Wear Hoping That Leadership Instilled by Navy Dad Pays Off

Like many San Diegans, Byron Wear’s residence here has much to do with the U.S. Navy.

Born in Bethesda Naval Hospital outside Washington, D.C., Wear was the youngest of five children of a naval commander. The family lived in Virginia until he was 5, when they moved to Long Beach, where his father became the commanding officer of a destroyer. Four years later, in 1964, they moved to San Diego, where Wear’s father was one of the officers in charge of a naval electronics laboratory.

As Wear grew up in Point Loma, where he has lived ever since, the household was one where a tight, military-type discipline was adhered to, with his father--whose shore job gave him regular working hours for the first time--setting the tone. Very close to his father, Wear, who became an Eagle Scout in high school, recalls frequent camping trips in which his father would speak to him at length about leadership.

“That gave me a real sense of accountability and discipline, a feeling of being responsible for others,” Wear, 33, said of his father, who died last year. “It provided a sense of direction and purpose at a pretty early age.

“My dad was always someone who gave a lot of himself, and I’ve followed in his footsteps in a lot of ways. Because of what I saw him do, I’m the type of person who overcommits himself to causes, but always gives 200% and sees things through to the end. That’s why I’m running for City Council, because I like to contribute and like to solve problems.”

As a teen-ager, Wear, a bright student fascinated by the challenge of science, dreamed of becoming of a neurosurgeon--a plan that he abruptly abandoned because of the disappointment of receiving only a “B” in an advanced science course. Around the same time, a course that compared the United States’ and Soviet Union’s economic systems drew his attention toward government and politics.

Wear’s political baptism, like that of many other local Republicans in their 30s, came in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. When Wear, then an impressionable 10-year-old, met the GOP candidate at a campaign appearance in Mission Valley, the memorable event marked the genesis of another lifelong Republican who since has worked on numerous local, state and national campaigns.

A varsity swimmer at Point Loma High School, Wear enrolled at San Diego State University after graduating, intending to pursue a business degree while working as a city lifeguard during the summers. But he dropped out of college after receiving the top score on the city’s civil service examination for lifeguards--making him, at age 21, the youngest lifeguard lieutenant in the city’s history. And though he has talked about some day returning to college to receive his degree, he admits that he is not quite sure when he will ever have time to do so--and would be delighted to have that question postponed for at least four years by a victory in next month’s citywide runoff in the San Diego City Council 2nd District race.

Administering one-third of the city’s lifeguard service, Wear displayed the organizational skills and political savvy that would later serve him well as a precinct organizer for other candidates, as well as in his upset first-place finish in last month’s 2nd District primary over two better-financed, better-known opponents in a seven-candidate race.

Skillful Advocate

A skillful advocate-lobbyist who quickly learned, as he put it, “what buttons had to be pushed” to wring dollars out of City Hall for lifeguard programs, Wear is credited with substantially modernizing the city’s lifeguard service by winning council approval for additional equipment. That impressive local record led to a three-year stint as national executive director of the U.S. Lifesaving Assn., a job in which he traveled nationwide and helped to build the organization’s membership from 800 to 6,000.

The various lifesaving jobs, however, provided relatively modest salaries, and the political campaigns that took up an increasing portion of Wear’s time throughout the early 1980s also were, he admitted, “psychically but not very financially rewarding.”

That factor, combined with fairly typical start-up problems associated with a consulting firm that he and two friends formed in 1984, resulted in a shaky personal financial period that included loan defaults, court judgments against him for delinquent credit-card payments and late property-tax payments. Twice, collection agencies obtained court orders to garnish Wear’s wages and bank account, though Wear ultimately was able to avert that action from being taken. And during his leadership, the U.S. Lifesaving Assn. also was sued by a local firm for an unpaid printing bill.

When those embarrassing details were uncovered by aides to his opponent, architect Ron Roberts, Wear sought to downplay the issue by likening his money woes to the kind of financial problems occasionally experienced by many “average-income” people. Moreover, he proudly emphasized that he “worked my way out of it and took care of everything that was owed” without declaring bankruptcy. Since then, his finances have rebounded to the point that he has been able to lend nearly $17,000 to his campaign, primarily from the proceeds of the sale of his half-interest in a vacant Point Loma lot.

Solved the Problem

“A lot of people have said, ‘Oh, I’ve been late with payments sometimes, too,’ ” Wear said. “I don’t think anyone’s going to hold that against me. The fact is, I extended myself as a volunteer and was spending more time on community work than my personal finances. But the important thing is, I solved the problem without taking the easy way out.”

Wear’s consulting firm, the Pacific Gateway Group, has worked for a variety of political, business and civic clients. The firm ran Judy McCarty’s successful 1985 San Diego City Council campaign, and its other accounts range from promoting the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution and an anti-drug fair to computer company clients and crime victims’ advocacy groups.

In his spare time, Wear enjoys swimming and sailing and, “silly as it sounds, watching sunsets at Sunset Cliffs.” An avid camper, Wear and his girlfriend also often travel to Mexico. A self-described “news junkie,” Wear said that he reads three newspapers daily and frequently watches all-news and public affairs television stations such as C-SPAN.

Over the past decade, Wear has been active in myriad charitable and civic organizations, including community planning boards, the Ocean Beach Town Council, the Point Loma Village Assn., the Eagle Scout Alumni Assn., the Old Globe Players and the Peninsula YMCA--where he still swims several times a week.

“For a long time, I’ve known that one day, I wanted to run for public office,” Wear explained. “The reason I got involved in all those things over the years--aside from being interested in what was going on and wanting to participate--is that, when I did run, I wanted to be as knowledgeable about as many city issues as possible.

“Unlike my opponent, I haven’t had to be briefed on these issues over the past six months to get ready for a campaign. I’ve lived and worked on them for years. So at least no one can say I haven’t done my homework. Remember, to be prepared is the Scout motto.”