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The governor's 35-year-old deputy chief of staff plans to depart on Inauguration Day.
By STEVE BOUSQUET, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 6, 2002
TALLAHASSEE -- Brian Yablonski, one of Gov. Jeb Bush's longest-serving assistants, will soon join the parade of administration officials leaving before the governor's second term begins.
The 35-year-old deputy chief of staff, Bush's former think tank colleague and conservative compatriot, plans to leave on Inauguration Day, Jan. 7. Yablonski and his wife, Kim, have two preschool age children.
"I don't see government service as a career. It's more of a cause," Yablonski said. "I may end up a capitalist and practice what we preach here."
Several state agency heads have resigned, but Yablonski is the first high-ranking Bush staffer to depart during this transition period. He was one of the young ideologues who arrived with Bush in early 1999, raring to shake up the status quo in the Capitol.
"He's a great friend and a brilliant guy, the keeper of the ideological flame," Bush said. "He doesn't have any idea what he wants to do yet. He'll leave without knowing, and he'll seek the next opportunity after he's left, which is the class way of doing this."
Yablonski was working as a staff assistant in Bush's father's White House in 1990, contemplating a career in law, when he met Jeb Bush and befriended Bush's children. He studied law at the University of Miami.
Later, he joined Bush's nonprofit think tank, the Foundation for Florida's Future, between Bush's 1994 and 1998 campaigns. He helped open a charter school in Miami's Liberty City section and co-authored a book with Bush, Profiles in Character.
More than anyone else in the Bush inner circle, Yablonski is seen as having a keen understanding of the governor's policy goals. Yablonski has played a strong behind-the-scenes role in most major initiatives, from school vouchers to the One Florida initiative that eclipsed affirmative action to changes in the Department of Children and Families.