Denise Roberson retires after 37 years as secretary to six Hoover mayors

The city of Hoover today said goodbye to Denise Roberson, who retired after nearly 37 years as the mayor’s secretary.

Roberson, 62, has been the secretary for six Hoover mayors, including Frank Skinner, Brian Skelton, Barbara McCollum, Tony Petelos, Gary Ivey and current Mayor Frank Brocato.

She said she recently started thinking it might be time for some new blood in the mayor’s office — someone more up to speed with today’s technology. And she would like to spend more time with her grandchildren, she said. Then her 93-year-old mother got ill and injured herself during a fall.

“That was really the determining factor that made me go ahead and do it now rather than later,” Roberson said.

'She does so much for this city behind the scenes'

Four of the mayors she served — or trained, as recently retired Executive Director Allen Pate phrased it — showed up to her retirement celebration at Aldridge Gardens this afternoon to honor her and wish her well.

Skinner, who hired Roberson shortly after first being elected mayor in 1980 and worked with her for 19 years, said he had a phenomenal relationship with her. She was a great partner, and “you could always count on her doing more than her half,” Skinner said.

“Every once in a while, she would get a little wadded up,” he joked, “but I have the skill level to get a lot of people wadded up.”

Skinner said Roberson was always there to help him get through his moments and settle down when tensions were high, and “she did an outstanding job with the city and was always there for us.”

McCollum said it takes a special woman to deal with all the different personalities of the various mayors.

“We were all a challenge,” McCollum said. “Some of us had probably more than one personality you had to learn to deal with, and you handled it all.”

McCollum said she couldn’t imagine being mayor without Roberson.

“The city is going to miss having you answer the phone saying ‘mayor’s office,’ always with a smile,” McCollum said. “The employees will miss that, as well as the citizens.”

Petelos, now Jefferson County’s manager, said when he first got elected mayor, he was all excited about the idea of bringing back a Christmas parade like Hoover had years before, and he told Roberson about it.

“She looked me in the eye, and she said, ‘Are you crazy?” Petelos said. “She said, ‘If you do a Christmas parade, I quit. Guess what? We didn’t do a Christmas parade. We started the Christmas tree lighting ceremony.”

Petelos said Roberson helped him do very well in his seven years as mayor. “You were the person in that office that kept things on an even keel,” he said.

Brocato said when he came into office, he was kind of like the medical school intern in the hospital who thinks he knows everything but soon came to realize Roberson was like the nurse who has been there 30 years and can get him through a situation without killing the patient.

“She knows where everything is. She knows everyone in the city,” Brocato said. “She’s a wonderful woman that I will terribly miss. She does so much for this city behind the scenes.”

Life hasn’t always been a bowl of cherries for Roberson, but she never complained, Brocato said. “She worked hard, and she rose to the top, and she’s finishing on top.”

Brocato presented Roberson with a proclamation declaring June 30, 2017, as Denise Roberson Day in the city of Hoover.

Knows where the bodies are buried

Hoover Council President Gene Smith joked recently in a council meeting that Roberson’s tell-all book would be coming out soon.

Roberson said she has had people ask her about that.

“People tell me I know where all the bodies are buried,” she said in an interview Thursday. “I kind of do, but ….” Not one to share secrets, she left it at that.

Roberson said she applied for the job of mayor’s secretary in 1980 after she went through a divorce and had to get a job again. She had left her first job to stay home when she had a son two years before that.

Her first job had been straight out of high school, working as the secretary for Ralph Sheppard, a vice president at Employers Insurance Co. (owned by Hoover’s namesake William Hoover).  Sheppard also was the volunteer chief of the Hoover Fire Department.

When Sheppard found out Roberson needed a job again, he recommended her to Skinner, who had been an assistant fire chief before becoming mayor.

She became the fourth female employee of the city of Hoover and was the first person to take the title of mayor’s secretary, she said. That title later changed to administrative assistant and then became executive assistant to the mayor.

“Some women took offense to being called a secretary. I never did,” Roberson said. “It never bothered me.”

Roberson said she thinks she was the first city employee to have a computer, and her typewriter was her printer.

The duties of being the mayor’s secretary have pretty much stayed the same over the years — answering phone calls and email, handling mail and keeping up with the mayor's calendar, Roberson said.

But “as this city has grown and progressed through the years, that’s become a bigger and bigger job,” she said.

The city’s population has grown from about 20,000 in 1980 to an estimated 85,000 in 2016.

Different mayoral personalities

While the duties of secretary have been the same, Roberson said she did have to learn to deal with all the different mayors’ personalities and how they like to have things done.

“I made those adjustments, and, thank God, it all worked out,” she said. “They all kept me. I guess there was always the possibility the mayor might want to bring in their own person. They all decided to keep me, and I’m grateful.”

Roberson described Skinner as a visionary. “He could see things 10 years down the road,” she said.

She remembers him coming into the office one day after a meeting at Green Valley Country Club and telling her a mountain was going to be torn down to make way for a shopping mall. She thought it sounded far-fetched, but soon enough, the mountain was torn down, and the Riverchase Galleria was built, she said.

Similar conversations were had about the Birmingham Barons moving to Hoover and the construction of Interstate 459, she said.

Skelton completed the final 20 months of Skinner's last term after Skinner resigned. Skelton was a fine family man who loved Hoover and cared deeply for the city's employees and residents, Roberson said.

McCollum came next. Some people thought she might have trouble dealing with a female boss, but “she and I never had any problems,” Roberson said. “We always got along great. She was good to me.”

Petelos was especially good at dealing with people and, as a former state representative and former head of the Alabama Department of Human Resources, had contacts everywhere, she said.

“He knew all the people, and he knew who to contact if something needed to be done,” she said. “He was just a wonderful man. He was a really great people person — still is a great people person.”

Petelos asked her to move with him and become his secretary at Jefferson County.

“I really wanted to help him any way I could, but this is home,” she said of Hoover. “I started my career at Hoover, and I wanted to end my career at Hoover.”

Ivey also was good to her, she said. He was particularly passionate about public safety and making sure the police and fire departments were well-equipped, she said.

While Ivey was not in the office as much as Petelos and Skinner, he was there when he needed to be and very close if she ever needed him for something, she said.

Now, Brocato has come in with a very laid-back personality, Roberson said. “He doesn’t let things rattle him,” she said.

Brocato has a lot of fresh ideas that Hoover has never really approached before, she said. “I just can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like in four years around here,” she said.

“They’ve really all been very good to me,” Roberson said. “It’s been very exciting to watch what each of them accomplished during their terms as mayor. … They’ve all been very passionate about moving Hoover forward.”

Special opportunities

Being the mayor’s secretary has given her a lot of opportunities she otherwise would not have had, such as the chance to meet famous people, she said.

When Taylor Hicks came for his hometown visit with “American Idol,” she got to meet him, and she got to have her picture taken with Alabama football coach Nick Saban at the Hyatt Regency when he was in town to speak to a group, she said.

She was able to be in the same room with President Ronald Reagan when he visited Birmingham for a campaign event for Jeremiah Denton in the 1980s, and perhaps her favorite moment with a famous personality was getting to meet Joe Namath at the Regions Charity Classic at the Renaissance Ross Bridge Golf Resort and Spa.

“I’ve always been a big Joe Namath fan,” she said. “I was shaking like a leaf. He was so nice, and he gave me a big hug.”

Roberson said her decision to retire was the hardest decision she’s ever had to make. “It’s my family,” she said. “It’s been such a big part of my life for almost 37 years.”

But she’s looking forward to spending more time with her biological family, taking care of some things around her home in McCalla and — eventually — traveling more with her husband once he retires, she said.

“It was great to work with each and every one of you,” she told her colleagues and former mayors today. “I have been very blessed.”