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PrintIn Dewey time
After only a few months as mayor, Dewey Bartlett is facing the city’s largest budget crisis since the Great Depression. But with a history in business, political skills inherited from his father and a focus on reviving Tulsa’s energy-capital prominence, he is taking on the challenge.
From high inside the glass walls of City Hall, very little of Tulsa is hidden from the view of Mayor Dewey Bartlett Jr.
His office faces east, where he can see the Blue Dome, railroad tracks, Hillcrest Medical Center, churches, warehouses and businesses clear to Broken Arrow.
A walk around the windows of the 15th floor lets him examine Tulsa from all angles — the Arkansas River, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa, refineries, houses and apartments. The panoramic view, and what it means to him as mayor, is awe-inspiring, he says.
“It’s humbling to realize that I’m responsible for these people, their future and their safety,” he says.
Still, he doesn’t consider himself any different from a regular guy, preferring sneakers and a chainsaw on a ranch to suits and meetings in a boardroom.
“I have to be approachable,” he says. “I’m not royalty.”
By any estimation, he picked a difficult time to be mayor, with a $10 million budget shortfall, worker furloughs and layoffs. Non-sworn city employees had to choose between layoffs or a 5 percent pay cut this year. Police and fire pay cuts were even higher, causing daily headlines about contract negotiations and protest rallies at City Hall.
The Tulsa World’s Dec. 25 political cartoon portrayed Bartlett opening a Christmas present containing hundreds of nuts, bolts and springs. In the cartoon, he is reading the city’s instruction manual and realizing that much assembly will be required.
The next month, the cartoon showed the Tulsa Police Union using Bartlett’s picture for target practice.
Such strife almost drove Bartlett away from politics altogether. His father, Dewey Bartlett Sr., ran for the Oklahoma Senate when Dewey was in high school and became governor in 1967 when he was a sophomore in college. Later, the elder Bartlett became a U.S. senator, serving from 1973-1979.
While being a politician’s son did have some perks — lots of traveling, interesting people to meet and great seats at football games — the younger Bartlett didn’t like to see his father attacked.
“Critics can be so nasty, and they don’t realize the impact that can have on families and children,” he says. “It can be devastating.”
He also didn’t like to see his father gone so much and, when he was home, spend nights and weekends handling the public’s business. Still, he had a great father, he says, and his mother, Ann Bartlett, was wonderful at handling matters while his father was away.
Life out of the public eye
After Bartlett graduated from Regis College in Denver with a degree in accounting and Southern Methodist University in Dallas with a master’s in finance, he went to work in real estate. The younger Bartlett was anxious to introduce his father to his new business colleagues and show him his real estate projects. Because his father was governor, setting a 15-minute appointment with him took nearly three months, Bartlett recalls.
Once the day finally came and his father was ready to learn about his projects, a phone call came in that derailed the day that son Dewey had longed for.
“He got a phone call and said, ‘I’ve got to go,’” Bartlett says. “I’ll never forget that. I didn’t even get to show him what I had been working on.”
Dewey Bartlett Sr. died just before his 60th birthday in 1979, a time when his son was beginning to have a man-to-man friendship with him rather than just a father-son relationship.
Bartlett, who will turn 63 this month, resolved that there was no way he would ever get involved in politics.
Instead, he stayed in the private sector, working in real estate until 1973. When the economy went down the tubes, Bartlett found himself looking for a new endeavor, and his father offered him the perfect opportunity: cattle ranching.
The family had a ranch on Grand Lake, and the people who had been running it quit. So Bartlett and his brother, Mike, who is three years younger, moved there to run the operation. They did every piece of ranching, from planting grass to baling hay, from bulldozing to artificially inseminating cows. They performed C-sections on cows in labor and drank a little tequila to celebrate the births.
“At the end of the day, we’d go jump in the lake to cool off,” Bartlett says.
Not until the early 1980s did Bartlett work his way into management of the family company, Keener Oil.
His father always encouraged him to first work in what he called “the field,” wherever something was being made or produced. So before Bartlett began managing Keener, he went to work in oil fields. At Halliburton Services, he drove cement and pump trucks and worked on and around drilling rigs. Next, he worked at Beard Oil Co. as a landman.
In 1979, he earned his place at the family company as landman and co-managing partner and became managing partner in 1987. He still serves as president of Keener, although his work typically is limited to about two lunch meetings per week with the company’s eight employees.
Becky Henshaw has worked at the company for 25 years and handles day-to-day operations as office manager. When she started, she was a secretary and Bartlett was a landman. Over the years, she has seen Bartlett’s son, Dewey F. Bartlett III, born; his daughter adopted; his 2004 bid for the state Senate fail; and his Tulsa City Council run succeed.
She even cried along with the rest of the Keener staff when the Bartletts’ family dog, Trooper, died.
Trooper was a Christmas present for Bartlett’s son, whom the family calls “Dewey Three.” When son Dewey went off to college, Bartlett began taking the golden retriever to work. Henshaw would take the dog out in the office courtyard if Bartlett was away. During storms, Trooper would hide under her desk. People would also give him treats at the office.
It’s that laid-back, family atmosphere that has kept Henshaw working at Keener Oil for so many years.
“Dewey tells us that our families come first,” Henshaw says. “So we can go to our kids’ sports events or go to the doctor and it is never counted against us. We have a good time, and it’s like a big family.”
Family man
When Bartlett decided to run for mayor, he asked his family and workmates for permission, Henshaw says, because he knew the post would be hard on the family and would mean more work for the employees. Of course, she enthusiastically agreed.
“It’s his calling,” she says. “I just thought it was in his blood.”
Bartlett’s wife, Victoria, also knew that public service might be a very real possibility when she married him. The two had dated for about six years before they wed in August 2008. A year before the wedding, Bartlett adopted her daughter, Ann Bartlett, which incidentally is also Bartlett’s mother’s name.
Since middle school, Ann had seen Bartlett as a father figure, but the adoption was simpler once she turned 18.
The Bartletts decided to postpone their marriage until their entire family was ready and available to attend the wedding and honeymoon. After the ceremony, the Bartletts and all three children — Dewey III, now 22 and a senior at the University of Oklahoma; Ann, 20, a student at the University of Arkansas; and Andrea Petersen, 29, an assistant Tulsa County district attorney — went on a Caribbean cruise. It was truly a family marriage.
“We waited (to marry) until we felt bonded as a family,” Victoria says. “That was a priority for us. Not enough adults take children into consideration. It was important that our family be a good, solid unit.”
About a year after the wedding, Bartlett sought his family’s opinion about his running for mayor. Everyone approved and participated in the campaign.
Dewey Three and Ann energized the absentee voters at their schools, while Andrea coordinated 250 campaign volunteers.
Victoria has taken on three citywide initiatives: encouraging Tulsans to participate in the 2010 census; Mentoring to the Max, which encourages adults to mentor a student for one hour per week; and Tulsa Million Miles (www.tulsamillionmiles.com), a nutrition and fitness initiative to improve Oklahoma’s health status.
Bartlett’s friend Howard Barnett was the first to change Bartlett’s mind about politics by suggesting that he run for city council in 1990, when the city’s new form of government began. Bartlett won twice, serving with Mayors Roger Randle and Susan Savage. He lost his first bid for mayor in 1992.
Stress relief
Clearly, Bartlett’s new job comes with its share of stress, but he doesn’t shy away from the challenges. In fact, he welcomes discussions about the city, whether he’s eating out or grocery shopping. During January, there were weeks when he’d attend union meetings several nights in a row.
“Things get a little heated,” he says. “But if I can’t stand up in front of a group of people and tell them the truth, even if it’s bad news, then I don’t deserve to be mayor.”
Bartlett’s chief of staff is Terry Simonson, whom he has known for 20 years, both in business and politics. At times, Bartlett and Simonson are the first to arrive at the office at 7 a.m. Very often, the mayor is the last to leave for the day.
“He stays focused on what is important in a world of distraction,” Simonson says.
So far, the majority of their time has been focused on the recession’s alarming effects on the city budget, but the two always try to keep smiling.
“You have to have a great sense of humor in an environment that can be very stressful,” Simonson says. “A day doesn’t go by when one of us doesn’t say, ‘Let’s just have some fun doing this.’”
When the stress of the job gets to Bartlett, he heads to his pecan farm, located 20 minutes away in Osage County, just out of view from his office windows.
“I’m not good in a gym,” he says. “It just bores me. I’d much rather be outside doing something like cutting up firewood.”
He enjoys taking a hike in the 400 acres of woods and getting out a tractor to mow the 80-acre orchard.
He planted the trees himself 10 years ago. They range from 5 to 15 feet tall and will begin producing pecans in the next few seasons. Until then, Bartlett brings pecans from his friend’s orchard to work with him, snacking on them along with a Diet Coke.
A background in business
Bartlett’s business expertise made him decide to run for mayor again when he didn’t see much business acumen in the other candidates.
“I’ve always believed very strongly that the best elected leaders are those that come from the business community,” Bartlett says. “Having serious business experience is usually a better opportunity to run something as large and diverse as City of Tulsa government.”
Bartlett says running a business prepares an elected official to be a good manager, asking questions such as: Why should we do this? Do we have the expertise? And the big one: How much does it cost?
“For someone not in business, the cost is not as high a priority,” Bartlett says. “In business, it’s my money that’s at risk.
“I approach the job of mayor as if it’s my money. It’s the taxpayers’ money, but I feel a deep responsibility to the citizens to spend their money wisely. I’m not averse to taking risk. I just do it in what I consider to be a sensible manner.”
Pinching pennies and business acumen are required to fix the current budget gap, which is the worst facing Tulsa since the Great Depression.
So as immediate challenges, Bartlett lists the budget and economy.
In the long term, he looks to the energy industry to pull Tulsa back from financial trouble. After all, it was oil and gas money that created Tulsa’s philanthropic foundations, performing arts center, library system and universities. He says now is the time to build on Tulsa’s energy history and nurture it, he says.
“We have a history of oil and gas education, especially at TU,” Bartlett says. “Now we can expand to all forms of alternative energy.”
With the education centers of The University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa Community College and the Career Tech system, Tulsa could become the energy-education capital of the world.
“We have it,” he says of the education potential. “It’s right here.”
He is also committed to transportation, aerospace and manufacturing as areas to cultivate.
“Focusing on existing industry and business in Tulsa and giving them every opportunity to grow, that’s my goal,” Bartlett says.
Despite economic woes, Bartlett continues to look forward and says he hopes all Tulsans will, too.
“We need to revive our visionary view of Tulsa,” Bartlett says. “ ... Whatever problem we may have experienced in the past — that’s looking in the wrong direction. The future is bright and extremely attainable. We just need to move in that direction and don’t sweat the small stuff.”
About the mayor
Pie or cake
Dogs or cats
iPod or CDs
Blues or classical
Italian or Mexican
Wine or beer (evenly split)
Coke or Pepsi
Movie rental or theater
Dine in or dine out
Cloudy or sunny
Skiing or beach
Loafers or lace-up
Flip-flops or sneakers
Gym or bike
Favorite bands: Santana, Jethro Tull, Rolling Stones, Muddy Waters, B.B. King
Favorite movie: “Lonesome Dove”
Who would play you in a movie? My son
Ultimate weekend: Grand Lake
