Long-Time County Administrator Retiring

Long-Time County Administrator Retiring
Kelly Shanahan

SNOW HILL – A key government official will retire next week after three decades of serving Worcester County.

Kelly Shannahan, Worcester County’s assistant chief administrative officer, will step down Aug.14. He’s spent the past 30 years assisting in the management of Worcester County.

“He’s been dedicated to the county, and dedicated to the employees of the county, always treating them fairly and as family,” Commissioner Joe Mitrecic said. “The knowledge he brings to the job will be surely missed.”

Shannahan, who grew up in Salisbury, made his way to Worcester County after working in both the public and the private sector in Virginia. When he saw a position advertised in Worcester County in 1990 he knew it was time to make a move.

“It was time to make my way back to the shore, back home,” he said.

Shannahan took a job as a long-range planner in the then-department of planning, permits and inspections. He worked on the comprehensive redrafting of the county’s zoning and subdivision control article and worked on the county’s forest conservation law and stormwater management regulations. He said the county’s diversity—the beaches in Ocean City, the highly populated Ocean Pines and the expanses of rural farmland—made it interesting from a planning perspective.

“As a planner it was a nice situation, a challenging situation, to come into with all of its land use issues,” Shannahan said.

His desire to move into more of a management position prompted him to seek the role of assistant to the chief administrative officer in 1995. A year later he was promoted to the new position of assistant chief administrative officer.  Projects completed under his watch included the construction of the Worcester County Government Center, the Charles and Martha Fulton Senior Center and the Worcester County Recreation Center, among others. He also oversaw the initial purchase and utilization of the countywide personal computer network and the electronic document imaging of all county records.

Shannahan said the good working relationship among the county’s employees made those types of projects possible.

“Worcester County has a very tight-knit staff, people focused on doing a good job for the people of Worcester County,” he said.

Shannahan said the biggest challenge he faced as assistant chief administrative officer was dealing with the recession of 2008.

“That was a challenging time for our office and everyone in the county,” he said.

Shannahan said state budget cuts that impacted the county were made after the county commissioners had already adopted a budget for the year. Shannahan chaired an efficiency committee to rethink government operations and assisted in identifying $700,000 in budget cuts.

“That helped us weather the storm,” he said.

Another of Shannahan’s longtime duties has been to put together the extensive packets distributed to the county commissioners before their meetings twice a month. Shannahan ensures the commissioners have all the information they need prior to making a decision on a topic.

“I try to make it as easy as possible for the commissioners to make sense of comprehensive, detailed reports,” he said.

Though he’s watched various groups of commissioners come and go through the years, he says his role has remained the same.

“They may have a different philosophy, how the county should grow, whether it should grow, those kinds of things, but by and large not a significant change,” he said. “One of the great things about Worcester County, here some of the partisan politics we see on the federal stage are not present. I don’t look at any of the commissioners as a democrat or republican I look at them as county commissioners. The decisions are made in the best interests of all the citizens of the county.”

Shannahan likes working with the rest of the county’s staff to come up with recommendations for the commissioners on important local issues.

“There’s always something different,” he said. “That’s part of what I’ve enjoyed. I’m not on an assembly line doing the same job over and over. There’s always a new problem to solve.”

As for what he’ll miss most once he retires, Shannahan said it was undoubtedly the people.

“We all do think of ourselves as the Worcester County work family,” he said.

Nevertheless he’s looking forward to having more time to put into the Salisbury Cruise Club, the travel business he and his wife started 15 years ago.

“It was the right time to move into that second career,” he said. “It’s always been a dream of mine to expand that a little bit.”

About The Author: Charlene Sharpe

Alternative Text

Charlene Sharpe has been with The Dispatch since 2014. A graduate of Stephen Decatur High School and the University of Richmond, she spent seven years with the Delmarva Media Group before joining the team at The Dispatch.