Fifth in a series
Re “The Trail That Led, Finally, to Culver City”
Seven weeks on the job, and Mike Reynolds, the School District’s Assistant Superintendent for Business Services, still shakes his head in disbelief that he is back home, where he was born, after living the last 58 years on the periphery of Los Angeles, mostly in the Greater Riverside area.
As friendly as an Irishman is supposed to be, he smiles easily, chats as if he were in his favorite rocking chair.
“I have called this job Getting Back to My Roots,” he says.
“I love the film industry. It’s fun. It’s breathtaking for me to drive by the gates at Sony on Overland every day.
“I look in there, and I say, ‘Ah, I would love to drive inside there someday and, you know, watch the magic.’”
Had Mr. Reynolds and his visitor been in a car, his tingling excitement and infectious enthusiasm would have fogged the windshield.
He is pumped.
Back to work.
His Favorite Pastime
After 18 years as a consultant in education, Mr. Reynolds says that problem-solving is his strength.
“I love it. More than anything else.”
This is how he works, a solo act.
“You know how the water formed the Grand Canyon?
“That is, kind of, the way I work. If I decided something is going to be a certain way, that is it.
“If it takes me two minutes or two years, it is just going to be that way.”
Patience. Resilience. Relentlessness. Those are Mr. Reynolds’s guideposts. “I don’t know where it comes from,” he says, “but I am just relentless. It’s a gift. Some things in you are just you. That identifies me.
“I was born with it, I think. Always relentless. It drives my friends crazy.
“It’s not just getting or doing what I want. Something inside of me says this is the best for all concerned. That is the difference.”
This is the dinner hour for most people, and across the table, Mr. Reynolds is a portrait of serenity. Completely at peace.
He storytells with disarming ease.
“A lot of times, people who have worked for me will say to my wife, ‘Mike is such a great guy.’ She’ll go, ‘Yeah,’ and the implication is, ‘you don’t see him when he gets a head of steam on and is taking no prisoners.’”
How does that stiffened approach manifest itself?
“Sometimes in the office,” he says, “if something is not going the way it is supposed to go, I will do everything I can to encourage it. At some point, the iron fist comes down. ‘We are doing it this way.’
“No apologies. I am sorry.”
(To be continued)
