Peter Burchard: 2007 Person of the Year

Peter Burchard accomplished many things during his decade-long tenure leading Naperville, but his impact was never felt more than the day he decided to leave.

He hadn't told anyone other than his family about his decision. He didn't even have another job secured yet. But there he was, hours before a city council meeting, hobbled from recent back surgery, giving up a job most assumed he'd have until he died at his city hall desk.

"I made light of it," Mayor George Pradel said. "I didn't believe him. I told him we'd put one of the councilmen in charge and we'll work it out. But when he told me he wasn't joking, my mouth dropped open. I couldn't believe it."

Burchard was at a crossroads, both personally and professionally. Despite two back surgeries in as many years, doctors told Burchard his spine was never going to fully recover and he had likely lost some mobility of his right arm permanently.

Adding to the physical discomfort was the emotional distress created by a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by City Councilman Richard Furstenau against the city and three police officers.

While the 52-year-old father of three cites his faltering vertebrae as the catalyst for his decision, he admits Furstenau's lawsuit sealed the deal.

The shock that was roundly displayed when Burchard announced his resignation gave way to two bitterly divided camps of reaction when he unleashed a lengthy and unprecedented memo outlining claims of a history of abuses against city employees by Furstenau.

"In order to underscore my support for the police chief and other employees, I decided all of this needs to become public and by resigning -- and thank God with another job -- it will hopefully bring more attention to it," he said.

Supporters saw Burchard falling on his sword to protect the city and his staff from what he perceived as a bully.

"It's unfortunate the council let it get to this point because he made repeated attempts to make us aware of the situations and we were remiss in our duties of handling it appropriately," said Councilman Grant Wehrli.

"If there was a city manager Hall of Fame, he'd be a first-ballot Hall of Famer."

But there also were detractors deriding the act as a desperate last attempt to sully the reputation of the council's financial watchdog. And it caused Burchard's name to be added to the federal lawsuit.

"Peter Burchard's letter was dripping with hatred and false accusations, and will be Exhibit A in our case," said Furstenau's attorney, Shawn Collins. "Right in the middle of our federal lawsuit that accuses the city of Naperville of a campaign to destroy Dick Furstenau, along comes the city's top executive with his seven-page letter to prove that we were right.

"That Peter Burchard would throw a letter like this out of his car window as he was driving out of town, and not stay to defend it, was an act of cowardice."

In what was shaping up to be a fairly humdrum year in the history of Naperville, Burchard arguably created the biggest stir since raiders from Wheaton stole the county seat.

Poison pen

If Burchard is nothing else, he is loyal.

When a developer who didn't get his way once stood over a city employee at a council meeting and berated her, Burchard halted the meeting, barked at him to stop, ordered police Chief David Dial to escort the developer out of chambers and spent several minutes outside with the man firmly explaining why he was never going to treat any of the city's employees like that again.

"He was always there to support you and you always felt you had the strength to go out there because he was behind what you were doing," said Marcie Schatz, who heads the city's transportation, engineering and development business group.

Furstenau filed a federal lawsuit in October naming the city and three police officials following his acquittal of battery against a city police officer.

Burchard saw Furstenau's lawsuit as an attack on him, even though he wasn't specifically named … yet.

With days left at the city, he crafted a seven-page letter detailing incidents over several years where he accused Furstenau of threatening and abusing staff, as well as trying to ram pet projects through city permitting processes.

He also states that he spoke to Furstenau about the incident where the councilman is accused of striking police officer Mike Hull during a confrontation over cars being towed in early 2006.

"Councilman Furstenau stood in my office and stated to me that while he may have tapped officer Hull with the back of his hand, he did not 'hit him,' " Burchard wrote. "With an expression of pride, Councilman Furstenau proceeded to tell me, 'if I had hit him, he would have known it.' "

A judge acquitted Furstenau in May 2007, calling the entire incident "embarrassing and inappropriate" but not criminal. No one other than Hull claimed to have seen the councilman touch the officer.

The letter set off a firestorm throughout the city and forced the council into the fray.

It was clear the majority of council members sided with Burchard. They recently voted to censure the embattled Furstenau, and some now are pushing for a mechanism to provide residents with recall voting powers that can prematurely vote an elected official out of office.

"We should all thank Peter for that letter," said City Attorney Margo Ely during a staff farewell party for Burchard. "He's our hero. It showed courage, and that's how we're going to remember him."

Ely also was added to Furstenau's lawsuit shortly afterward. No trial date has been set. And with no municipal election slated until 2009, it is anyone's guess how this brouhaha will impact those races.

"People will recall all the progress we've made and it's all really due to Peter Burchard," Pradel said. "I think this too shall pass, like (Mike) Ditka said."

Lasting impact

Burchard knows his departure is not tidy.

Between the Furstenau letter and his subsequent request for severance despite quitting, his legacy, at least in the short term, has taken a hit among some residents.

But he takes it in stride.

"If the legacy is about me, then I have failed miserably at my job," he said. "If the legacy is about the organization and it continues to grow and get better, then that's better."

No one can dispute the city's successes under Burchard's leadership. It has experienced tremendous commercial and residential growth. It also has received numerous accolades during the decade under his guidance, chief among them being rated the second best place to live in the United States by Money magazine in 2006.

Burchard came to Naperville in 1997 after spending 16 years in Hoffman Estates, the last 11 as the village manager. His departure there also came amid controversy.

"I had a disagreement with the majority of the elected officials over the appointment of a police chief," he said.

"I didn't want to politicize the police department by appointing who the mayor wanted and I realized my hands were tied, so I submitted my resignation and asked for time to find another job."

He had been instrumental in luring Sears' headquarters from Chicago to the suburbs, which was considered a major coup. The Chicago Bears also had discussed building a new stadium in Hoffman Estates during a feud with Chicago leaders.

His stock was high, but there weren't many jobs in the immediate area that were that attractive.

"I never second-guess timing. I went home and quite literally talked to my wife about moving to Colorado or to the southeast," he said.

"We had talked about (how) the only other town in Illinois we'd want to move to was Naperville, but (then city manager) Ron Miller's got that job sewed up for life."

But Miller was having his own struggles with elected leaders, and shortly after Burchard pulled the pin in Hoffman Estates, Miller announced his departure from Naperville, too.

"The council did the manager search ourselves and we all made top five lists after reading all the resumes," said Councilman Doug Krause. "Peter was the only name on all our lists."

After Burchard's interview with the council, the body wasted no time in offering him the job.

"I'm only partly kidding when I say this, but they didn't do a background check on the guy," Dial said. "They were that impressed with him. They were offering him the job before he had gotten home from the interview."

City employees felt his impact immediately. Some moves proved less popular than others.

"He took away the department directors' assigned parking spaces," recalled Don Carlsen, director of the city's management services business group.

Schatz said he routinely dug in on projects that needed sculpting.

"Considering he was always asking about jobs in my department, I thought he had a background in planning," she said.

But, in fact, his first municipal job was as an intern in the Woodridge Police Department, which might explain a few things.

"He used to call out traffic violations," said Bob Marshall, a former police captain, who is now Naperville's city manager pro tem.

"He would call out motorists who were speeding or running traffic lights, and on one occasion that I'm aware of, followed a suspected drunk driver."

But it didn't end there.

"There's some cop in Peter Burchard," Marshall joked. "When he would draw his Blackberry from its holster, you can see he wanted it to be a handgun."

Between collars, Burchard also helped make Naperville the place to move your family or your business. Naperville became the "it suburb" under Burchard's guidance.

His consolidation of development-related departments expedited permit processing and planning approval, but at the same time an emphasis was placed on keeping the public informed and participating.

"I was taught the sum total of the work you do as a (municipal) manager is by taking the viewpoints of all the elected officials, plus the viewpoints of the residents and whoever else is involved, the work of the staff, and you throw that in a blender," he said. "You may come up with a decision that may not seem rational, but it works."

The population steadily increased over Burchard's tenure, and Naperville became the state's fourth-largest city. The Naperville ZIP codes became some of the most enviable in the region.

But his greatest forte may have been economic development.

Corporations such as Tellabs and OfficeMax were courted and moved their headquarters to Naperville.

Businesses that already called Naperville home were treated similarly. Calamos Investments also made a substantial investment of its own in Naperville when it built new corporate suites on the city's northwest side, and has begun constructing an ambitious retail/entertainment district nearby that will feature a boutique hotel and a performing arts center.

The city also remains a spot where upstart chains try to gain a suburban Chicago foothold before branching out.

Burchard opened the city's doors and unlocked the community's potential.

Tadpole evolves

Before he was lovingly referred to as "PTB" by his city hall underlings, Peter Tad Burchard was "Tadpole" to his parents and nine siblings in Des Plaines.

"I don't remember him voicing a complaint about the nickname," his mother, Dorothy, said.

In fact, his mother recalls her son as an astute listener at the dinner table where discussions often focused on politics, religion and government.

"I'm pretty well addicted to politics," his mother said. "I'm a Democrat and Peter's a Republican, but I don't hold it against him."

Burchard remembers being fascinated by discussions about the day's events that would rage at the family's dinner table.

"It was probably the first place I heard people had careers in local government," he said. "I also found that people don't have to know a thing about politics and government to participate in a conversation."

His wife, Denise, also worked in municipal government when they met.

"We ended up at a conference in Galena when we met," he said. "She was the only thing interesting about that conference."

Denise Burchard was the assistant village manager of Bloomingdale at the time of their marriage.

"Actually, the first time we talked I was an intern in Western Springs and I called him for a survey I was doing, and when I got off the phone I thought that was the nicest guy I'd ever talked to," she said.

By the time the couple moved to Naperville, Denise was a full-time mother to Stephanie, Lauren and David and a vocal taxpayer who had the city manager's ear.

"I always thought he did a good job," she said. "However, I do have to say the public works department once cut down my son's favorite climbing tree and that almost got Peter banned from the house."

Burchard said the decision to leave Naperville and take a private sector job in another state was one of the toughest he has ever made. He will be the new chief administrative officer of AWAC, a technology-driven subsidiary of inVentiv Health.

"Peter's history is one of growth, organization, building and success," said Rick Richards, president and CEO of Georgia-based AWAC.

"We have 11 staff positions, 35 nurses and 150 medical consultants. We don't need someone with a medical background to run the business operations. We need someone with a stellar business background, and Peter's track record of success speaks for itself."

Burchard starts his new job Jan. 7. He will be available to the city in a consultative capacity for six months as part of a controversial severance package he worked out before leaving.

He gets $32,000 cash, forgiveness of a $50,000 zero-interest loan he used to buy his home in Naperville and six months continued health-care coverage. He makes no apologies for the deal, which some have labeled a "golden parachute."

"The notion that you have to screw up to get a severance package is absurd, it's almost an incentive to screw up," he said.

"My professional agreement with the city contemplates the possibility of a severance package, regardless of the reason for leaving. Whether that's odd or not, it's there."

2002: Peter Wilt

Why we picked him: The then-general manager of the Chicago Fire Major League Soccer team brought his squad to play at Naperville's North Central College while Soldier Field was being renovated. The Fire's arrival was greeted with uneasy skepticism, but Wilt and the team soon won the city over and went on to enjoy two successful seasons in Naperville.

2003: Alan Leis

Why we picked him: He arrived as the new school superintendent in Naperville Unit District 203 during one of its most tumultuous times and quickly went about trying to rebuild trust with the community.

2004: Military families

Why we picked them: Whether their loved ones were serving in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere around the globe, these families lived their lives a little differently than many of us, with equal doses of fear, pride and uncertainty.

2005: Pam Davis

Why we picked her: The CEO oversaw a landmark year at Edward Hospital and fought political corruption, all with a steely panache.

2006: Ron Wehrli and Bill Brestal

Why we picked them: The founders of Naperville Responds weren't interested in building grand monuments or extravagant landmarks. They wanted to raise $1 million to build 20 houses in the tiny Gulf Coast town of Pass Christian, Miss., that was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.