Kingsport Spirit

April 10, 2024. Today is John Campbell’s 75th birthday. The start of his 4th quarter.

If you know John, you know he loves sports, especially UT football. So, 4th quarter seems like the most appropriate reference.

4th Quarter is a rallying cry. Players hold up 4 fingers. Fans respond with applause. You can acquiesce or you can dig deeper to see what you’re made of. It’s fight or flight.

One thing’s for sure. John Campbell doesn’t have any quit in him. He’s full of fight. When he ‘retired’ 10 years ago, he just redirected his efforts towards making this community and region the best it can be.

He’s been a personal friend, a professional mentor, and a surrogate brother at times. He’s the same age as my late brother Larry and graduated from Dobyns-Bennett the same year.

I can think of no better time to share my remarks from his retirement celebration 10 years ago than now.

June 27, 2014 My Remarks at John Campbell’s Retirement Celebration

This is a bittersweet day for me.  I was just getting the hang of “pragmatic idealism”.  For those of you who are unindoctrinated in the concept of “pragmatic idealism”, it’s John’s way of telling us to shoot for the stars, but keep it within the budget – a budget that he set about 10% below reality, but hey that was a minor detail.  He had a lot of confidence in our ability to be more resourceful.  If you asked for more money, he’d mysteriously have an urgent need to use the restroom (and oftentimes wouldn’t come back).  I’m exaggerating the truth – but only slightly.

He pushed us to be excellent, but not extravagant.  He pushed hard.  He worked tirelessly and expected us to do the same, but if we didn’t he didn’t have time for drama — he’d just do whatever was necessary to get the job done.  On our evaluation forms, that’s called “results focused”…and John Campbell got results.

He talked about momentum – the mysterious force that propels communities forward.  He explained how very hard it is to build momentum, but how powerful a force it is in weathering downturns in the economy or a contentious election or any of a number of other situations that face every community from time to time.

John is arguably one of the most visionary people I’ve ever met.  He pushed me out of my comfort zone.  I caught myself saying, “But John we’ve never done it that way” and I realized I was at risk of becoming that bureaucrat we all like to complain about.  He taught us to do our homework, trust our professionalism, make our recommendation and stand by it.  I saw many professionals in our organization blossom under that leadership.  I can’t tell you how many times in the past how fear of the “what if’s” immobilized us.  What if I’m wrong?  What if I make a mistake?  What if..what if.  I’m reminded of Pal Barger’s infamous saying about his extensive employee training program.  Someone asked, “What if you spend all that money to train them and they leave?”  Pal responded, “What if I don’t and they stay?”  John gave us the courage to use our professional training to develop sometimes uncomfortable but nonetheless important recommendations to our Board of Mayor and Aldermen.  And our Board responded by making visionary decisions that I’m convinced will stand the test of time.  One day in the not too distant future, our community will look back and appreciate this time in our city’s history as one of building, of doing, and of shaping the foundation for the great city we are becoming every day.  

John is one of the smartest, most resourceful people I know.  He is a sponge for information.  Maybe he got that from his wife, Gail, a retired librarian. He literally thirsts for knowledge.  He read numerous newspapers daily and we all got a continual stream of news clippings with suggestions for ways we could make our community a better place.  At first we thought, “Oh my gosh, does he want us to do all of this? Is he expecting something from me?”  Then we learned John’s true motivation was to get us thinking EVERY DAY about best practices, our competitors, our strengths, our weaknesses, our opportunities, and our threats.  Some pushed him to have a community-wide, collaborative visioning process.  Those are quite popular and can be quite powerful.  I realize in hindsight, that John was leading us through a visioning process every single day and we just didn’t realize it.  He had an aversion to showing all his cards because he didn’t want give anyone else a competitive advantage. 

A great example of John’s visionary style is the Kingsport Press project.  When it became evident the plant would close, the parent company conducted an economic evaluation by a Manhattan-based firm.  They concluded it had no real economic value to the company and they offered it to the city for $1.  I was charged with developing a traditional request for qualifications to firms who might specialize in redeveloping old industrial buildings.  That traditional process, in all honesty, was a waste of time.   John believes in networking.  He believes the next person that walks through your door could be a key to your future.  I sat in countless meetings where he ended it by asking, “Do you have any interest in redeveloping a million square foot abandoned factory in downtown Kingsport?” Sometimes the question was met with a blank stare.  Sometimes with a wrinkled eyebrow.  But once (and it only takes once), someone said, “I may know someone that would be interested.”  When he got the opening, he’d run with it.  And the rest is history.  Today, the site acquired by the city of $1 was sold for $1.7 million and is currently appraised for tax purposes at $11.2 million with 502 employees. The Press site is full of medical and professional offices, retail shops, a downtown grocery store, educational offices and classrooms, the Chamber of Commerce, Convention & Visitors Bureau, Farmers Market and soon our community carousel.  That’s vision.

John is a competitor.  Whether it’s academics, athletics, or the band program.  He wants to be the best.  He is an avid alumni of UT and Dobyns-Bennett.  I remember giving him a matrix of my daughter’s high school classmates and where they chose to go to college.  He was aggravated that more didn’t stay in Tennessee and asked UT why they weren’t doing more to retain Tennessee’s best and brightest.  He didn’t want to lose a competitive advantage to South Carolina…and definitely not Alabama.  Before each sports season I remember his inevitable question, “What does the team look like this year?”  He had a way of making me feel that I should be suiting up and going in to help. I’m sure the question was rhetorical – at least I think it was — but I always left with a sense that winning is important in every aspect of life. 

He often said, “quality jobs follow quality people and quality people follow quality of life.”  He used that concept to propel our thinking towards doing whatever it takes to attract and retain talented people.  He pushed us out of our comfort zone.  I saw a 60 Minutes interview of Coach Pat Summitt that reminded me of John.  She said the greatest challenge of a coach is pushing the players out of their comfort zone to become the best they can be.  She cautioned that a good coach also knew the point of no return – the point where the player was pushed to the point of breaking their spirit.  Finding that limit is the key to winning championships.  Coach Summitt won her fair share and Kingsport, under John’s watch, won the Innovations in American Government Award given by the Ash Institute of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  I’d say that’s pretty comparable to a national championship.

Public officials – elected and appointed – put themselves in the crosshairs of public criticism. The latest issue du jour can inspire someone to run for office for a single reason.  Kingsport has a history of electing people who have a broader interest in the community as a whole.  John always praised that fact.  As my pastor says, “everybody is either going through a storm, just went through a storm, or is about to go through a storm.”  When those storms would arise, John assumed a quiet, deliberate determination.  He never raised his voice.  He never expressed his frustration.  He never got into arguments.  He stoically remained focused on the future.  In his words, we shouldn’t get uptight and all.

Borrowing from a recent Times-News column:  “Anyone bothering to look notices that downtown is undergoing a renaissance, that derelict commercial properties are being redeveloped and repurposed, that the Greenbelt is being improved and expanded, that opportunities for shopping, dining and entertainment continue to increase.”

He was so glad to be back in his hometown and his leadership couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.  And I’m glad that he and Gail have chosen to retire here.

Kingsport advanced during Campbell’s tenure.

This isn’t an end.  It’s a beginning.  I look forward to taking you to Riverfront for lunch and picking your brain many, many times in the future.  I appreciate your counsel and encouragement.  Thanks for believing in us.

So, let me say “thank you” from your co-workers, your colleagues, and your community.

by Jeff Fleming

June 27, 2014