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His career has been illuminating in many ways

A lot of the lights that have come on around the growing North Suncoast over the last generation and then some have come across this man's desk.

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published October 16, 2006

A lot of the lights that have come on around the growing North Suncoast over the last generation and then some have come across this man's desk.

Billy E. Brown is the quiet but confident general manager of the Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative here in his hometown of Dade City in east Pasco County. Today he marks 50 years working for the company.

"A fair amount of time," he said with a smile and in his slow drawl one afternoon last week in his office.

Brown, who will be 73 next month, has played a bigger part in the development of Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties, and for a longer continuous time, than any other living individual in the area, say energy industry officials and the region's business leaders.

"There's no one else - absolutely no one - that's been as involved in residential and community development of these three counties" in the last 50 years, SunTrust Bank/Nature Coast chief executive Jim Kimbrough said. "He's on that ladder, on the top rung, all by himself."

"Unquestionably," said Hjalma Johnson, the past president of the Bank of Pasco County.

"I would say the entire service area would not be as vibrant with a less in-tune leader. Without his leadership, and I can speak for Pasco, we would not be as far along."

"A lot of people refer to him as the godfather of Florida cooperatives," said Bill Willingham, the executive vice president and general manager of the Florida Electric Cooperatives Association in Tallahassee, "and he's really an icon when you get to the national level, too."

Brown was born on Nov. 12, 1933, in Sandersonville, Ga., but moved here when he was 4 years old. His parents owned the Corner Lunch restaurant in downtown Dade City. He was Pasco High School Class of '51 and played basketball and baseball and was quarterback and co-captain for the football team.

He played semipro baseball during the summers in the Georgia Textile League and also here for town-ball teams from Dade City and Lacoochee.

"I could hit anything," he said.

"He was just one of those batters, real tough in there, yes, he was," said Gene Allen, 78, who played for the West Citrus team and now lives in Lecanto. "But he wasn't a loudmouth or anything. He just went about his business."

Brown joined the Coast Guard in 1952, got married in '54 and came home in '56.

His first day at Withlacoochee, Oct. 16, 1956, he drove to work in his black '48 Ford and started as a lineman trainee making $1.10 an hour. That was back before bucket trucks and when linemen dug holes for poles by hand.

He was a warehouse manager for two years and a billing supervisor for two years and the district manager at Bayonet Point for one year and the district manager in Brooksville for 10.

He was acting general manager in 1971 and '72, then again in '73, and then later in '73 he was named permanent general manager. Hasn't left since.

Electric co-ops are federally subsidized and member-owned and were started in the 1930s to bring electricity to rural areas. Withlacoochee is now one of the largest in the country, serving most of Hernando and Pasco and parts of Citrus, Polk and Sumter counties, too.

But when Brown began work here, only nine years after the company got its first customer by running wire to a house on a hill north of Brooksville, Withlacoochee had 25 or so employees - a number that is now about 475.

There were fewer than 3,000 customers when Brown came on. Now there are about 208,000.

The annual revenue then was $350,000. The annual revenue now is about $400-million.

Back when he was a boy, Brown said last week, the street lights in town were dim, and dim turned to dark outside city limits.

But those lights got brighter, starting in the 1960s and early '70s, and it hasn't stopped, here and all over the North Suncoast, and as general manager he has seen houses and businesses pop up as lights on the map in Hudson, and Bayonet Point, and around Zephyrhills. The pattern shows the growth.

In New Port Richey.

Then up U.S. 19 to Hudson.

Then to Weeki Wachee.

Then inland, across Pasco from New Port Richey, and across Hernando on Spring Hill Drive to the south and State Road 50 to the north.

Now it's moving east on SR 52 and up Interstate 75 and the Suncoast Parkway through Wesley Chapel and to areas in east Hernando.

"He's always been kind of on the leading edge, out in front," said Willingham, the boss of the state's cooperative association.

"I think he has that local knowledge - intuition, gut feelings - that's very hard to teach," said Robert Sumner, who has known Brown since they were kids growing up and is now Pasco's county attorney.

"I'm in meetings all the time with Billy," said Kimbrough, the SunTrust/Nature Coast chief, "and he doesn't have a lot to say, but when he speaks he has something to say. And people listen.

"He's a dictionary of activities, people, companies, chambers, elected officials - a dictionary of knowledge. Half a century's worth. He's taken great pride in being part of the growth of his home area."

Brown lives on Lake Jovita and hunts turkey and deer in still-open areas outside of town or up in Levy County. He wears no-nonsense blues, grays and blacks, and a big, green-stoned ring marking 25 years of service with Withlacoochee.

He has been married to his high school sweetheart for nearly 53 years.

He's a father of four and a grandfather to eight.

Those who know him and work with him say he's a man who thinks and listens more than he talks and looks for loyalty and longevity and hard work.

Last week in his office he fiddled with his ring and said he might consider retiring in the next couple of years. Right now, though, he has too much to do.

Even today. Even at 50.

"Well," he said, "I've got several meetings, and I've got to make up my agenda for my board meeting on Thursday, and I've got a staff meeting in the morning, and some other things I've got to get done ...

"Just another day at the office to me," he said.

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or 352 848-1434.

[Last modified October 15, 2006, 20:03:19]