Not long before Paul Spruill accepted the post of manager of Beaufort County’s governmental operations, the Navy announced plans to build an outlying landing field in northeastern North Carolina and listed a site in Washington and Beaufort counties as one of its preferred locations.
After a hard-fought campaign by a coalition of local residents, environmental groups and local elected officials, the Navy abandoned its plans to build a landing field for jet pilots to practice aircraft carrier landings in Washington and Beaufort counties.

As he prepared Friday to leave his local government post for a job in the private sector, Spruill considered the defeat of those plans as one of the area’s crowning accomplishments during his eight-year tenure.

“It’s hard to remember now how long the odds were in 2003 and 2004 that we would avoid the outlying landing field,” he said in an interview with the Daily News. “The state’s elected officials were happy to fight on our behalf, but privately were preparing for the inevitable.”

While refusing to take any individual credit for the Navy’s decision, Spruill said that fight was one of the most time-consuming events of his early years as county manager.
A native of Bertie County, Spruill began as Beaufort County’s manager on July 10, 2003.
After a short vacation, Spruill will begin work at Pantego-based Tideland Electric Membership Corp. effective July 5.
As county manager, Spruill, 38, has overseen a general fund budget of approximately $50 million and, currently, 288 full-time employees along with a countywide water enterprise budget of approximately $5 million with 25 full-time employees.
Spruill came to Beaufort County from Chatham County, where he served as assistant county manager from 2000 to 2003. Before that, he worked as Grifton’s town administrator, where he helped the community recover from the effects of Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
In 2003, he was not the first choice of the then-Beaufort County Board of Commissioners to succeed Don Davenport in the county manager’s post.
But when the board withdrew the offer it made to its first choice, its members subsequently chose Spruill for the job.
As a result, Sprull said, “The first two years, for me, were more about proving that I belonged and could do the job.”
Spruill said he has most enjoyed his work with the county’s elected leaders, despite the sometimes contentious debate that surfaces during board meetings.
“I’ve really enjoyed working with the board,” he said. “Knowing that I wasn’t their first choice, the first two years I was motivated to demonstrate that I should have been. As time passed, I became really interested in the diversity of the board and the fact that every Beaufort County citizen has at least one county commissioner they could identify with.”
While the fight with the Navy was likely Spruill’s most difficult challenge, he mentioned other challenges that surfaced during his tenure.
In 2004, the county was forced to close its construction and demolition debris landfill after it was found to be out of compliance with governmental regulations. And in 2006, the county was faced with a lawsuit by the former Beaufort County Board of Education over school funding.
Not long after that, Beaufort and other northeastern North Carolina counties took issue with proposed stormwater rules proposed by the state’s Environmental Management Commission. Ultimately, that opposition led to a rewrite of the proposed rules.
Spruill said his saddest day as county manager came in February 2005 with the closure of the Beaufort County Home, the last county-owned-and-operated assisted living center in the state.
“The saddest thing I’ve ever done was the closing of the county home,” he said.
Spruill said his worst mistake in the last eight years was his underestimation of the effects of the collapse in 2008 of Wall Street and its investment banking firms on the state and Beaufort County economies.
“In March 2009, we saw sales tax receipts in the state and North Carolina counties in general fall off a cliff,” he said. The effects of the economic downturn on these sales tax receipts “was unprecedented in this state’s history,” he said.
“We very quickly had to adjust to the correction in our revenue,” he said.
In June 2009, those adjustments included dramatic cost-cutting measures and layoffs of some county employees.
“I will never forget the degree to which I underestimated the impact of the correction in our revenues sources on the county,” he said. “That is the item that I am the least proud of in my service.”
Spruill said he is disappointed to be leaving with the proposed lease/purchase of Beaufort Regional Health System by Greenville-based University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina uncompleted.
“That’s the only item on my desk that I feel I have left undone,” he said.
County and hospital officials recently announced that an agreement will not be reached until September.
“I am 100 percent confident that the relationship will move forward as we have anticipated for the past several months,” he said.
Despite the challenges, Spruill said he has enjoyed his tenure as the manager of Beaufort County’s governmental operations.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed the work,” he said. “Separating from Beaufort County’s employment has been the most difficult decision I’ve ever made.”