Countywide : Riley Gets Service Pin for 15 Years on Board

Stepping from behind the oak dais, Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas F. Riley stood alongside several dozen other county employees Wednesday to be pinned.

Riley has served on the five-member board for 15 years and he was recognized during the board’s monthly ceremony for longtime employees. The former Marine Corps brigadier general was appointed supervisor of the 5th District in 1974 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan.

“I agreed to serve for two years,” Riley told his colleagues Wednesday. “After about eight or nine years I realized that I had a great pleasure of serving with some of the finest people I’ve ever known. . . . So every day I’ve been an Orange County supervisor, I thank God.”

Supervisor Don R. Roth surprised Riley by reading a letter from President Bush, who praised the 77-year-old Republican for his service as supervisor and as a GOP activist. Riley, a Newport Beach resident, was co-chairman of Bush’s presidential campaign in Orange County in 1988.

Though Riley has announced plans to seek a fifth term next June, it is unlikely that he will match the longevity of the three county employees who received pins Wednesday for 30 years of service. They were Tony Griffo of the Health Care Agency, Peter J. LaCombe of the General Services Agency and Shirley A. Sterrett of the West Municipal Court.

When asked by Roth to look back over three decades with the county, Sterrett simply laughed and said: “It’s been 30 years of insanity.”