For Anaheim Manager, His Work and Co-Workers Keep Life in Perspective : Profile: James D. Ruth says friends and a full plate at office help him cope with son’s recent death. He was able to advance several major city projects despite personal anguish.

On the corner of James D. Ruth’s desk is an audiocassette tape titled: “When God Doesn’t Make Sense.”

It was sent by a local friend who knows the 56-year-old city manager is still struggling with the loss of his 28-year-old son, who died last summer while battling a rare and painful disease.

“That’s why I love Anaheim,” said Ruth, his eyes moistening with tears as he pointed to the tape. “I’ve got a lot of wonderful friends here and a lot of wonderful support.”

At the same time that he has struggled with this very personal trauma, Ruth has also been successfully juggling his professional workload, advancing several major projects that promise to revitalize the city’s economy and ailing infrastructure.

Among them have been the two most important items on the city’s public agenda: the construction of its $103-million sports arena, which recently attracted a new professional hockey franchise as a likely tenant, and bringing the $3-billion Disneyland expansion to the city in a bidding war with Long Beach.

“I thank God that I have this job,” said Ruth, who has been the city manager since May, 1990. “It’s kept me occupied. . . . If the job didn’t have as many challenges that require this amount of energy and time, (my son’s death) would have been even more difficult.”

In business terms, Ruth is the CEO of a half-billion-dollar organization. He’s responsible for 2,000 employees and 18 departments, all the while balancing the demands of a City Council that often sees things from a purely political perspective.

All city manager jobs are tough, especially during recessions, but only a few managers confront the challenges that Ruth has in Anaheim. He is responsible for the largest Convention Center on the West Coast, the stadium where the Los Angeles Rams and California Angels play and the only city-owned utility company in the county.

“I doubt that there is a city in the United States that has the complexity of Anaheim,” said Councilman Bob D. Simpson, who was city manager before Ruth. “This is a can-do city.”

And, like the city, Ruth embraces that “can-do” spirit as the city’s top administrator, said more than a dozen colleagues, residents and friends interviewed in recent weeks.

Fullerton City Manager James L. Armstrong, who twice worked for Ruth in Anaheim, described his former boss as a “fighter, a go-getter . . . someone who enjoys a challenge.”

“He’s one of those people who doesn’t like to hear why you can’t do something, he wants to know how it can be done,” Armstrong said. “I think the way Jim handled the arena is an example of how he overcame amazing odds and obstacles and put it together.”

Considered by some an unwise and costly endeavor, the arena has recently shown signs of becoming a financial plus.

Even Ruth acknowledges that it was a financial risk to build an arena before having a commitment from a professional basketball or hockey franchise to play there. He and most council members, however, believed in 1989 that the gamble would eventually provide substantial revenue. Ruth, at the time assistant city manager, was the city’s point man on the arena project.

Critics, however, labeled the arena a boondoggle. They said the city had made a financial blunder by promising in 1989 to pay $2.5 million annually to its stadium partners for eight years if no hockey or basketball team moved here.

“It hurt a little,” he said. “But I never equivocated, never lost faith.”

Ruth and the city’s partners in the project--Ogden Corp. and the Nederlander Group, which will manage the arena--continued to look for tenants.

In early December, the city’s gamble finally began to pay off when Disney announced that it had purchased a National Hockey League expansion team, with the intention of making the Anaheim Arena its home ice.

“A lot of hard work went into that,” Ruth said. “Now, we are savoring a great victory. . . . I think if you have faith and believe in that can-do attitude then there are no obstacles that you can’t overcome. The greatest deterrent (to progress) that we have in society is people not believing in themselves.”

Another victory claimed by the city is its wooing the Disney Co., which in December, 1991, decided to expand on the West Coast by building next to Disneyland, rather than creating a new theme park in Long Beach.

Though Anaheim won the competition between the two cities, Disney officials even today caution that there is much to discuss before it actually commits to construction. The main issue, Disney officials say, is the project’s economic feasibility. Disney has reportedly asked for as much as $1 billion in public support for the project. What Anaheim’s obligation will be is not clear.

Some critics have linked Disney’s buying an NHL team to the expansion project, saying it is an effort by the entertainment giant to improve its negotiating position with the city.

Ruth dismisses those notions. “We’re making sure that we’re not underwriting Disney’s projects. . . . We’re a long way from wrapping this up, but there will be protections for the city.”

Nevertheless, the expansion is vital to the city, he said. “We all recognized the ramifications of the project. It’s the economic future of this city. That doesn’t mean you give away the store, you’ve got to do this right. It’s got to be good business for Disney and us.”

Ruth is not flashy. His public demeanor is as conservative as his gray, three-button suits. He does not like publicity, and he tries to avoid it. He also doesn’t like lawyers clogging up solutions. What he does enjoy are results.

On several occasions, when the city was embroiled in litigation, he has called the other side’s key player and asked for a sit-down without attorneys.

“If we can just sit down and talk, we can usually work it out,” he said.

The purchase of the arena site, in fact, was consummated when Ruth and members of the Phoenix Club, who owned the land, met in late 1989 in the club’s beer garden.

By his own admission, he is a “workaholic.”

Ruth, whose salary is $143,325 is in the office every morning by 7:30, and sometimes a couple of hours before that. More often than not, he’s one of the last to leave City Hall at night.

People who work with him said that he expects a lot of his employees, wants them to work hard and holds them accountable for their actions. He is tough, but fair, they said. His no-nonsense attitude has earned him the support of both city employees and business leaders.

“He has a sort of blue-collar approach,” said Mayor Tom Daly. “He’s very workmanlike. He’s a performer.”

Dennis Hardin, the owner of two local car dealerships and a former president of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce, called Ruth “a very effective administrator.”

“We might not always agree with him, but at least we can talk to him, we can trust that he’s being open and truthful with us,” Hardin said. “Anytime I’ve gone to him with a problem, he has always gotten involved, and even if I didn’t get the solution I wanted, at least I felt I had the cooperation of City Hall.”

Ruth said his management philosophy is to “treat people like you would want them to treat your mom and dad. . . . You wouldn’t want people yelling at your dad. You treat people right and you have the right to expect a lot out of them.”

It’s a style that has served him well since he became the director of parks and recreation in the city of Maywood at age 22 in 1958, he said.

While there, Ruth earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in park management at Cal State Los Angeles. He later worked for the cities of Lynwood and Downey before arriving in Anaheim in 1976 as parks and recreation director.

In Anaheim, he moved from the parks department to serve as deputy city manager, public works director and assistant city manager. In 1984, he transferred to Long Beach to be its director of parks, recreation and beaches.

“I’ve always been willing to take risks and move around,” Ruth said. “I’ve never hesitated to move when things get a little stable and the challenges weren’t there.”

He returned to Anaheim as assistant city manager in 1988 and was named to the city’s top administrative post on May 1, 1990.

Even with the encouraging advancements in the arena and Disney projects, and a politically divided council praising his work, Ruth still faces challenges in the coming year. Like all city managers he must fund city services, and do it with relatively fewer resources. It usually means trimming staffing levels and cutting costs.

“There will be some reorganization next year,” Ruth said.

As Councilman Irv Pickler said: “Anybody can manage in good times, but Jim is showing he can do it in hard economic times. He’s doing a great job.”

And as Ruth devotes his energy to the challenges of Anaheim, he has found that his personal pain has eased. Yet no matter how hard he works, or how successful the city’s projects appear, the tragedy of last summer lingers.

Opposite the cassette tape on Ruth’s desk is a picture of his son, who died while fighting a rare form of folliculitis, which attacked his lymphatic system.

On a recent afternoon, Ruth picked up the photograph and told a visitor:

“He was a good kid, and in the last six months of his life there probably wasn’t a better Christian on the face of the Earth.”

Taking a deep breath, Ruth says the holiday season has been tough for him, his wife, Linda, and their three other children. And in the days after his son’s death, he’s been grateful for his 12-hour-plus workdays to keep his mind off his personal pain.

“I hope and pray to God that it had no effect on my job,” Ruth said. “ . . . Anaheim is a great city.”

Profile: James D. Ruth Anaheim City Manager James D. Ruth has been at the helm of the city’s government for the past two years, moving ahead with projects designed to boost the local economy and revitalize an ailing infrastructure. Name: James D. Ruth Age: 56 City manager since: May 1, 1990 Annual salary: $143,325 Anaheim positions: Director of Parks and Recreation Department, deputy city manager, public works director, assistant city manager and city manager. Education: Bachelor’s and master’s degrees in park management from Cal State Los Angeles Birthplace: Vandergrift, Pa.