down to trust,” said 
 Brown. “We’ve got good people.”