Remove ImagesGilbert And Jones Calling It A Career
December 13, 2012
Two more Guilford County department heads – Board of Elections Director George Gilbert and Facilities Director Fred Jones – are retiring. Jones will leave county service on Feb. 1 and Gilbert is retiring on March 1.
There's no question this is a time of major transition for the county's leadership: Guilford County just lost six long-time commissioners, and County Manager Brenda Jones Fox is retiring on Feb. 1; and, on Thanksgiving, Guilford County Emergency Services Director Alan Perdue announced that, on March 1, he would also be retiring.
Before becoming the county's election director, Gilbert served as an economic analyst for the State of Florida and worked for the US Senate in Washington, DC.
Gilbert said that, in August 1987, his then soon-to-be-father-in-law sent him a newspaper clipping that told of the job opening in Guilford County, and, with some professional and managerial experience under his belt, Gilbert applied for the job.
"He knew I had worked in the Senate in Washington and it sounded like a good fit to him," Gilbert said. "It didn't make sense to me; of course, I had to be able to tell him I applied for it."
Gilbert gave himself something of a crash course in election law before the interview.
"I read the statute twice," he said.
Gilbert got the job that he's held for the last quarter of a century.
He said that, during his time as director, he thought the county had made a lot of progress in the way it holds elections.
"Two things that have been the biggest difference are automation and education," Gilbert said.
He said the election process – from the way votes are cast to the way they're counted – had been greatly automated in the last 25 years.
He added that he was proud of the way Guilford County's election staff and its poll workers have approached their education on election matters. He said his staff was constantly continuing their education in the field – with several of them earning masters degrees.
Since taking the job in the late '80s, Gilbert has also continued his own studies. Now Gilbert and Guilford County Board of Elections Deputy Director Charlie Collicutt are both nationally certified election officials.
"Those things didn't exist in the '80s," Gilbert said.
He said he and his staff worked closely with Guilford Technical Community College to establish a class for poll workers.
He added that, ever since those classes began about eight years ago, between 700 and 800 poll workers have been certified through the program.
There have been some bumps along the way to retirement. For instance, one of the most contentious election battles in Guilford County came in 2004 when former Commissioner Trudy Wade – who went on to serve on the Greensboro City Council and was recently elected a state senator – went up against former Commissioner John Parks. That closely contested election battle dragged on for over a year before Parks was finally declared the winner.
In this year's Nov. 6 election, Gilbert and other Guilford County election officials came under fire in the national media after simple calibration issues convinced some conspiracy theorists that the county's election machines favored President Barack Obama. In a few cases, a tap on Mitt Romney's name caused President Obama to show up as the voter's candidate of choice.
Critics across the country came after the elections department even though the error was an easy one for voters to catch, was limited to a handful of machines, and the same type of issues arose everywhere electronic touch screens were being used.
Gilbert, who's known as a voracious reader with a keen intellect, said he's looking forward to retirement.
"I plan to find out what is really important to me," Gilbert said.
He said he's not sure that's possible when someone is focused on work-related matters day after day. He said he'll be interested to see what challenges he decides to take on "on a purely voluntary basis."
Gilbert has some strong opinions on election issues that he couldn't share in full as a county elections director, and he said he may write a book or two in the coming years.
Gilbert has testified before federal election officials in Washington.
He also said he's looking forward to traveling with his wife and going through his music collection to see if any of his old albums are worth a lot of money.
Gilbert said that, even with the county losing a lot of its leadership in a short period of time, he has faith the county will continue on just fine.
"We're all replaceable," Gilbert said.
Guilford County is also losing its long-time facilities director to retirement. Jones said that, after 35 years of working for the county, it was time to call it quits.
Jones said he knows very well what he wants to do in his golden years.
"I'd like to play a lot of golf," Jones said.
He said his goal has always been to retire while his health was still good. He said watching his father's retirement made a strong impression on him. Jones said his father's health was already in decline at the time he retired years ago.
"I saw my father retire from the Guilford County Sheriff's Department when he was having health problems and he didn't really get to experience the joys of retirement," Jones said.
Jones said that, after watching his father go through that, he always told himself he would retire at a time when he could still enjoy it. He said that earlier this year he decided that time is now.