Sean C. Morgan
After nearly two decades with the city of Sweet Home, Public Works Director Mike Adams has resigned to take the same position in Toledo.
His final day working in Sweet Home was scheduled to be March 29.
“It’s basically been a successful 18½ years,” Adams said. “It’s time for a chance for me, for the organization. It was an exciting opportunity that was presented to me.”
New Sweet Home City Manager Ray Towry called Adams’ departure “a huge loss.”
“And it’s not just a loss for the city organization. He has stepped up in the past couple years.
“The work that he did on the Economic Opportunities Analysis and the Wastewater Treatment Plant, that’s heavy lifting, and he did that while he was doing his normal job. Personally, you can’t find a better guy. He operates with integrity in everything he does. His faith leads him through life every day. We’ll miss him.”
In addition to Public Works, Adams also has supervised parks, planning and building functions since the retirement of the community development director.
Adams went to work as Public Works director in September 1998 after working as an electrical wholesale distributor, which provided him experience in sales, management and inventory control. Prior to that, he had worked in forest products.
At the time, former City Manager Craig Martin, who is now city manager in Toledo, had been looking for someone with a business administration background, Adams said.
Adams had been living and working in Eugene, Albany and Boise, Idaho, he said, and he was excited to be able to move home. Adams was raised in Crawfordsville, while his wife, Kristin (Horner) Adams grew up in Sweet Home.
Adams graduated from Sweet Home High School in 1982. He spent two years working in the mills in Sweet Home before attending Oregon State University, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration in 1990.
“We were very blessed to be able to raise our kids near grandmas and grandpas,” Adams said. “We very much wanted to try to keep our kids as stable as we possibly could,” and they were excited by the opportunity for them to grow up in the same community and school system they did.
Their children include Bret, 22; Jared, 20; Ryan, 19; and Kenzi, 18, who will graduate from SHHS this year.
Coming back to Sweet Home has been great, Adams said. “It’s been familiar. It’s been very fulfilling to provide service back to the community I grew up in.”
His perspective in the community, growing up and working here, has been unique as he’s watched Sweet Home change from a timber-dependent city with mills and plywood plant, he said.
“I’ve been able to have a unique perspective about how thing used to be and how they are. I’m excited for the future, how this community’s going to develop in the future. It’s primed and ready to go. I’d like to believe I had a positive part in that, in preparing it for the future.”
Adams has been active in economic development throughout his tenure in Sweet Home, serving in the past on the Sweet Home Economic Development Board of Directors and the Sweet Home Active Revitalization Effort, which he chaired more than once. He was also active in church at Harvest Christian Center.
With the city, his role has been to help get the city infrastructure where it needs to be for daily operations and for the future, he said. Provided by his professional experience and his position, that’s the perspective he was able to take with SHEDG and SHARE.
Adams will work again for Martin, who is now city manager in Toledo, but that is coincidental to his decision to go there.
“That connection is a positive happy happenstance,” Adams said. “It’s going to be very comfortable because we worked together.”
Meanwhile, he said, he will miss the relationships that he has here in Sweet Home.
His immediate plans are to continue living in Sweet Home, Adam said. His wife continues to work at Sweet Home High School.
Towry has updated the job description and begun posting it in newspapers and associations, such as the League of Oregon Cities.
He is in the process of filling another department head position, the community development director. Four interviews for the position are scheduled for April 15. Towry hopes to have a new community development director working by June.
Towry said the city won’t find somebody with the character, the leadership and the technical abilities with the Sweet Home background and familiarity with the history and culture of the community.
“There’s no replacing Mike Adams,” he said.