The race is won

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- Barely a week into his new job as Newport Beach’s

public works director, Stephen Badum has already made some drastic

changes.

He’s moved the desk in his office so his back faces the window and put

up a couple of car race posters. Gone is his predecessor’s hat stand --

Don Webb kept about 20 specimens at City Hall from his 200-plus hat

collection.

“I’m not really a hat guy,” Badum said, as virtual sea gulls chirped

from the speakers on his computer. “I just have to evolve my own little

quirks.”

A self-confessed “car guy,” Badum is probably going to miss the

15-mile drive along Coast Highway from his Lido Sands home to Seal Beach,

where he worked as public works director until recently.

But when Badum talks about his new job, it becomes clear that he

doesn’t mind living within walking distance of his office.

“I’ve never wanted a job more than this one,” said Badum, 44.

He’s wanted it for about 13 years.

In 1988, after stints with Caltrans and a private engineering firm,

the New York native interviewed for an engineer’s position with the

department.

Ben Nolan, who was public works director at the time, asked Badum what

he expected to do five years later.

“I expect to have your job,” Badum remembered telling Nolan.

It took a little longer than that, but Badum began working toward his

goal soon after he took the job in Newport Beach.

He enrolled in a master’s program for public administration at Cal

State Long Beach and attended night classes to prepare himself for his

dream job.

“My wife sacrificed a lot,” he said, adding that the couple’s

10-year-old twins, Stephanie and Tom, were born around the same time.

His education taken care off, Badum also decided to gain leadership

experience elsewhere.

In 1995, he became Seal Beach’s public works director but kept in

touch with Newport Beach folks to stay on their radar screen.

“I was always bugging Don [Webb],” he said. “I’d say to him, ‘When are

you going to retire?”’

Now that he’s back, Badum said he’s planning to build on relationships

at City Hall and elsewhere in town that he’s developed over the past 15

years.

“The hardest thing about going to Seal Beach was leaving all these

people,” he said. “There’s an incredible talent pool.”

He added that he hopes to find a middle ground between the management

styles of his two immediate predecessors, with Nolan more “hands off” and

Webb, “who communicated more with staff and was more hands on.”

“Hopefully I learned the best from all the people I worked for,” he

said.

He’s also ready to start an aggressive capital improvement projects

program, which includes the renovation of Balboa Village, the Bonita

Canyon sports park, the rehabilitation of the city’s piers and the

Mariner’s Mile village project.

Badum said he’ll face some tough challenges in the coming year.

Revitalizing Newport Beach’s older parts without losing their

character, “those are the real challenges,” he said. “The last thing you

want to do is a project that wipes the slate clean.”