Former Escambia County Administrator Randy Oliver has died suddenly at his Pensacola home, just weeks after retiring as the administrator for Citrus County.
His engineering and accounting backgrounds were a good fit for Escambia County that was recovering from the BP oil disaster, real estate market collapse and shrinking revenues. He was a professional administrator, not a fishing, hunting or golfing buddy of the developers and county vendors.
Oliver was fired by then-Commissioners Gene Valentino, Wilson Robertson and Kevin White in October 2021 before Commissioners Steven Barry and Lumon May took office. Oliver had one year remaining on his contract, but Valentino and Robertson wanted George Touart to return as administrator. The rumor was White had been promised a job by a local contractor but the job materialized after he left office. Read more.
Oliver worked as a consultant for a couple years before being hired by Citrus County in 2015. He served as their county administrator from 2015 until retiring Nov. 8, 2022.
Upon hearing the news, former Citrius County Commissioner Scott Carnahan told the Chronicle his heart just sank.
“It’s very hard to process,” said Carnahan, who was part of the Board that hired Oliver. “I had a close relationship with Randy. I don’t have any words to describe it. I don’t. He was supposed to be living his retirement. It’s devastating.”
Carnahan said Oliver’s legacy will go down as being the best county administrator that Citrus County has ever had.
“He took Citrus County, financially, to whole other level,” Carnahan said. “There’s huge, huge shoes to fill. Randy gave it his all. Randy taught me a lot. His legacy as far as I’m concerned, is the best administrator Citrus County has ever hired.”
My opinion. Randy was of sharp mind, and a good heart. Intended to work for good. Slightly too anaylitical and slightly less political than he needed to be for the job he had in Escambia County…..he was as close as we could get to a great fit, without getting there….I have been retired a while now, and have no interest in playing the game, but I hear Wes Moreno has real potential….we have spoken and stuff in the past, but I don’t really know him….but that is what I hear……Randy, may he go in peace, he was one of my favorites as a leader of any of the local goverments I had to deal with….Pensacola, Century, Escambia, Santa Rosa, Milton, Gulf Breeze, ECUA, and SRIA. But I gotta say Buck was a hoot and in it to win it for his constituency!
I really liked Randy Oliver and held him in high regard. Citrus County gained a great administrator that the people of Escambia County lost.
Sorry to ready of Randy’s passing. He was the key reason I accepted the HR Director job and moved to Escambia County. He was a great planner and executive. The future plan he laid out to me was very impressive. Would love to see what the county would look like had he been been afforded the chance to implement it. I really never got to work with him as he was fired on the Thursday evening before I started on Monday. My sympathies to his family. May he rest in peace.