Last Monday Friendswood City Hall staff member Roger Roecker was sworn in as the City of Friendswood's new City Manager. Larry Taylor, State Representative performed the honors for Roecker, 56. For 20 years Roecker was on the City Hall staff, 3 of those years during this run as interim city manager. While he loves the low profile work he has done, he feels it is time to step up and embrace a new challenge.

During an interview at City Hall Roecker stated, "God really puts you where He wants you to be," and adding "Sometimes you agree with where He puts you and you like being there. Other times, you don't. My belief is you're better off going willingly. This is not a commentary on the city manager's job. It never was on my list, quite frankly, but it's what I feel God wants."

He was sworn in with open arms as a unanimous decision was made by City Council to officially make Roger Roecker its new Friendswood City Manager. All this after his 17 month interim capacity served prior to this. Council members praise him, and even gave him a standing ovation as he was sworn in last monday.

"I've known Roger Roecker for probably 25-plus years," State Representative Taylor said. "Leadership? He's great. His professionalism is of the highest quality. He's also a great man of character, very serious-minded about his work (and he's) hard working. The one thing Roger Roecker is not, is an actor, so I'm glad he's losing that ‘acting’ city manager title because he's the real deal."

"I've known Roger for quite a while and we know what we're getting with Roger,” Councilman Jim Hill added. “This is not an unknown quantity. I don't think at this time we could find a better person to be city manager of Friendswood."

Roecker has spent his whole life living in Houston, with the slight exception of two years spent at Howard Payne University in Brownwood. "I grew up about 100 yards from the Colorado River," reminisced Roecker. "A lot of rice and corn, it's great farmland. As a kid you think, 'This is the most boring place in the world.' Looking back on it, I wouldn't trade it for the world. It was a great place to grow up."

His work in City Hall began in 1989 when he was hired to work in the finance department by former city manager Annette Brand. The years of experience and excellent service have paid off as he is now Pearland's own City Manager. On management, he states, "Hire really good people, give them the resources that you can give them and get out of the way and let them do their jobs," and "That has kind of been a very basic philosophy, but it's allowed me to build and maintain some really good relationships with really good people over my career. Being able to have that type of relationship and at the same time be of service to seven other people that I work for and then the 30,000 people outside of that that we work for, you couldn't be in better position to be of service and that's what I've found to be appealing."

Image courtesy of the Journal of Friendswood

Source: the Journal of Friendswood