April 7, 2013
Tony Schiavi: Town Manager, Ashland
Matt Volpini
By Taryn Plumb
For 25 years, Tony Schiavi manned an F-15 single-seat fighter with the Air Force. He served in Operation Desert Storm, responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, completed 56 combat missions and logged more than 2,800 hours of flight time.
But after three decades with the Air Force, Schiavi is now ready to steer a new course as Ashland's town manager.
"It's a good way to continue to serve the public," said Schiavi, who lives in East Harwich on Cape Cod, but plans to relocate to Ashland. "I can bring a lot of those skills from my federal service into municipal service."
A colonel with the Massachusetts Air National Guard and most recently executive director of the Massachusetts Military Reservation on Cape Cod, Schiavi draws many parallels between the military and municipal realms.
The Massachusetts Military Reservation, which covers 22,000 acres and has roughly 4,000 military and civilian personnel present on any given day, operates "very much like a town," he said, and incorporates similar services such as police and fire and a department of public works.
Ultimately, he expects that the larger themes of serving the public good, handling public funds and coordinating public services will be the same between the base and the town.
Particularly, as he takes over in Ashland, he's looking forward to getting into "bigger, more strategic" issues.
"It's really a job that you can cover a lot of ground," he said.
Looking even further afield, his aim is to seek out "white space" on the calendar to plan and identify threats and ways to minimize or negate them, rather than merely react to them. He's also eager to focus on capital planning projects, such as the need for a new police station, and explore regionalization efforts and renewable energy projects.
In the end, he said he will be supported by a "great, hard-working staff."
"They like what they do, they're proud of what they do," he said. "What can I do to help their mission?"
A resident of Holliston while growing up, Schiavi joined the Air Force in 1983 after earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Assumption College. He's retiring after 30 years under the Air Force's "mandatory separation" law.
Steve Mitchell, chairman of Ashland's board of selectmen, described Schiavi as a "non-traditional candidate," and acknowledged there will be an initial learning curve.
But ultimately, he was unanimously chosen by the board because "his skill set lent itself very well to what we need in town management," Mitchell said. "He has a very clear idea of expectations, responsibilities, accountabilities. Right from the start, he's been 110 percent. We look forward to many years of Tony serving the community."
Early Action On Police Controversy
Schiavi started his new position in Ashland commuting several days a week, working with the interim manager and getting to know town personnel, the budget and other procedures.
But just last week, his easing into the position quickly ramped up to more of a trial by fire. Though he is still working part time until June, he was sworn in ahead of schedule on March 27. And on April 1, he announced that long-time Police Chief Scott Rohmer would be placed on paid administrative leave. Rohmer and others in the department are the subjects of two complaints filed with the Massachusetts Commission on Discrimination by female officers, as well as a lawsuit filed by an Ashland sergeant and lieutenant in Norfolk Superior Court in September, the Boston Globe reported.
Schiavi held a press conference last week in which he announced a bottom-up review of the entire department.
"The first step in any recovery is admitting there's a problem," he said. "The community needs to believe in us again and trust us again." n
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