He served Johnson County for decades, putting work before his family for much of that time.
Now, Norm Gabehart is hanging up his work hat to spend some quality time at home.
Gabehart, 58, announced his retirement as Whiteland’s town manager this month, and the Whiteland Town Council has started a search to fill the town’s top leadership position. Gabehart plans to retire on Jan. 15, after he gives his final State of the Town address at 10:30 a.m. at Reconciliation Church.
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Those who worked with him over the years say the town has big shoes to fill.
Life of service
Gabehart has served as town manager for six years, but he’s served in various roles for both the town and Greenwood, his hometown.
His first role in government came in 1985, when he was hired as fleet maintenance director for the City of Greenwood. At the time, the department was a two-man operation, and Gabehart was a glorified head mechanic, he said.
But it was in that role that he first learned how to manage a budget and discovered his passion for innovation, talents he would carry with him throughout his career, colleagues said.
In 1984, he moved to Whiteland where he eventually started his career in politics. He was elected to the town council for two terms, from 1992 to 1999.
In the early 1990s, Whiteland didn’t yet offer much for residents or employees, but council members at the time made progress, Gabehart said. They started a police department, built a new town hall, and established a town employee pension program, he said.
After his stint on the town council, Gabehart was appointed operations director for the City of Greenwood’s public works departments by former Greenwood Mayor Charles Henderson, a position that oversaw operations of the city’s fleet, street and sanitation departments.
Henderson saw potential in Gabehart because he wasn’t afraid to pursue new ideas or share his opinions about other city operations, Henderson said. It was Gabehart’s idea to do a city stormwater project in-house that prompted his promotion, Henderson said.
Gabehart proposed the project, to relieve severe drainage problems in the area at the time, because he knew city employees were capable and they could do it cheaper and just as well as a contractor, he said.
An estimated $400,000 project to install a pipe from U.S. 31 to Tracy Ditch, turned into a $100,000 project carried out by city employees with rented equipment, Henderson recalled.
“He has the ability to think outside the box. Many, many times people would say to me, ‘we’ve always done it that way.’ That doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way. He was one of those guys who looked for that better way,” Henderson said.
For every project he oversaw — and ones he didn’t — Gabehart would analyze how much it would cost in-house versus an outside contractor, Henderson said. The city began doing most of its own work in-house, and as a result, racked up savings, he said.
Gabehart was not without his faults. But at the end of the day, he owned up to his mistakes and got past personal and professional challenges through faith, Henderson said.
Gabehart served as operations manager from 1999 to 2011.
In February 2014, he returned to work at Whiteland, this time as street superintendent and stormwater coordinator. He served in that role for a few months before being promoted to town manager in November 2014, when former town manager Dennis Capozzi retired.
Growing the town
Kent Beeson, a town council member when Gabehart was hired, said the town was stagnant before Gabehart took office.
“His ideas before the council changed the face of Whiteland and what it could be. It improved services and made it a better place to live,” Beeson said. “Before Norm, the town was stuck; it wasn’t growing. If you don’t try to grow, you could end up dying … getting absorbed, getting passed by.”
Gabehart hit the ground running. He started by making major changes to the town’s services and pouring over budgets line by line, putting the expertise he had gathered over the years into action, council members said.
He restructured the town’s public works, adding leaf and limb pick-up for the first time and implementing snow removal for every street in town, not just the main roads, he said.
Gabehart took his ideas about in-house work to Whiteland and eliminated nearly all outside consultants and contractors, choosing instead to rely on town employees and himself.
“In government, sometimes we get stigmatized and we expect our people to mow grass and do other minute things. But if we embrace the opportunities, our people have great qualities. It is the self-pride in it,” Gabehart said. “We have done a lot of projects with our staff that we would otherwise not be in the financial position to do because of the limited resources — financial resources. The credit goes to our people.”
Gabehart’s vision for growth, ability to negotiate public-private partnerships and knowledge of finances is a big reason Whiteland is in the position it is in today, said Beeson and town council member Scot Ford.
Doing in-house work kept the budget in the black each year and helped lower the town’s debt by about $4 million over the course of Gabehart’s tenure, Ford and Gabehart said.
Public-private partnerships for infrastructure expansion, voluntary annexations and genuine conversations with landowners marked the town’s march toward industrial developments at the Interstate 65 interchange, Ford said. This much growth this fast wouldn’t have been possible without Gabehart, Ford said.
“His shoes are going to be hard to fill, with his knowledge about public-private partnerships, infrastructure. We got a heck of a deal when we got him,” Ford said.
Both said Gabehart’s vision wasn’t colored by what he wanted personally, but what was best for Whiteland and would keep the town moving forward.
“I’ve never seen him put his personal preferences in front of the town,” Beeson said. “You have to put that aside and do what is best for the town. He was a councilman years ago and he stuck with that idea — doing what is best for the town.”
That’s a wrap
In his final months, Gabehart is wrapping up projects and doing a lot of reflecting in preparation for the transition to a new manager.
His retirement comes amid expansive growth at I-65 and as the town’s first parks, which will be built in the Saddlebrook subdivision through a public-private partnership, come to fruition.
But after 35 years in public service, Gabehart is ready to focus on his family.
“I think there’s a point in this and everything you do when you’re just burnt. I am exhausted. I’m not ungrateful for the opportunities I’ve been blessed to be involved with — I’ll forever be grateful for those,” Gabehart said. “There’s a time when you see that you will not be as fruitful as you could be. I want to spend time with my family and my baby girl.”
Though he doesn’t expect be a stay-at-home dad for long, he is looking forward to being able to switch off his responsibilities for the first time in years, he said.
“I’m going to leave my options open,” Gabehart said. “The first thing is going to be spending time with my family and seeing where it goes from there.”
