Lee County Manager Roger Desjarlais to retire after 10 years in post
Desjarlais to retire as Lee County manager
After a decade in the post, Lee County Manager Roger Desjarlais has announced he plans to retire at the end of July.
Desjarlais, 73, has held the position since 2013 and delivered his letter of resignation Monday to members of the county commission, who have the responsibility to select a successor.
A decade in the position of county manager in Lee County is unusual, many times managers come and go quickly, depending on who the members are on the board of county commissioners. The board has sole authority to appoint or dismiss a manager.
Desjarlais told The News-Press that after family discussions, he decided it was time to move on.
"It is something my wife and I have been talking about for six months, and we decided it was just time," he said. "There are other things we would like to do, such as spend more time with our grandchildren."
Desjarlais and his wife, Vivian, have five grandchildren. A native of Michigan, Desjarlais is a graduate of Cypress Lake High School.
The outgoing manager said that he was not yet ready to discuss his tenure in depth, but in his resignation noted crises and challenges the county has faced in the past decade, and delivered much of the credit to the county staff.
He cited hurricanes Irma and Ian, and the devastation each left behind; the COVID virus; severe flooding after multiple heavy rainstorms and the attack on the county's beaches by a blue-green algae; and a cyber-attack on the county offices. He credited the county staff saying "together, we have weathered the good and the very difficult."
An interim manager will be appointed to fill the vacancy in the manager's office, as required by the county charter. Currently, Dave Harner III is the deputy manager directly below Desjarlais.
Some changes were made in the roster of assistant managers last month, as Glen Salyer was given full-time responsibility for handling the process the county will use in spending $1.1 billion in federal funds, and the county transportation director, Robert Codie, was appointed by Desjarlais to assume assistant manger duties.
Desjarlais spent the better part of four decades as a Lee County employee. He worked as a paramedic, became director of emergency services, and then public safety director director and assistant county manager, before a 15-year hiatus when he took top management positions in other organizations.
In 1998, he left Lee County to become county manager in Broward County and spent seven years directing a county government with a much larger budget and hundreds more employees than Lee County.
After resigning as Broward manager, Desjarlais became the top assistant to then-County Property Appraiser Kenneth Wilkinson before being selected to lead county government.
His salary was raised to $303,000 last year.
He assumed the role of Lee county manager on July 1, 2013. His tenure will conclude on July 31, 2023, a Monday. An interim manager must be appointed to serve if a permanent replacement has not been selected by the board by that date.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: From Cypress Lake High to Lee County Manager; Desjarlais to retire
