UPDATE: June 29, 2011
If you haven’t heard, Kitsap native Jay Manning has announced his resignation as the governor’s chief of staff. The Seattle Times’ Andrew Garber has the story and Jay’s e-mail to his staff.
I haven’t talked to him since the announcement, but I’ll check
in with him later. After he took the job, we discussed his new
responsibilities, as reported below. For what it’s worth, I wish
him the best.
——
Jay Manning, who has headed the Washington Department of Ecology the past four-plus years, is moving into somewhat uncharted territory as the governor’s chief of staff.
Manning, a native of Manchester in Kitsap County, has always been associated with environmental issues and occasional environmental battles. Now, he will use his organizational and negotiation skills to work alongside Gov. Chris Gregoire.
“Jay Manning brings incredible leadership skills and knowledge of our state to this new position,” Gregoire said in a news release. “He works effectively with citizens all across our state. He has an extraordinary ability to bring people together to forge solutions to difficult problems and seize opportunities for Washington state.”
I reached Jay Manning this afternoon to congratulate him and ask him what the heck he was thinking.
He told me that both the Ecology director post and his new chief of staff position include an “incredible array of issues,” but the new job comes with a broader range of responsibilities. It will require him to become more of a generalist, which is a new challenge for him.
“I have focused on environmental issues my whole career, and that is where my heart will always be,” he told me. “But I look forward to a full immersion in all the areas of state government.”
It will be a learning experience as he gets up to speed on all state agencies, learns about budgets and economic stimulus programs, and gets entangled in state politics like he’s never seen before.
Of course, I am interested in Manning’s successor. Hiring the new Ecology director will be one of the first priorities of his new position, he said.
“I think the agency is highly functional as it is, but my job will be to get good candidates before her (Gregoire) for selection,” he said, adding that he has placed a proposed selection process on her desk but hasn’t heard back yet.
I would guess that candidates are likely to come from within Ecology or at least be someone who Manning and the governor know fairly well.
“I will want to move quickly on this,” Jay said, “and I think she does, too.”
Manning has taken on some tough issues as Ecology director, including battles over Hanford and climate change. Not everyone agrees with the agency’s decisions, but Manning has never hesitated to lay out the rationale behind them.
Through it all, it seems that Jay has remained well respected among those who have dealt with him. Of course, I wish him well in his new position and look forward to working with his replacement.
If you’d like to read a profile on Manning and hear him discuss the issues in his own words, go to the Feb. 16, 2008, story in the Kitsap Sun.
He thinks the Department of Ecology is “highly functional”? I think the vast majority of the public – if they cared to look – would disagree. Maybe he means the Department of Ecology is “highly functional” in it’s role as agent for extremism. Maybe as a political arm of Indian tribes. Yes, it’s “highly functional” as that.
It was rumored that he was preparing a run for governor. Now what? A chief of staff can’t try to unseat his boss. It just isn’t done. Is Gov. Gregoir grooming her successor?
UPDATE: June 29, 2011
If you haven’t heard, Kitsap native Jay Manning has announced his resignation as the governor’s chief of staff. The Seattle Times’ Andrew Garber has the story and Jay’s e-mail to his staff.
I haven’t talked to him since the announcement, but I’ll check in with him later. After he took the job, we discussed his new responsibilities, as reported below. For what it’s worth, I wish him the best.