July 2, 2008

Hager takes helm at regional jail
New jail administrator plans to bring strong leadership to staff

By ED COX
of The Dalles Chronicle

     Outside Ron Hager’s new office at the Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facility, hangs a sign: “No food or drink allowed. Do not take the chairs.”
     Hager, the first permanent, full-time administrator in more than two years for the four-county jail in The Dalles, removed it from the board room after soft drinks were served at his first meeting with the sheriffs there.
     “If we don’t follow [our policies], we will change them,” Hager explains, “so we have policies we can live with.”
     It’s part of the hands-on, no-nonsense approach Hager has learned in a care wworking in jails and solving the problems he finds there.
     “That’s the way businesses are,” he says. “Problems and solutions.”
     Now he’s referring to issues surrounding employee complaints that have dogged NORCOR of late. Complaints alleging, among other things, discrimination and sexual harassment came out through unofficial channels and reached the Hood River News, which reported them last September at the same time Hood River County commissioner Ron Rivers was bringing them before the board.
     That led to an internal probe, the results of which were reviewed by Wasco County District Attorney Eric Nisley, who found nothing “prosecutable.”
     One lawsuit was filed by an employee against the jail. Hager could not share any details, except to say that it had been “resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.”
At its June 19 meeting, the NORCOR board had authorized Hager, juvenile facility director Jeff Justesen and NORCOR legal counsel Will Carey to make “a reasonable offer” at a mediation for the suit.
     Most of the problems Hager has seen since he started at NORCOR on May 1 “are not unfamiliar to me,” he says. Here, though, they were not attended to in a timely fashion and were allowed to snowball.
     For example, he says, there were cases where many negative interactions were not taken seriously or not documented on an employee’s record. Then, when a more serious situation came up, it was too late.
     He doesn’t blame any conspiracy for that or even the management staff he now heads and says he has complete confidence in. Those in charge, he said, were often “just overwhelmed.”
     When former administrator Paul Burnett left in 2005, Capt. Larry Lindhorst, the director of the adult facility, filled the administrative function until he could no longer handle two jobs. At that point, retired Wasco County Sheriff Darrell Hill was brought in as an interim for six months. Then former Gilliam County judge Laura Pryor filled in until Hager came on board.
     He says Pryor, who handled most of the personnel issues and made various other fixes, gave him a “solid, solid foundation to build on.”
He also says the staff at the jail have the requisite talent, expertise and, most importantly, dedication.
     “They just need someone to guide them,” he notes, adding that the personnel issues are “a very small portion of the challenges that are here at NORCOR.”
Problems with employees are “issues that you work through,” he stresses, noting that as a manager you need to talk face to face, define the problem, and take quick corrective action. “Then you move forward.”
     That’s what Hager hopes to do at NORCOR, through an approach that stresses open communication and “management by walking around.”
He’s met all the shifts and does a daily reading of the “pass-on log,” a system he implemented for running employee comments. He also enjoys talking to — and sometimes arguing with — the prisoners.
     “This business isn’t all about the employees,” he emphasizes. “It’s about the inmates.”
     Recognizing that many of them will rejoin the local community, he follows a simple philosophy: leave them no worse off than when they came in. He’s not into making them wear pink underwear or other “cruel and unusual punishment;” incarceration and segregation are enough.
     “You begin with the end in mind,” says Hager, and what he wants to see is a facility that’s secure, that treats people fairly and that staff are proud to be a part of.
     “And they are,” he stresses.
     But it may need a more public face, and that’s another one of Hager’s goals. He encourages people to come and take a tour and see how their tax dollars are being spent.
     They can schedule a tour by calling him at (541) 298-1576. Groups are welcome, and he’ll take people back anytime, short of when there’s a riot going on.
     “We have nothing, absolutely nothing [to hide],” Hager says.
Meanwhile, he and his wife Gina are adapting well to their new community and hope to be making positive contributions soon.
     So far, he says, the climate is similar to that of Cochise County, Ariz., where previously he was jail commander and bureau chief for the sheriff’s office.
Outside his office there’s also a picture of Barney Fife, the deputy sheriff from the Andy Griffith Show.
     “Jails aren’t Andy Griffith anymore,” Hager notes. “They’re complex, expensive operations.”
     NORCOR, being a regional facility, is rather unique, and Hager likes a lot of things he sees here, including a state-of-the art video arraignment system at the jail and the way the various parts of the criminal justice system work together.
     “There’s a lot of progressive things going on here in The Dalles,” he says.