Mittermeier’s Supporting Role
The cover of her new business brochure is dominated by the king on a chessboard, lording over the pawns, knights and bishops. Jan Mittermeier, Orange County’s former executive officer, says the king represents a winning strategy.
That’s how she’s selling herself these days: the strategic planner who can deliver a checkmate.
When Mittermeier was forced out by the county Board of Supervisors last June, her supporters predicted she’d take a year off, then bounce back with a vengeance, taking the helm of a high-profile public agency or a private company.
Instead, Mittermeier, 61, of Huntington Beach, has taken a more subtle route, opening her own one-woman consulting firm. She says it’s a delight to be on her own and working with people who look up to her--free from the tension and politics that clouded her final year with the county.
“I tell a company’s leaders a direction they ought to go, and their response is ‘Of course. Let’s do it,’ ” Mittermeier said. “It’s the same advice I was giving the Board of Supervisors, only these people are more receptive.”
Not that she’s put the past behind her. She keeps a sharp eye on county government and the proposed El Toro airport, the controversial plan that she championed and that eventually led to her ouster.
Backed by a majority of supervisors, Mittermeier for years wielded power with confidence and uncompromising authority as she extracted the county from its embarrassing 1994 bankruptcy. Wall Street praised her. Political pundits loved her. Even critics of her brusque style, including Supervisor Todd Spitzer, acknowledged she was needed.
That changed, however, as the county’s financial health recovered. Her frank talk, once deemed tough leadership, became overbearing to some. Mittermeier found herself at constant odds with supervisors who wanted to reduce her authority.
Spitzer, one of Mittermeier’s chief critics, said her greatest strength eventually became her greatest weakness.
“When the county was in a financial crisis, Jan’s strength was taking charge. She’d say, ‘Here’s what I want done, go do it,’ ” Spitzer said. “I give her tremendous credit. But she is not a consensus builder. After the bankruptcy, her style was such that the walls had to come tumbling down. The pendulum had swung too far and the board needed to cut back her authority.”
The final blow came when the supervisors voted to remove oversight of the El Toro airport from Mittermeier’s control--a move she declared unacceptable.
The supervisors wanted an airport manager who would answer only to them. Mittermeier argued it would make them in effect the county’s CEOs, because the airport is the county’s most important, and biggest, project.
Mittermeier also argued that it would violate her contract, which gave her authority over all county matters. The board disagreed and voted to accept her resignation--and give her a severance package worth close to $200,000.
With a year to think about it, Mittermeier says she has no regrets.
“I feel good about the way I left,” she said. “Maybe I could have been more diplomatic. But I’m proud of the system we put in place.”
Would she love to do it all over again, with another agency? Maybe run a big company? Yes, she said, but not right now.
After being ushered out, Mittermeier decided to take a one-year sabbatical from the world of high-pressure management. Personal matters consumed most of her respite. Mittermeier became full-time caretaker for her mother, who died in February after a lengthy illness. She also has been executor for the estate of another relative who died in January.
Her comeback has been gradual.
Mittermeier is teaching a course in business management at Cal State Long Beach, working for an old ally, former supervisor Roger Stanton, in the College of Business Administration.
Two companies also have hired her as a management consultant. She declined to identify the clients, however, saying it wouldn’t be fair to them. She doesn’t want them to become the focus of any negative attention from her political enemies.
Great Park Option Not Realistic, She Says
Mittermeier says she knows what it takes to save money, and that’s advice that companies crave. And she doesn’t hesitate to use her past to promote herself in her new business. Her brochure points out:
“In less than three years, Mittermeier increased the county’s investment grade rating from D to AA. . . . Under Mittermeier’s restructuring plan, more than 220 redundant executive and administrative management positions were eliminated, resulting in annual savings of more than $10.4 million.”
Along with business advice, Mittermeier also gives unofficial political advice to Supervisor Cynthia P. Coad. Though they had differed over Mittermeier’s oversight of the proposed El Toro airport, the two have become good friends.
“Before Jan, there was no strategic planning in this county,” Coad said. “I seek her advice on occasion because her knowledge is tremendous.”
Mittermeier remains a steadfast supporter of the proposed airport at the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and isn’t happy with how the pro-airport forces have handled themselves since she left her county post.
Although she’s careful not to criticize her successor, longtime county employee Michael Schumacher, Mittermeier’s displeasure over the planning process is obvious.
“We cannot compete globally without a new airport,” Mittermeier said. “But we’re not convincing the public that it’s their fight, that they’ve got to get behind it. That story’s not being told very well.”
Mittermeier said the public also needs to be told that the alternative being offered by anti-airport forces--turning the closed base into a mammoth park--isn’t realistic. The U.S. Navy, she argues, will never approve a park for that land because the upgrades would be too costly.
In other words, she says, those promoting the airport are missing a key ingredient: a winning strategy.
That’s the part she misses about working for the county: strategic planning. “It’s getting things done; that’s what I miss,” she said.
Mittermeier shared her thoughts during an interview at a restaurant overlooking John Wayne Airport, a place she unabashedly loves.
A county auditor, she was sent to the airport in 1987 as assistant director, and eventually became the airport’s director. She oversaw a $320-million expansion and stayed until 1995, when she was named top county administrator after the county went bankrupt.
Gazing at the Thomas F. Riley Terminal, Mittermeier fondly recalled working with the late supervisor it was named for.
“Supervisor Riley was against the new airport. But once he saw that the board was going to do it, then he led the way to making it work. He really deserves the credit for being flexible.”
Her message isn’t subtle: She doesn’t see enough flexibility among today’s county supervisors.
Spitzer, a fierce opponent of an El Toro airport and outspoken critic of Mittermeier, still believes a private company would be lucky to get her.
“Where she’d do well is taking some company that’s in trouble,” Spitzer said. “That’s her strength, a crisis mode.”
Mittermeier doesn’t see her reputation tainted by the political war last June.
In her view, she wasn’t fired, though clearly the board got its wish with her departure. New opportunities will come, she said. For now, she’s happy with what she’s doing.
“My husband would love to have me home, but I have too much energy,” she said. “I’ve worked too hard to develop my skills just to leave them on the shelf.”
