PSU Magazine Summer 1987

Appointment inSalem----------------------- few years divided her time between Portland Community College and Portland State, learning data processing and business. The separation of blacks from whites in Portland was not nearly as blatant as in Louisiana, but it still existed. Whereas in Louisiana she lived and worked almost exclusively with blacks, in Portland she was suddenly in a minority. "I remember the first few months noticing that blacks were not working downtown, and even at Portland State there were not a lot of blacks. Not like now," she says. While at PSU, Webb-Petett worked in Portland's arm of the Federal Model Cities Program doing citizen training, evaluating programs and helping to computerize its filing system. The Model Cities job led to a position with Nero and Associates, a Portland consulting firm specializing in public services projects. The program she worked on, called Operation Step Up, concentrated on getting unemployed and under– employed minorities into good jobs. She calls David Nero "one of my mentors," who gave her a lot of freedom to manage her own projects. After two or three years, she went to work for Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, a connection that put her on the road to the capital. Although she brings to her Adult and Family Services job a solid business sense and a firm handle on budgeting and management, she does not ignore her social conscience. "As I see it, my political philosophies are very important now in changing the overall values of the agency. I think it ought to be service– oriented. To carry out the mission of helping people to become self– sufficient there has to be a service ethic in what we do. And I'm not sure that has been the case," she says. "A part of it has been the problem of declining budgets, and trying to manage case loads. You still have to do that, but I think the manner in which we do that is very important." PSU From paper clips to motor pool 0 njuly 15, every square foot of state-owned building space, every car in the motor pool, every paper clip became the responsi- bility of Dan Simmons ('64), who was recently named by Gov. Goldschmidt as the new head of the state's Department of General Services. A huge job, to be sure, but one to which the soft-spoken Simmons is looking forward with confidence. He's thinking of ways to make the department run better and more efficiently, and is already forming a list of possible projects. "Take the state library," he says. "There's no reason to have a library right next to the Capitol building. It's prime space there. You could put a library almost anywhere." And how about consolidating some of the fragmented departments so that the state pays less on rent? "Rather than spending money for leased space, it seems to be in the state's long-term interest to begin building an equity in its own assets," Simmons says. Indeed, if anyone can manage the gigantic family household that is state government, it is Simmons. He has gained a reputation throughout the capital as a problem solver and pragmatist, one who can make sense of the $75 million department. Simmons has been acting director of the Department of Human Resources since January when Leo Hegstrom retired from the post. He had been deputy director since October 1984 and was an assistant director of program review for a few months before that. When he moved to the Department of Human Resources, friends in the state legislature, including Vera Katz, Paul Hanneman, the late Jack Ripper and many others, signed a life jacket and presented it to him, symbolically wishing Simmons luck in keeping his head above water. Rather than finding the department a swamp, Simmons looked at it as a PSU MAGAZINE PAGE 12 Dan Simmons ( '64) Director, General Services place filled with extremely dedicated people who simply needed more help from government to let them manage their programs. Toward that end he recently brought together repre– sentatives of all the segments of the department for an extended brain– storming session. The result was a 191- page report titled "Achieving the Oregon Comeback Within the Depart– ment of Human Resources," that offered hundreds of suggestions for improving productivity, local decision making, relationships with the federal government and a range of other issues. The project is one of which he is particularly proud, but he doesn't mind being asked by the governor to move from that department into General Services. "He wants a public figure (in Human Resources) and that's not my forte," says Simmons. • f)J