[ABFM] Remembering Dick Zody

[Michael Dougherty]

Remembering Richard E. Zody 
 
For four decades, Richard E. “Dick” Zody worked sought to bridge and
combine practical application and academic scholarship. Zody, 70, passed
away at his home in Blacksburg, Va., on July 20, 2007. However, the
impact he has had on colleagues and students will continue.
 
I got to know Dick Zody when I was editing Public Budgeting & Finance
and he was the managing editor.  He took care of all the production
details, from manuscript control and record keeping, to seeing to the
copy editing, to getting each issue to the publisher and making sure it
was published more or less on time.  He did all this invisibly,
seemingly effortlessly, I never had to worry about any of it.
 
Underlying that role, which he performed for years, was an incredible
discipline.  Dick was the only person I knew who climbed mountains for
fun. I have a strong image of him training for a mountain climbing
expedition by putting bricks in his back pack and running up and down
the hill to his home.  Then, one year, he fell, he knew not how, and
landed on his axe.   He recovered from this accident and never mentioned
it again.  He just kept on marching.  Year after year, country after
country, he continued his consulting, improving budgeting around the
world.
 
I picture Dick with his silvery wavy hair and his pipe, standing at the
back of the room during the board meetings for the journal, always calm,
always upright.  I was fond of Dick, and in the Russian style of my
ancestry, imagined hugging him a greeting when I saw him, but then was
stopped by his military bearing.  He seemed so strong he would hold
others up besides himself.  Everyone who knew him knew he gave a kidney
to his son, and tossed off praise with the comment that he never
considered not doing it, it was something he could do.  This is the way
I will remember Dick, standing at the back of the room, calm, strong,
ready to mediate any conflict, improving the quality of life for
everyone, those closest to him, and those far away.
 
Irene Rubin, Professor Emerita, Northern IllinoisUniversity
 
 
Zody retired in 2003 from the Virginia Tech Department of Urban Affairs
and Planning as Professor Emeritus. He joined the faculty in 1976 as
chair of the urban affairs program and served in that capacity for four
years. Between 1968 and 1976, Zody was at WichitaStateUniversityin 1968
where he served as director of the Centerof Urban Affairsand the masters
degree program. He began his academic career in 1965 as an instructor at
Southern Illinois University while working on his doctorate in
government. Prior to completing his education, Zody had been a planner,
a factory worker, and a military police officer.
 
The main focus in Zody’s career was the improvement of government. He
started down this path by working on governmental consulting projects
while a graduate student. He continued the journey during this time at
WichitaStateas he consulted with numerous organizations, localities, and
agencies in Kansas. Then upon his arrival at Virginia Tech, he quickly
moved even more in that direction. 
 
In the early 1980s, Zody served the Commonwealthof Virginiain various
capacities. He was Director of Program Review and Evaluation for the
Virginia Department of Budget from 1980 to 1982. He was a special
advisor to the Secretary of Education in 1983 and interim Vice President
for Business Affairs at LongwoodCollegein 1985.  In 1986, Zody created
the Instituteof Public Managementwhich provided training and analysis to
public officials. During this period, he led or co-led projects for the
Virginia Department of Medical Assistance, the Virginia Department of
Rehabilitation Services, the Virginia Department of
Corrections/Correctional Enterprises, the Virginia Department of Social
Services, and the U.S. Navy as well as private organizations and
companies. He also served on the MontgomeryCounty(Va.) school board from
1987 to 1991.
 
Dick Zody worked in the late 1970s and through the mid 1980s to develop
public policy principles whose impact spread in various ways across the
practice of policy-driven budgeting in many, perhaps most of the states.
 In the 1970s, primarily as a consultant to various Virginiastate
agencies, he developed what became the commonly accepted concepts of
best practice in public employment and human infrastructure.  His
backgrounds in city planning, budget development, and conflict
resolutions empowered him in this work, but he was always greater than
the sum of his parts. 
 
When I became Virginia's education secretary in 1982, we needed a
policy expert with balanced expertise in the theory and practice of
government to address a range of sometimes neglected elements of state
actions as a force, often the dominant force, in effecting change. 
Dick's range added value to everything we did in those days.  He gave
the executive branch, the Governor, analytical expertise and
intellectual background that had not previously been available, and with
that also, practical knowledge of how to get jobs done.  He did the
policy analysis behind the political and financial commitments made in
the 1983 settlement between the State of Virginiaand the Office for
Civil Rights of the USDepartment of Education.  Over the following
decade, this settlement became the pattern for resolving the 1969 case
of Adams v Richardson in which the broad principles of Brown v Board of
Education were definitively applied to public colleges and universities.
 
 
Dick defined a state role in sponsoring research in universities, and
then using its products to enhance the state's economy.  SURA-CEBAF, now
the Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory, was not Dick's creation, but
it could not have come into existence without his reasoning and vision
about the state interest in cutting-edge research.  His concepts drove
computations that raised salaries for college and university professors,
particularly in 1984-85 as the state completed other initiatives and
began to recognize that economic development and inadequate compensation
for university faculty members were incompatible concepts.  Dick worked
prodigiously in these years.  He spoke for fairness, for integrity in
transactions, for the long view of the public interest, and for
scrupulous accuracy in accounting for public resources or assets.  He
found common ground with legislative staffs, with the agency heads, with
the brilliant analysts then working in the State Council of Higher
Education, whose non-aligned position * independence * suspended between
the legislature and the executive branch, Dick recognized as a protector
of the public interest.  Always in a sense an insider because by the
early 1980s, when he made his most memorable contributions to the
practice of administering the states, he was well known, he was also an
outsider, an Everyman scrutinizing, improving, pushing to account the
process of government.  
 
Because the governors (John Dalton, Chuck Robb, and Gerald Baliles,
most notably) whose secretaries Dick made effective influenced others by
their roles as chairs of the National Governors Association, the
Education Commission of the States, and the Southern Growth Policies
Board, Dick's impact on the practice of good government in the states
always exceeded his immediate circle.  In a fertile period in the
governing of the states, and an era of collegiality among governors,
Dick's commitment to discovering and promulgating best practices touched
everyone, regardless of whether or not Dick's name appeared on the
package.
 
John Casteen III, President, Universityof Virginia
 
This field work allowed Zody to bring practical knowledge into the
classroom. These lessons were clear to his students.  He taught
political science and related classes at Southern Illinoisand
WichitaState. At Virginia Tech, his teaching repertoire included urban
management, strategic planning, and budgeting as well as other subjects.
Zody served as a visiting professor at YorkUniversityin Torontoin 1979
and the NewSchoolfor Social Research in New York Cityin 1983. He also
was an adjunct professor of government at the Universityof Virginiafrom
1993 to 1995. 
 
My first encounter with Dr. Zody was short: “You’ll be working with me.
Meet me in my office Monday at 9.” There it was, spoken in a voice
muddled by a dangling pipe, a succinctness that came to characterize Z.
During the two years (1993-1995) that I worked with him as a graduate
student, he was the Managing Editor of Public Budgeting & Finance;
taught budgeting at Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia;
directed the Institute for Public Management; managed a contract with
the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Departments of Rehabilitative Services
and Corrections to provide training in areas such as strategic
management, organizational development, and compensation; and was a
member of finance and budgeting committees for ASPA and ABFM. Always
applying the theories of management and budgeting, Z was out of the
office more than he was in, but he never missed our Monday morning
appointments. 
 
Z had a management style that was direct and professional, hands-off,
and full of high expectation. He ever so gently demanded that his
research assistants work hard for him, especially editing manuscripts,
which entailed five of us copy editing each accepted manuscript thrice.
But the return was rich, as he had great care for his students and their
interests. He strategically aligned our work tasks with our personal
interests and made connections for each of us. 
 
All of Z’s management and mentorship was gifted with a sense of
humility.  Z did not offer much advice, but it didn’t take long for me
to realize that when he did, I should listen. Perhaps because of his
strong sense of professionalism, he was the keeper of many secrets and
hard to know on a personal level. In time, with the benefit of trust and
friendship, he opened up. While his contributions to Public Budgeting
and Finance and the field are numerous, I remember him most as a guiding
mentor who never lost sight of the balance between personal and
professional, and between textbook and application. 
 
Christine Martell, Assistant Professor, Schoolof Public Affairs,
Universityof Coloradoat Denver
 
There was also a significant international component to Zody’s work. He
was a USIA visiting scholar in Nigerian and Kenyafrom the mid 1980s to
the early 1990s as well as to Bangladeshand Indiain 1999. 
Most notably though, he was as an intermittent budget advisor through
the Office of Technical Assistance of the U.S. Treasury Department to
Armenia, Boznia/Herzegovnia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, and
Ukraine. He then served as a Senior Resident Advisor to the Minister of
Finance in Moldovafrom 2001-2002. After his retirement, Zody worked on
the local budget reform project in the Ukrainein 2003-2004 as well as
assisting with Nigerian technical budget analysis in 2006.
 
Richard E. Zody, through USAID assistance provided to Moldova during
1996-2001, was one of the initiators and promoters of budget reforms in
Moldova who at the end of the 1990s laid the foundation to some big
changes in the budget system and budget process which encountered great
challenge sat that period of time regarding the transition from the
centralized economic system to the marked based one. Mr. Zody
contributed to program budgeting, strategic planning, and performance
management. One of the most important reforms, launched with Mr. Zody’s
assistance, was the introduction of performance-based program
budgeting.
 
Starting in 2003 with four pilot ministries (Health, Education, Labour
and Social Protection and Finance), the program has extended its
coverage and full implementation of the performance based program
budgeting is envisaged to be finalized in a few years being supported by
the corresponding information system. The Ministry of Finance of the
Republicof Moldovaexpresses its highly esteem and deep consideration for
Mr. Zody contribution in the initiation and promotion of budget reforms
in our country.
 
Nina Lupan, Deputy Minister of Finance of the Republicof Moldova
 
 
Zody also used all of this experience to communicate to others through
professional research and service. He had over 60 scholarly and
professional publications to his credit, ranging from journal articles
to training manuals. Most notably, he was associated with two journals
and two professional organizations. 
 
Zody became active in the Section on Budgeting and Financial Management
of the American Society of Public Administration (now the Association of
Budgeting and Financial Management). He served on the task force for
curriculum reform from 1984 to 1985, was the associate editor of the
section’s newsletter from 1986 to 1989, the chair-elect of the section
from 1987 to 1988 and the section chair from 1988 to 1989. In addition,
he served on the nominating committee in 1989 and the S. Kenneth Howard
Awards Committee in 1992. 
 
Even more contributions came through Zody’s association with the
section’s journal Public Budgeting & Finance. He became a board member
of Public Financial Publications Inc., the organization that published
the journal in 1987. In 1989, Zody became the managing editor of the
journal and served in that capacity until 2000. In 2001, he stepped down
from the publications board and became a member of the editor board for
the journal.
 
For five years, just about every Monday morning between ten and eleven
o’clock, the phone would ring, and I would pick it up and know that it
would be Dick Zody on the line.  Between 1989 and 1994, I was editor of
Public Budgeting & Finance, and Dick was Managing Editor.  While
we met occasionally at Board meetings or conferences, it was mostly from
his voice in those weekly phone calls, coming from the other side of the
continent, that I came to know and appreciate Dick Zody.
 
>From a professional point of view, Dick was a superb managing editor. 
It was not an easy job, demanding a consistent flow of correspondence to
keep manuscripts flowing backwards and forwards to editors, referees and
contributors, to ensure that the copy reached Transaction Publishers by
the deadlines, and to have proofs read and returned on time.  Dick
managed it all, seemingly effortlessly, marshalling the staff of the
Institute of Public Management (mostly students) to produce every issue
in the season in which it was due.  This was, of course, before the days
of the Internet, which we were only able to make limited use of in the
last couple of years or so.  Still, Dick was able to computerize the
flow of manuscripts in a readable print out, and this was the basis for
our weekly talks.  But all the time, I realized that management of the
journal was only one part of his activities.  Dick was efficient, in the
best sense of the word * while Public Budgeting and Finance was a
constant commitment and pre-occupation, he made sure for both of us that
it kept its place in Monday morning phone calls, and did not take over
our lives.
 
Dick’s qualities went beyond those of a professional manager, or more
correctly perhaps, underpinned them.  I came to value his quiet
reliability, perennial optimism, and good judgment.  Public Budgeting
and Finance in those days was a quarter to quarter affair * we rarely
had more manuscripts in our pockets than for a single issue, so
deadlines were sometimes difficult to meet.  At no time did Dick ever
express any doubt or worry that we would fill the forthcoming issue,
never showed impatience, frustration or blame.  His was a steady hand,
combined with resilience in the face of adversity, determination to
fulfill whatever task was at hand, and a sense of proportion that was
very welcome.  That the journal did come out regularly, and maintained
its high quality reputation in those years, stemmed of course from the
work and initiative of our contributors.  But its success was also very
largely due to the creative direction of Dick Zody.
 
I knew Dick primarily as a colleague, but there was much else that I
learned about him to admire.   Outstanding was his commitment to and
understanding of his family, including later in life, his grandchildren
(whom, he wrote to me, he enjoyed spoiling outrageously).  Another was a
sense of adventure, a willingness to venture into new experiences and
places (including a trek to the Himalayas, whose diary he shared with
many friends).
And through it all shone a light of integrity, of straightforwardness,
and of thoughtfulness for others.
 
Naomi Caiden, Professor, Department of Political Science,
CaliforniaStateUniversity, Los
Angeles
 
Earlier in his career, Zody served in various capacities in the Council
of University Institutes of Urban Affairs (now the Urban Affairs
Association). He was an institutional representative to the council from
1972 to 1980, a regional coordinator for the council in 1974, program
chair for the 1976 national conference in Atlanta, a member of the
council’s governing board from 1977 to 1980, the secretary-treasurer
from 1978 to 1980 and vice president from 1979 to 1980. He was also the
first editor and co-founder of Urban Affairs Papers (now the Journal of
Urban Affairs) from 1978 to 1980. 
 
Zody also had a multitude of outside interests. The one for which he
was most known * and demonstrated the most passion * was mountain
climbing. He trekked all around the Himalayan region, specifically the
Yellow Silk Road, the Forbidden Kingdom of Mustang area, the trek of the
reindeer herders. He even climbed to a base camp on Mount Everest. These
travels took him to places like Mongolia, Nepal, Tibet, and China. 
 
In the years following retirement, very little changed for Zody. He
still consulted in the areas of resource assessment and strategic
planning for various public and private clients. He reviewed prospective
journal submissions. He took on additional international assignments.
And he continued to climb mountains wherever he was.
 
Zody is survived by his wife of 50 years, Mary Jane Zody, his three
sons; Karl and his wife Tracie, Gregg, Morgan and his wife Katrina; as
well as four grandchildren by Karl and Tracie. A memorial service was
held on July 23 in Blacksburg. Memorial contributions may be made to the
Blacksburg Fire Department, 2700 Prices Fork Road, Blacksburg, VA24060,
or the Blacksburg Rescue Squad, 200 Progress Street, NE, Blacksburg,
VA24060.
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